A fresh-colored, rather young man [Endnote: 3] entered the study, a
person of rather cold and ungraceful manners, yet genial-looking
enough; at least, not repulsive. He was dressed in rather a rough,
serviceable travelling-dress, and except for a nicely brushed hat, and
unmistakably white linen, was rather careless in attire. You would have
thought twice, perhaps, before deciding him to be a gentleman, but
finally would have decided that he was; one great token being, that the
singular aspect of the room into which he was ushered, the spider
festoonery, and other strange accompaniments, the grim aspect of the
Doctor himself, and the beauty and intelligence of his two companions,
and even that horrific weaver, the great dangling spider,--neither one
nor all of these called any expression of surprise to the stranger's
face.

"Your name is Hammond?" begins the Doctor, with his usual sparseness of
ornamental courtesy. [Endnote: 4.]

The stranger bowed.

"An Englishman, I perceive," continued the Doctor, but nowise
intimating that the fact of being a countryman was any recommendation
in his eyes.

"Yes, an Englishman," replied Hammond; "a briefless barrister,
[Endnote: 5] in fact, of Lincoln's Inn, who, having little or nothing
to detain him at home, has come to spend a few idle months in seeing
the new republic which has been made out of English substance."

"And what," continued Doctor Grim, not a whit relaxing the
repulsiveness of his manner, and scowling askance at the stranger,--