said Mr. Kirby louder than ever, and leaning back in his chair. …
He knew this old Postlethwaite of old, a man of grievances, a man whom it was the lawyer's business to dissuade from law; a man whom he couldn't quite call mad, but a man whom Mr. Kirby certainly did not trust with any member of the firm; a man with whose considerable business in scattered freeholds (quite twenty of them up and down the suburbs of Ormeston, and nearly all of them unfortunate investments) Kirby in a moment of generosity or folly—perhaps rather of freakishness—had undertaken for his firm to let and sell and value, and now he wished he hadn't!
For as Mr. Postlethwaite grew older, he grew more frightening, and he was a man now nearly seventy years of age. But his years had in no way diminished his almost epileptic vigour. Mr. Kirby could hear the terrible tramp of his great boots and the exclamations of his great voice in the corridor. The door opened, and he came in. He stood tall and menacing in the entry, and slammed the door behind him. His abundant white hair tumbled in great shocks over his head, his ill-kept beard bristled upon all sides from his
