Page:Henry Northcote (IA henrynorthcote00snairich).pdf/39

 trained observer, pursed up his lips in a suppressed whistle. A kind of pity softened the relentless composure of his eyes as they beheld the haggard and unkempt bearing of the man before them. "Poor devil," he muttered; "literally starving." It was in this succinct yet compendious manner that Mr. Whitcomb filed for reference all facts which are sufficiently obvious to stand as knowledge.

"Do you know," said Northcote, suddenly, "I was half-expecting somebody to-night."

"Sitting in state to receive him, evidently," the solicitor muttered, as he sniffed the temperature of the garret and glanced oddly from the fireless grate to the gloves and overcoat that Northcote was wearing.

"Dining out together, were you?"

"To speak the truth," said the advocate, with an odd laugh, "I had hardly got so far as to consider the personage I was half-expecting in such a grossly material aspect."

"Personage, eh?" said the solicitor. "They're out of my line. I only have to do with persons, quite ordinary people, who are mightily interested in their meals."

"Well, you see," said Northcote, "I had hardly got so far as to formulate my expected visitant in actual terms of flesh and blood."

"You deal in spooks!" said the solicitor. "A likely pitch for them, too." Mr. Whitcomb began to stroke his moustache pensively, his invariable habit when confronted by the danger of going beyond his limit. "A creepy hole, by God!" he said, in another of his asides, for the simplicity and