CHAPTER IX
I Meet Monsieur Martigny
Our regular work at the office just at that time happened to be unusually heavy and trying. The Brown injunction suit, while not greatly attracting public attention, involved points of such nicety and affected interests so widespread, that the whole bar of New York was watching it. The Hurd substitution case was more spectacular, and appealed to the press with peculiar force, since one of the principal victims had been the eldest son of Preston McLandberg, the veteran managing editor of the Record, and the bringing of the suit impugned the honor of his family—but it is still too fresh in the public mind to need recapitulation here, even were it connected with this story. The incessant strain told upon both our partners and even upon me, so that I returned to my rooms after dinner one evening determined to go early to bed. But I had scarcely donned my house-coat, settled in my chair, and got my pipe to going, when there came a tap at the door.
"Come in," I called, thinking it was Mrs. Fitch, my landlady, and too weary to get up.
But it was not Mrs. Fitch's pale countenance, with its crown of gray hair, which appeared in the doorway; it was a rotund and exceedingly florid visage.
"You will pardon me, sir," began a resonant voice, which I instantly remembered, even before the short, square figure stepped over the threshold into the full light, "but I have just discovered that I have no match with which to ignite my gas. If I might from you borrow one——"
"Help yourself," I said, and held out to him my case, which was lying on the table at my elbow.
"You are very good," he said, and then, as he stepped forward and saw me more distinctly, he uttered a little exclamation of surprise. "Ah, it is Mistair——"