At Austin Friars.
“What name?” asked a clerk.
“Pellet—Jared Pellet,” said the owner of that name.
“Pellet,”—repeated the clerk, hesitatingly; “I’m afraid he’s engaged;” and he looked hard at the shabby visitor to Austin Friars, as much as to say, “You’re a poor relation, or I’m no judge.”
“Tell him his brother would be glad of a few minutes’ conversation,” said Jared, desperately; and he stood gazing over his brother’s offices, where, over their gas-lit desks, some half-score clerks were busy writing.
It was a bitter day, with a dense yellow fog choking the streets, so that eleven o’clock a.m. might have been eleven o’clock p.m., save for the business going on around. The smoke-burdened vapour had even made its way with Jared into the offices; but the glowing fire in the polished stove was too much for it, and the fog soon shrank away, leaving Jared shivering alone, as much from a strange new-born feeling as from cold, as he was gazed at from time to time by some inquisitive eye.
“This way, sir, if you please,” said the clerk, and the next minute Jared was standing like a prisoner at the bar before his justice-like brother in a private room—standing, for Richard did not offer him a chair.
“I have come to you for advice,” said Jared, plunging at once into the object of his visit.
“If you had come sooner to me for advice, you would not have been in this plight,” said Richard, coldly, as he glanced at his brother’s shabby garments, and the worn hat he held in his hand. “But what is it?”
Jared stared, for, to the best of his belief, his brother had never given him any advice worth taking.