“Yes, sir; will you come in and have a seat?” Earle replied, politely, yet with a slight smile at the way he had addressed him, and wondering what this rather seedy personage could desire of him.
The man entered and sat down with his hat on, eyeing Earle sharply the while.
“Ain’t doing much just now?” he said, his sharp eyes wandering from him to his empty table, noticing the purse with its scant contents, and then at the books undisturbed on their shelves.
“No, sir, I have not been very busy this week,” Earle quietly replied.
“That Galgren case was a tough one, eh?” the man then remarked, abruptly.
“Rather a knotty problem, that is a fact,” replied Earle, somewhat surprised at the interest the man manifested in a case so long past.
“Would you like another of the same sort, only a thousand times worse?” he asked, with a keen glance.
“I want work, sir, let it be of what kind it may; and I am willing to do almost anything in an honorable way.”
“Well, then, I can give it to you. I’ve a knot that I want untied that is worse than forty Gordian knots woven into one; and if you can untie it, or even cut it asunder for me, as Alexander did of old, and relieve me of the fix I’m in, I think I can promise you something handsome for your trouble.”
“Your statement does not sound very favorable for my being able to do so, but I can try,” Earle replied, the look of bitterness and anxiety beginning to fade out of his face, while his eyes lighted with a look of keenness and eagerness at the thought of work.