CHAPTER CCVII.
MR. GREEN’S OFFICE.
On the same morning, and at about the same time that Charles Hatfield and Captain Barthelma thus encountered each other in Regent Street, certain incidents of importance to the thread of our narrative occurred elsewhere.
We must request the reader to accompany us to a newly fitted up suite of offices in Warwick Court, Holborn; and in the private room we shall find Mr. Green seated at a desk covered with papers.
A material alteration had taken place in the external appearance of this individual. He was well dressed—looked clean and neat—and wore an air of assurance instead of the downcast, obsequious, grovelling demeanour that had characterised him when in the service of Mr. Heathcote.
His private room was neatly furnished and had a business-like aspect: in the front office two clerks were busily employed in drawing up statements to be laid before counsel in several heavy suits; and in the passage outside a process-server was waiting for instructions.
Mr. Green had drawn his table near the fire that blazed in the grate—for the reader must remember that several months had elapsed since the adventures of this individual with Jack Rily, and it was now the commencement of February, 1847.
The cheerful flames roared half-way up the chimney;—and as Green felt the genial heat diffusing a glow throughout his frame, he smiled triumphantly as he contrasted his present position with what it was in those times when he was compelled to sit without a fire, from nine in the morning till six in the evening, on the hard high stool in Heathcote’s front office. Now he was a solicitor on his own account—had his name once more in the Law List—could look with complacency into his banker’s book—and, when business was over for the day, had nothing to do but to step into an omnibus and ride as far as the door of his neat little dwelling at Bayswater.
No wonder, then, that Mr. Green’s countenance had lost its downcast look and its haggard, broken-hearted expression: no wonder that hope beamed in his eyes, and that his tone and manner had recovered the assurance, if not the actual dignity, of former days.
On the particular morning of which we are writing, Mr. Green was more than usually elate; and as he looked over the papers that lay before him, the inward exultation which he experienced imparted the glow of animation to his features.
Presently the door opened and his junior clerk appeared, saying, “Mr. Heathcote, sir.”