"IT WAS AT THIS JUNCTURE ... THAT AN APOLOGETIC KNOCK FELL UPON THE DOOR"
It was at this juncture, fraught with such pathetic emotions to our hero, that an apologetic knock fell upon the door; and the next moment, as in answer to his own summons, a little old gentleman of extraordinary appearance entered the room. A long white beard half concealed his face, which was of a yellow-brown complexion, and entirely covered with a multitude of minute wrinkles. His eyes, piercing and black, sparkled like those of a serpent beneath his overhanging eyebrows.
"My dear young gentleman and my dear young lady," he began in a thin, high voice, "learning at the bar that you had a good fire in this room, I ventured to intrude myself upon you with perhaps as strange a request as you ever heard in all of your life."
At the very first appearance of the stranger—who, somehow, in his singularly Oriental appearance suggested the jack-straw player of a few days before—a strange presentiment of evil began to take possession of Griscombe's mind. Nor were his apprehensions lessened as the old gentleman, resuming his speech, continued as follows: "I am, as you may observe, my dear young gentleman and my dear young lady, extremely old; and I am obliged to confess to the possession of certain follies of which I am now entirely unable to rid myself. Fortunately for myself, I am excessively rich, and so am perfectly well able to indulge those whims, however absurd, that have now grown altogether a part of my nature, and which, in one so old as myself, can never hope to be eradicated. Learning that you, my dear young gentleman, were an attorney-at-law, I determined to approach you as a client, and to purchase of you a small portion of your no doubt extremely valuable time." Upon this he drew from beneath his cloak a leathern purse full of money, which he set upon the table. "In this," he continued, "are a hundred pieces of gold valued at twenty dollars each. I offer it to you as a retaining fee, and I venture to say that few lawyers of your age have ever received so much at a time from a single client."
"And what," cried Griscombe, with a voice he could scarcely command,—"and what is it you desire of me?"
"I hardly know," said the old man, "how to prefer the extraordinary request that I have to offer. You must know that I am inordinately fond of the game of tit-tat-toe; and my object is to purchase one half-hour of your valuable time, my dear young gentleman, so that I may indulge myself in my favorite pastime."
At these extraordinary words, and at the entire seriousness of the speaker, the young lady burst into an irrepressible fit of laughter, which she found it altogether impossible to control. But upon Griscombe the effect was entirely different. Those vague and alarming suggestions that had already begun to take possession of him leaped at once into positive reality. He had for safety left the portmanteau with its precious contents in the adjoining bedroom, which he had just used as a dressing-chamber, and he instantly perceived, under the innocent request of the old gentleman with the white beard, the most sinister and malignant designs upon it. He sprung to his feet, as though stung by the lash of a fury. "You villain," he cried in a hoarse and straining voice, "I know what are your designs; and but for this young lady, and my desire to conceal from her your ominous purposes, I would fling you at once out of the window. Begone, lest I find it impossible to restrain myself!"
These words were uttered with a paroxysm of passion such as the young lady was entirely unable to account for. Never before had she beheld our hero exhibit anything but the utmost delicacy and gentleness of manner; and now, not in the least understanding the reason for his fury, she gazed upon him with astonishment, in which terror was almost the entire component part. These emotions, however, gradually gave place to an increasing and generous indignation at what she considered the unmerited violence exhibited by a young man against another old enough to be his grandsire.