Jack ascended the stairs of No. 5, passed various doors bearing the names of the occupants on the other side of them, and opened a door which bore the legend:
“Leonard Dagle.
“John Newcombe.”
painted in small black letters on its cross-panel.
It was not a large room, and it was plainly furnished; but it looked comfortable. Its contents looked rather incongruous.
At the end of the room, close by the window, which only allowed about four hours of daylight to enter it, stood a table crowded with papers, presenting that appearance which ladies generally call “a litter.” The table and book-shelf, filled with heavy-looking volumes, would give one the impression that the room belonged to a barrister or a literary man, if it were not for a set of boxing-gloves and a pair of fencing foils, which hung over the fireplace, and the prints of ballet-girls and famous actresses which adorned the walls.
As Jack entered the room, a man, who was sitting at the table, turned his head, and peering through the gloom which a single candle only served to emphasize, exclaimed:
“Jack, is that you?”
The speaker was the Leonard Dagle whose name appeared conjointly with Jack’s on the door of the chambers.
Seen by the light of the single candle, Leonard Dagle looked handsome; it was left for the daylight to reveal the traces which life’s battle had cut in his regular features. One had only to glance at the face to be reminded of the old saying of the sword wearing the scabbard. It was the face of a man who had fought the hard fight of one hand against the world, and had not yet won the victory.
Leonard Dagle was Jack’s old chum; friends he had in plenty—dangerous friends many of them—but Leonard was his brother and companion in arms. They had shared the same rooms, the same tankard of bitter, sometimes the same crust, for years.