“No,” said Horace; “you will receive me into your office.”
“I—I am much obliged, it would be an honour; but my office is already full,” said Mr. Pouncet, with a little quiet sarcasm; “I have more clerks than I know what to do with.”
“Yes, these fellows there,” said Horace—“I can see it; but I am of very different mettle; you will find a place for me; wait a little, you will soon see your advantage in it.”
“You have a very good opinion of yourself, my young friend,” said the lawyer, laughing dryly, with a little amazement, and a little anger.
“I have,” said Horace, laconically; “I know what I can do. Look here—I am not what I have been brought up to appear; there is something in my future which my father envies and grudges me; I know it!—and it must be worth his while; he’s not a man to waste his ill-temper without a good cause; very likely there’s an appeal to the law before me, when I know what this secret is. You can see what stuff I am made of. I don’t want to go to London, to waste time and cultivate a profession; the chances are I shall never require it—give me a place here!”
“Your request is both startling and unreasonable,” said Mr. Pouncet, putting down his pen, and looking his visitor full in the face. “I have reason to complain of a direct imposition you have practised upon me. You come as a client, and then you ask for employment; it is absurd. I have young men in my office of most excellent connections—each of them has paid me a premium; and you think the eccentricity of your demand will drive me into accepting you, whom I never saw before; the thing is quite absurd.”
“I beg your pardon,” said Horace, coolly; “I am not asking for employment—I am your client, seeking your advice; here is your fee. I ask you, whether this is not what you would advise me, as the best thing I could do. As for premium, I don’t care for that. If I am not worth half-a-dozen of these lads, to any man who knows how to employ me, it is a very odd thing to me. Now, understand me, sir: I have left home—I wish to conclude what I am to do at once; if not in your office, in some other; can you find a place for me here?”
The lawyer took a pinch of snuff, rose up, went to the window, came back, and after a variety of other restless movements sat down again. During this interval he turned over all that Horace had said, and something more: he made a hurried run over the highly-condensed summary of law reports in his brain, in a vain hunt after the name of Scarsdale. “Most probably a will case,” he said to himself. Then he turned once more his eyes on Horace. The young man met that inspection without wavering. What the inquisitor found in that face was certainly not candour and openness of expression; he looked not with a human, but a professional eye. Perhaps it occurred to him that his visitor’s boast was something more than a brag, and that one such unscrupulous and acute assistant in his office would be worth much more to him than his articled clerks, who teased the life out of his unfortunate manager, and even puzzled himself. Then, “to do him this favour would be to bind him to me in the commonest gratitude,” was the inarticulate reflection which passed through the mind of the attorney; forgetting entirely, as the most sagacious men forget, that the qualities which would make Horace a useful servant were not such as consist with sentiments like gratitude. On the whole, the young man’s assurance, coupled with the known mystery that surrounded Marchmain, and the popular report of some great law-suit in which Mr. Scarsdale had once been concerned, imposed upon the lawyer. He kept repeating in his mind, Scarsdale versus —— Scarsdale against ——, but could not find any name which would satisfy him for the other party to the suit. After some indifferent questions, he dismissed Horace, promising him an answer next day, with which the young man left him, calmly triumphant—and, as it appeared, with reason. Mr. Pouncet could not resist the bait of a probable struggle at law, and all the éclat of a prolonged and important suit. He determined over and over again that Horace had a clever face, and might be of the greatest use to him. He found that he had for some time wanted some one who should be entirely devoted to himself—ready to pick up any information, to make any observation, to do whatever he wanted. He concluded at last that this was the very person; and when Horace came in next day he found himself engaged. The following morning he took his place among the others in the office. Thus he too had entered upon his life.
CHAPTER VIII.
“EYEH, man! and that’s a’ the geed ye’ve done? If I had but had the sense to ging mysel’! Where’s my son? Black be the day ye coom across this door, ye bletherin’ Ould Hunderd! Where’s my Sam? Eyeh, my purty boy, that was aye handy to a’ things, and ne’er a crooked word in his mouth but when you crossed him, and a temper like an angel? Where’s my Sam? Do you mean to tell me you’ve gane and you’ve coomed, John Gilsland, and brought nae guid news in your hand?”