office, and there further crushed by long shelves of dingy tin boxes, each box crowded with weighty secrets and shelved papers of fabulous moment and urgency; the least paper of the smallest box more important—­the unfortunate client is clear on that point—­than any contemptible need of his own.  Cowed and chastened, he is now ready to pay a fee suitable to the mind that has absorbed all the wisdom of those many bookshelves; or meekly to accept as justice any absurdity or monstrosity of the law.

Mr. Mitchell was greeted by a slim, swarthy, black-eyed, elderly person of twenty-five or thirty, with a crooked nose and a crooked mind, half clerk and half familiar spirit—­Mr. Joseph Pelman, to wit; who appeared perpetually on the point of choking himself by suppressed chucklings at his principal’s cleverness and the simplicity of dupes.

“Well, Joe?”

“Two to see you, sir,” said Joe, his face lit up with sprightly malice.  “On the same lay.  That Watkins farm of yours.  I got it out of ’em.  Ho ho!  I kept ’em in different rooms.  I hunted up their records in your record books.  Doomsday Books, I call ’em.  Ho ho!”

Mr. Mitchell selected a cigar, lit it, puffed it, and fixed his eye on his demon clerk.

“Now then,” he said sharply, “let’s have it!”

The demon pounced on a Brobdingnagian volume upon the desk and worried it open at a marker.  It had been meant for a ledger, that huge volume; the gray cloth covers bore the legend “N to Z.”  Ledger it was, of a grim sort, with sinister entries of forgotten sins, the itemized strength or weakness of a thousand men.  The confidential clerk ran a long, confidential finger along the spidery copperplate index of the W’s:  “Wakelin, Walcott, Walker, Wallace, Walsh, Walters; Earl, John, Peter, Ray, Rex, Roy—­Samuel—­page 1124.”  His nimble hands flew at the pages like a dog at a woodchuck hole.

“Here’t is—­’Walters, Samuel:  born ’69, son of John Walters, Holland Hill; religion—­politics—­um-um—­bad habits, none; two years Vesper Academy; three years Dennison shoe factories; married 1896—­one child, b. 1899.  Bought Travis Farm 1898, paying half down; paid balance out in five years; dairy, fifteen cows; forehanded, thrifty.  Humph!  Good pay, I guess.”

He cocked his head to one side and eyed his employer, fingering a wisp of black silk on his upper lip.

“And the other?”

The second volume was spread open upon the desk.  Clerk Pelman flung himself upon it with savage fury.

“Bowen, Chauncey, son William Bowen, born 1872—­um—­um—­married Louise Hill 92—­um—­divorced ’96; married Laura Wing ’96—­see Lottie Hall.  Ran hotel at Larren ’95 to ’97; sheriff’s sale ’97; worked Bowen Farm ’97 to 1912; bought Eagle Hotel, Vesper, after death of William Bowen, 1900.  Traded Eagle Hotel for Griffin Farm, 1912; sold Griffin Farm, 1914; clerk Simon’s hardware store, Emmonsville, Pennsylvania.  Heavy drinker, though seldom actually drunk; suspected of some share in the Powers affair, or some knowledge, at least; poker fiend.  Bank note protested and paid by endorser 1897, and again in 1902; has since repaid endorsers.  See Larren Hotel, Eagle Hotel.”