"It's all luck," he said almost aloud. "I'd like to be a woman. It's only a woman can jump from anywhere. If I only had their chance!"
In the midst of this reverie, the door was suddenly thrown open without the ceremony of a knock, and a curt voice demanded:
"Be this Mr. Groll?"
The lawyer, shocked out of his dreaming, looked up and recognized the singular figure of the little man in the shovel hat.
CHAPTER IV THE LITTLE MAN OF THE SHOVEL HAT
The newcomer stood rigidly. In the dimness of the office he had the look of a musty portrait where the artist has allowed the body from the shoulders to sink into obscurity, the better to emphasize the chalkiness of the face.
"I am Mr. Bofinger," the lawyer said. "What can I do for you?"
The client, without answer, remained blinking at the lawyer. The clothes were shabby, of a style unfamiliar. The trousers bulged and wrinkled like sails in the wind. In the coat the elbows were polished and the cuffs eaten away. The narrow, ill-revealed eyes had all the cunning of the valet, spying the details that escape another, but with the insolence of the man who is accustomed to give command. The cast of countenance was Eastern, dominated about the thick lips by a set scowl of mistrust, which struck the lawyer at once, as well as the almost fanatic intensity of his gaze. The feet, the knuckles, and the nostrils, as in abnormal or extreme natures, were pronounced.