Meanwhile those whom he was conspiring to defraud were sleeping tranquilly.
CHAPTER V.
THE PETTIFOGGER.
The legal profession numbers among its disciples a large class of honorable and high-minded men; and it also includes some needy adventurers well versed in the arts of pettifogging and chicanery, and willing, for a consideration, to throw over the most discreditable proceedings the mantle of the law, thus perverting, to the injury of the public, that which was intended for its principal safeguard.
Of this latter class was Richard Sharp, Banister, whose name might have been read on the door of an exceedingly dirty little office not far from Wall Street. Being under the necessity of introducing my reader to some acquaintances and localities not altogether desirable I must trouble him to enter Mr. Sharp’s office.
In the centre of the office stands a table covered with green baize. Scattered over it are diverse bundles tied with red tape, evidently intended to give the unsophisticated visitor the impression that Mr. Sharp’s business is in a most flourishing condition. Nevertheless, since the novelist is permitted to see farther into the shams which he describes than is accorded to others less privileged, it may be remarked that these identical bundles have lain upon the table with no other alteration than an occasional change of arrangement, ever since the office was opened.
The enterprising proprietor of the bundles aforesaid is smoking a cigar, while reading the Morning Herald, and occasionally glancing out of the window near by. His features would hardly justify the description of “beauty in repose,” being deeply pitted with smallpox, which is not usually thought to improve the appearance. His nose is large and spreading at the base. His hair is deeply, darkly, beautifully red, bristling like a cat’s fur when accidentally rubbed the wrong way. Add to these a long, scraggy neck, and the reader has a tolerable idea of Mr. Sharp as he sat in his office on the first day of October, 18—.
How long he would have sat thus, if uninterrupted, is uncertain. His meditations were broken in upon by a quick, imperative knock at the door. The effect upon Mr. Sharp was electrical. He sprang from his seat, tossed his cigar away, wheeled his chair round to the table, and drawing a blank legal form towards him, knit his brows and began to write as if life and death depended upon his haste. Meanwhile the visitor became impatient and rapped again, this time more imperatively.
“Come in,” called Mr. Sharp, in a deep bass voice, not raising his eyes from the paper on which his pen was now scratching furiously. “Take a seat; shall be at leisure in a moment,—full of business, you know,—can’t get a moment’s rest.”
When at length he found time to look up, he met the gaze of our recent acquaintance, Lewis Rand. The latter, who had penetration enough to see through the lawyer’s artifice, smiled a little derisively.
“It must be a satisfaction to you,” he said, rather dryly, “to find your services in such request.”