But the earliest lawyers on the street—those who snatch a subsistence from the dregs and scum of humanity thrown up daily by the currents of misfortune and vice, upon the strands of the police courts—saw "the Mad Avenger" already prowling about the vicinity of their offices long before the hour at which the civil and principal criminal courts would be opened for business. When the judicial mills commenced their grinding, he was within sound of their clatter, and from one to another he wandered, anxiously and wearily, as was his custom. When the day's grist was completed, and the grinders hurried away to their respective offices to prepare more grain for the morrow's grinding, he mechanically followed them.
It was getting late in the afternoon; he had not yet seen anybody approximating to the picture he had in his mind's eye—the portrait drawn by Ruth—and he was just arrived at that period of the day when he always felt most sick with disappointment, and most sorely tempted to give up the seemingly useless pursuit and go home. He stopped before the little hand-cart of a street fruit vender, which was drawn up to the curbstone, to buy an apple. While he made the purchase he heard the voice of a man, who halted just behind him, saying quickly:
"Ah! I was just coming up to see you. Are you in Fordyce vs. Baxter?"
"Not having been advised by my clerk," said a precise and deliberate speaker in reply, "that any papers in an action so entitled had been deposited in his hands, and having no other knowledge of such action than your present mention of its title, I believe that I am justified in saying, sir, that to the best of my information and belief—"
"Aha!" shouted Lem, wheeling around and seeing before him the living original of Ruth's very exact sketch—"You're the man I'm looking for!"
"What the—the—the—mischief do you mean, sir," exclaimed the little gentleman, warding off the hand that Lem stretched out to clutch his collar.
"It's the Mad Avenger," said, laughingly, the gentleman interested in Fordyce vs. Baxter. "He will ask you, in a moment, if you know the Van Deusts of Easthampton."
"Of course I will," retorted Lem, growing hot and angry, "I don't know why you call me the Mad Avenger—my name is Lemuel Pawlett, and I do want to know, for very serious reasons, if this gentleman is acquainted with the Van Deusts of Easthampton."
"And I reply that I am," answered Mr. Holden, sufficiently perturbed by the immediate excitement to forget his customary caution and make a positive statement without qualification.
"Oh! The deuce you are! Then there really are Van Deusts of Easthampton!" exclaimed the other lawyer, with genuine surprise and beginning to feel an interest in the affair.