knew well enough to whom they belonged--they were those of one James
Parrawhite, a little, weedy, dissolute chap who had been in Eldrick &
Pascoe's employ for about a year. It had always been a mystery to him
and the other clerks that Parrawhite had been there at all, and that
being there he was allowed to stop. He was not a Barford man. Nobody
knew anything whatever about him, though his occasional references to it
seemed to indicate that he knew London pretty thoroughly. Pratt shrewdly
suspected that he was a man whom Eldrick had known in other days,
possibly a solicitor who had been struck off the rolls, and to whom
Eldrick, for old times' sake, was disposed to extend a helping hand.

All that any of them knew was that one morning some fifteen months
previously, Parrawhite, a complete stranger, had walked into the office,
asked to see Eldrick, had remained closeted with him half an hour, and
had been given a job at two pounds a week, there and then. That he was a
clever and useful clerk no one denied, but no one liked him.

He was always borrowing half-crowns. He smelt of rum. He was altogether
undesirable. It was plain to the clerks that Pascoe disliked him. But he
was evidently under Eldrick's protection, and he did his work and did it
well, and there was no doubt that he knew more law than either of the
partners, and was better up in practice than Pratt himself. But--he was
not desirable ... and Pratt never desired him less than on this
occasion.

"What are you after--coming on a man like that!" growled Pratt.

"You," replied Parrawhite. "I knew you'd got to come up this lane, so I
waited for you. I've something to say."