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The Green Bag
in its malignancy. Too passionless to be either a friend or an enemy, he is mechanically faithful, without attach ment, to his clients. Ever vigilant of their interests, he is absolutely devoid of pity, compunction or any of the softer emotions. His one passion in life, if such a man can be said to have a passion, is the acquisition of aristocratic secrets and the holding possession of such power as they give him, with no sharer or opponent in it. The family skeletons, difficulties, mortgages and delicate affairs of the beau monde are all treasured up within his old black satin waistcoat. He is therefore jealous of the profit, privilege and reputation of being master of the mysteries of great houses. He is an oyster of the "old school" whom nobody can open. There is an air of prescription about him which is agreeable to the vested interests, who receive it as a kind of tribute. They like his dress: there is a kind of tribute in that, too. It is eminently respect able, and likewise, in a general way, retainer-like. It expresses, as it were, the stewart of their legal mysteries, the butler of their legal cellars. His face is an expressionless mask, watchful be hind a blind which is always down and which never betrays his close, dry and silent nature. Impenetrable as the sphinx, he has had only one friend in life, a bachelor and a lawyer of the same mold, who lived the same kind of life until he was seventy-five years old, and then, suddenly conceiving (as it was supposed) an impression that it was too monotonous, gave his gold watch to his hair-dresser one summer evening, and walked leisurely home to the temple and hanged himself. One peculiarity of his black clothes, and of his black stockings, be they silk or worsted, is that they never shine. Mute, close, irresponsive to any glancing light, his
dress is like himself. He never cornverses when not professionally con sulted. He is found sometimes, speechless but quite at home, at corners of dinnertables in great country houses and near doors of drawing-rooms, concerning which the fashionable intelligence is eloquent; where everybody knows him, and where half the peerage stops to say, "How do you do, Mr. Tulkinghorn?" He receives these salutations with gravity, and buries them along with the rest of his knowledge — along with the mysterious store of family confidences of which he is known to be the silent depository. When not speechlessly at home in country houses, Mr. Tulkinghorn lived and had his office in a large house, formerly a house of state, in Lincoln's Inn Fields. His apartment is like him self, lofty, gloomy, rusty, out of date, withdrawing from attention and able to afford it. Heavy, broad-backed, old-fashioned mahogany and horsehair chairs, not easily lifted, obsolete tables with spindle-legs and dusty baize covers, presentation prints of the holders of great titles in the last generation, or the last but one, environ him. The titles on the backs of his books have retired into the binding. Everything that can have a lock has got it; no key is visible. Very few loose papers are about. He keeps no staff; only one middle-aged man, usually a little out at elbows, who sits in a high pew in the hall and is rarely overburdened with business. Mr. Tulkinghorn is not in a common way. He wants no clerks. He is a great reservoir of confidences, not to be so tapped. His clients want him; he is all in all. Drafts that he requires to be drawn are drawn by special pleaders in the temple on mys terious instructions; fair copies that he requires to be made are made at
