"No, sir, I decline to state my business to anyone but Mr. Ocock
himself!" he declared hotly, in response to the red-haired man's
invitation to "get it off his chest." "If you choose to find out when he
will be at liberty, I will wait so long--no longer."

As the office-boy had somehow failed to hit his seat on his passage to
the outer door, there was nothing left for the clerk to do but himself
to undertake the errand. He lounged up from his chair, and, in his case
without even the semblance of a knock, squeezed through a foot wide
aperture, in such a fashion that the two strangers should not catch a
glimpse of what was going on inside. But his voice came to them through
the thin partition. "Oh, just a couple o' stony-broke Paddylanders."
Mahony, who had seized the opportunity to dart an angry glance at Purdy,
which should say: "This is what one gets by coming to your second-rate
pettifoggers!" now let his eyes rest on his friend and critically
detailed the latter's appearance. The description fitted to a nicety.
Purdy did in truth look down on his luck. Unkempt, bearded to the eyes,
there he stood clutching his shapeless old cabbage-tree, in mud-stained
jumper and threadbare smalls--the very spit of the unsuccessful digger.
Well might they be suspected of not owning the necessary to pay their
way!

"All serene, mister! The boss'ull take you on."

The sanctum was a trifle larger than the outer room, but almost equally
bare; half-a-dozen deed-boxes were piled up in one corner. Stalking in
with his chin in the air, Mahony found himself in the presence of a man
of his own age, who sat absorbed in the study of a document. At their
entry two beady grey eyes lifted to take a brief but thorough survey,