The eminent lawyer’s office was in a corner of the fifth shelf of the American Tract Building bookcase.  It was unoccupied, Mr. Snark being so intelligent as to be able to dispense with the services of office-boy and stenographer; it was small but cozy.  Offices in that building can be rented for fifteen dollars per month.

After the eminent lawyer had fortified himself from a certain black bottle labeled “Poison:  external use only,” which sat beside the soap-dish in the little towel-cabinet, he assumed a very preoccupied and highly official mien at his roller-top desk, where he became vitally interested in a batch of letters, presumably that morning’s mail, but which in reality bore dates ranging back to the past year.

Then the eminent lawyer delved importantly into an empty letter-file; emerged after ten minutes’ study in order to give Blackstone a few thoroughly familiar turns, opened the window further to cool his fevered brain, lit a highly athletic cigar, crossed his legs, and was at last at leisure to talk business with Garrison, who had almost fallen asleep during the business rush.

“What’s your name?” he asked peremptorily.

Ordinarily Garrison would have begged him to go to a climate where thermometers are not in demand, but now he was hungry, and wanted a job, so he answered obediently:  “William Good.”

“Good, William,” said the eminent lawyer, smiling at himself in the little mirror of the towel-cabinet.  He understood that he possessed a thin vein of humor.  Necessary quality for an eminent lawyer.  “And no occupation, I presume, and no likelihood of one, eh?”

Garrison nodded.

“Well”—­and Mr. Snark made a temple of worship from his fat fingers, his cigar at right angles, his shrewd gray eyes on the ceiling—­“I have a position which I think you can fill.  To make a long story short, I have a client, a very wealthy gentleman of Cottonton, Virginia; name of Calvert—­Major Henry Clay Calvert.  Dare say you’ve heard of the Virginia Calverts,” he added, waving the rank incense from the athletic cigar.

He had only heard of the family a week or two ago, but already he persuaded himself that their reputation was national, and that his business relations with them dated back to the Settlement days.

Garrison found occasion to say he’d never heard of them, and the eminent lawyer replied patronizingly that “we all can’t be well-connected, you know.”  Then he went on with his short story, which, like all short stories, was a very long one.

“Now it appears that Major Calvert has a nephew somewhere whom he has never seen, and whom he wishes to recognize; in short, make him his heir.  He has advertised widely for him during the past few months, and has employed a lawyer in almost every city to assist in this hunt for a needle in a haystack.  This nephew’s name is Dagget—­William C. Dagget.  His mother was a half-sister of Major Calvert’s.  The search for this nephew has been going on for almost a year—­since Major Calvert heard of his brother-in-law’s death—­but the nephew has not been found.”