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106 likely that a man who bore evidence of residence in that neighbourhood should come with the name of Dorrington on his tongue.

The weather was cold, but the man's clothes were thin and threadbare, and he had no overcoat. His face was of a broad, low type, coarse in feature and small in forehead, and he wore the baggy black linen peaked cap familiar on the heads of men of his class in parts of Paris. He had called unsuccessfully, as I have said, sometimes once, sometimes more frequently, on each of three or four days before he succeeded in seeing Dorrington. At last, however, he intercepted him on the stairs, as Dorrington arrived at about eleven in the morning.

"Pardon, m'sieu," he said, laying his finger on Dorrington's arm, "it is M. Dorrington—not?"

"Well—suppose it is, what then?" Dorrington never admitted his identity to a stranger without first seeing good cause.

"I 'ave beesness—very great beesness; beesness of a large profit for you if you please to take it. Where shall I tell it?"

"Come in here," Dorrington replied, leading the way to his private room. The man did not look like a wealthy client, but that signified