For Mr. Tompkins, though he sought pleasure and forage under the
banners of literature and journalism, owned to no regular service but
that of the law. How it paid him might be inferred from the oldness of
his clothes and the ricketiness of his office. There was a card saying
"Back in ten minutes" on the door which he opened to admit Larcher and
himself. And his friends were wont to assert that he kept the card
"working overtime," himself, preferring to lay down the law to
companionable persons in neighboring cafes rather than to possible
clients in his office. When Tompkins had lighted the gas, Larcher saw a
cracked low ceiling, a threadbare carpet of no discoverable hue, an old
desk crowded with documents and volumes, some shelves of books at one
side, and the other three sides simply walled with books and magazines
in irregular piles, except where stood a bed-couch beneath a lot of
prints which served to conceal much of the faded wall-paper.
Tompkins bravely went for the magazines, saying, "You begin with that
pile, and I'll take this. The names of the illustrators are always in the
table of contents; it's simply a matter of glancing down that."
After half an hour's silent work, Tompkins exclaimed, "Here we are!" and
took a magazine to the desk, at which both young men sat down. "'A Heart
in Peril,'" he quoted; "'A Story by James Willis Archway. Illustrated by
Murray Davenport. Page 38.'" He turned over the leaves, and disclosed
some rather striking pictures in half-tone, signed "M.
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