"Good-morning, sir!" he said softly, bowing. "I have waited upon you to complete a little matter of business; a mere formality. The document is quite ready; I have here inkhorn and quill; I have only to ask you to write your name at the foot."
He unrolled the paper he carried, and signed to his companion to bring the writing materials.
"Ah! there is no table, I see. You can hardly write on the floor, sir; James, fetch a table from below.—Your furniture is scanty, sir," he continued as the man went out; "in truth, there is nothing to recommend your situation but its loftiness. You are near the sky, sir, and very fortunately so, for 'tis murky and damp in the street.—Thank you, James! Now, sir, everything is in order; you will, if you please, sign your name where I place my finger, there."
Harry took the pen offered him, and dipped it in the inkhorn. He gave no sign of his amazement.
"Yes," he said, "with pleasure—when I have read the paper."
"Surely, sir, at this stage it is unnecessary. Why delay? I assure you that the document is perfectly in order, and the phraseology of us men of law is—well, sir, you understand that a scrivener is paid so much a folio, and he has no temptation to be unduly brief: he! he!"
"Still, if you do not object I will read the paper. It is merely a form, as you say."
"Very well, sir," said the man with a patient shrug.
He lifted his hand from the paper, and Harry bent over the table to read it. The writing was clerkly and precise; the sentences were long and involved, with no support from punctuation; but, unfamiliar as he was with legal diction, Harry had no difficulty in making out the gist of the document so obligingly placed before him. His heart was thumping uncomfortably, for all his cool exterior; and he deliberately read down the close lines slowly in order to gain time to collect his thoughts. The request to sign the paper had been surprising enough, but his bewilderment was increased tenfold when he found what it was that he was asked to sign.
Stripped of its verbiage, the document stated that whereas Christopher Butler, gentleman, lately residing in Jermyn Street over against the Garter Coffee-house, had been acquitted of all his debts by the good offices of John Feggans, merchant of the City of London, the said Christopher Butler hereby entered into an indenture to serve the said John Feggans in his Plantations in the island of Barbados for a period of five years. There were qualifications and provisos and penalties which Harry passed over; then, having read the principal articles again, he looked up and said: