THE CLASSICAL SCHOLAR
IN REDUCED CIRCUMSTANCES.
You are, let us say, a young professional man in chambers or offices, incompetently guarded by an idiot boy whom you dare not trust with the responsibility of denying you to strangers. You hear a knock at your outer door, followed by conversation in the clerk's room, after which your salaried idiot announces "A Gentleman to see you." Enter a dingy and dismal little man in threadbare black, who advances with an air of mysterious importance. "I think," he begins, "I 'ave the pleasure of speaking to Mr. ——" (
whatever your name is
.) "I take the liberty of calling, Mr. ——, to consult you on a matter of the utmost importance, and I shall feel personally obliged if you will take precautions for our conversation not being over'eard." He looks grubby for a client—but appearances are deceptive, and you offer him a seat, assuring him that
he may speak with perfect security—whereupon he proceeds in a lowered voice. "The story I am about to reveal," he says, smoothing a slimy tall hat, "is of a nature so revolting, so 'orrible in its details, that I can 'ardly bring myself to speak it to any 'uming ear!" (