James Norris was a small, thin man, dark and with regular features, clean shaven like a priest or an actor, vaguely resembling both, inclining towards the hieratic rather than to the histrionic type.  He dressed always in black, and the closely-buttoned jacket revealed the spareness of his body.  He was met often in the evening, going to dine at the Cock; but was rarely seen walking about the Temple in the day-time.  It was impossible to meet any one more suasive and agreeable; his suavity was penetrating as his small dark eyes.  He lived in Elm Court, and his rooms impressed you with a sense of cleanliness and comfort.  The furniture was all in solid mahogany; there were no knick-knacks or any lightness, and almost the only aesthetic intentions were a few sober engravings—­portraits of men in wigs and breastplates.  He took pleasure in these and also in some first editions, containing the original plates, which, when you knew him well, he produced from the bookcase and descanted on their value and rarity.

Mr. Norris had always an excellent cigar to offer you, and he pressed you to taste of his old port, and his Chartreuse; there was whiskey for you too, if you cared to take it, and allusion was made to its age.  But it was neither an influence nor a characteristic of his rooms; the port wine was.  If there was fruit on the sideboard, there was also pounded sugar; and it is such detail as the pounded sugar that announces an inveterate bachelorhood.  Some men are born bachelors.  And when a man is born a bachelor, the signs unmistakable are hardly apparent at thirty; it is not until the fortieth year is approached that the fateful markings become recognizable.  James Norris was forty-two, and was therefore a full-fledged bachelor.  He was a bachelor in the complete equipment of his chambers.  He was bachelor in his arm-chair and his stock of wine; his hospitality was that of a bachelor, for a man who feels instinctively that he will never own a “house and home” constructs the materiality of his life in chambers upon a fuller basis than the man who feels instinctively that he will, sooner or later, exchange the perch-like existence of his chambers for the nest-like completeness of a home in South Kensington.

James Norris was of an excellent county family in Essex.  He had a brother in the army, a brother in the Civil Service, and a brother in the Diplomatic Service.  He had also a brother who composed somewhat unsuccessful waltz tunes, who borrowed money, and James thought that his brother caused him some anxiety of mind.  The eldest brother, John Norris, lived at the family place, Halton Grange, where he stayed when he went on the Eastern circuit.  James was far too securely a gentleman to speak much of Halton Grange; nevertheless, the flavour of landed estate transpired in the course of conversation.  He has returned from circuit, having finished up with a partridge drive, etc.