“There is Mr. Maltby. The firm is now Pergament, Pergament, & Maltby.”
“Let me see Mr. Danvers Pergament, if you please. I don’t want to talk to a new man.”
“Mr. Maltby was articled to us seventeen years ago, sir, and has been in the firm ever since, but I believe Mr. Pergament is disengaged. Shall I take him your name?”
George Greswold sent in his card. His name would be known to some members of the firm, no doubt—possibly not to others. His married life had been brief.
He was received in a handsome office by a baldheaded gentleman of about five-and-forty, who smiled upon him blandly from a background of oak wainscot and crimson cloth window-curtains, like an old-fashioned portrait.
“Pray be seated, Mr. Greswold,” he said, with the visitor’s card in his hand, and looking from the card to the visitor.
“Does my name tell you anything about me, Mr. Pergament?” asked Greswold gravely.
“George Ransome Greswold,” read the lawyer slowly; “the name of Greswold is unfamiliar to me.”
“But not that of Ransome. Sixteen years ago my name was George Ransome. I assumed the name of Greswold on my mother’s death.”
The solicitor looked at him with renewed attention, as if there were something to startle his professional equanimity in the former name.