een four and five o'clock on a certain Saturday
afternoon.

All my letters had been written, all the people who had appointments
with me had been received. I was looking carelessly over the newspaper,
and thinking about going home, when one of my clerks came in, and said
that a stranger wished to see me immediately on very important business.

"Did he mention his name?" I inquired.

"No, sir."

"Did you not ask him for it?"

"Yes, sir. And he said you would be none the wiser if he told me what it
was."

"Does he look like a begging-letter writer?"

"He looks a little shabby, sir, but he doesn't talk at all like a
begging-letter writer. He spoke sharp and decided, sir, and said it
was in your interests that he came, and that you would deeply regret it
afterward if you refused to see him."

"He said that, did he? Show him in at once, then."

He was shown in immediately: a middling-sized man, with a sharp,
unwholesome-looking face, and with a flippant, reckless manner, dressed
in a style of shabby smartness, eying me with a bold look, and not so
overburdened with politeness as to trouble himself about taking off his
hat when he came in. I had never seen him before in my life, and I could
not form the slightest conjecture from his appearance to guide me toward
guessing his position in the world. He was not a gentleman, evidently;
but as to fixing his whereabouts in the infinite downward gradations
of vagabond existence in London, that was a mystery which I was totally
incompetent to solve.

"Is your name Trowbridge?" he began.

"Yes," I answered, dryly enough.

"Do you bank with Marsh, Stracey, Fauntleroy & Graham?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Answer my question, and you will know."

"Very well, I _do_ bank with Marsh, Stracey, Fauntleroy & Graham--and
what then?"

"Draw out every farthing of balance you have got before the bank closes
at five to-day."

I stared at him in speechless amazement. The words, for an instant,
absolutely petrified me.

"Stare as much as you like," he proceeded, coolly, "I mean what I say.
Look at your clock there. In twenty minutes it will strike five, and the
bank will be shut. Draw out every farthing, I tell you again, and look
sharp about it."

"Draw out my money!" I exclaimed, partially recovering myself. "Are you
in your right senses? Do you know that the firm I bank with represents
one of the first houses in the world? What do you mean--you, who are
a total stranger to me