'Saul Fielding,' answers the servant, and adds, 'but he says he does not think you know him.'
'What does he look like?'
The servant hesitates; he has not made up his mind. Although Saul Fielding is shabbily dressed, he is clean, and Jane's watchful care has made his wardrobe (the whole of which he wears on his back) seem better than it is. Besides, there is 'an air' about Saul Fielding which prevents him being placed, in the servant's mind, on the lowest rung of vagabondism.
'Is he a poor man? Is he a working man? demands Mr. Million impatiently.
'He looks like it, sir,' replies the servant, not committing himself distinctly to either statement.
Mr. Million has an idle hour before him, which he is not disinclined to devote to the workingman question, so he bids the servant admit the visitor.
'Wait a minute,' says Mr. Million to Saul Fielding as he enters the room. Mr. Million evidently has found some very knotty problem in the papers before him, for he bends over them, with knitted brows and studious face, and shifts them about, and makes notes on other pieces of paper, and mutters 'Pish!' and 'Psha!' and 'Very true!' and 'This must be seen to!' with many remarks indicative of the engrossing nature of the subject which engages his attention. After a sufficient exhibition of this by-play, which doubtless impresses his visitor with a proper idea of his importance and of the immense interest he takes in public matters, he pushes the papers aside with a weary air, and looks up, with one eye closed and one eye open. What he sees before him does not seem to afford him any comfort: for it is a strange thing with public players of battledoor and shuttlecock, that although they have in theory a high respect for their shuttlecocks, they have in absolute fact a very strong distaste for them. Seeing that he is expected to speak, Saul Fielding commences; he is at no loss for words, but he speaks more slowly than usual, in consequence of the heavy stake he has in the interview.
'I have ventured to call upon you, sir,' he says, 'in the hope that you will take some interest in my story, and that you will extend a helping hand to a poor man.'
Somewhat fretfully--for careful as he strives to be, Saul Fielding has been unwise in his introduction, which might be construed into an appeal for alms--somewhat fretfully, then, Mr. Million interposes with