May have the shaping of our future lives;

And, stretching forth¹ their long arms from the past,

May alter this and that in such strange fashion

That we become as puppets in their hands,

To play the game of life by old events."

 

 

Mr. Dombrain's office, situate in Chintle Lane, was a shabby little place consisting of three rooms. One where his clients waited, another occupied by three clerks constantly writing, and a third where Mr. Dombrain himself sat, like a crafty² spider in his web waiting for silly flies. The three rooms were all bad, but Mr. Dombrain's was the worst; a square, low-roofed apartment like a box, with a dim twilight³ atmosphere, which filtered in through a dirty skylight in the roof. This being the case, Dombrain's desk was lighted by a gas-jet with a green shade, fed by a snaky-looking india-rubber tube attached to the iron gas-pipe projecting from the wall above his head.

 

The heavy yellow light flaring⁴ from under this green shade revealed the room in a half-hearted sort of fashion, illuminating⁵ the desk, but quite unable to penetrate⁶ into the dark corners of the place. On the writing-table were piles of papers, mostly tied into bundles with red tape, a glass inkstand, a pad of pink blotting-paper, three or four pens, all of which were arranged on a dingy⁷ ink-stained green cloth in front of a row of pigeon holes, full of loose letters and legal-looking documents.

 

In front of this table sat Mr. Dombrain in a heavy horsehair-covered chair, and near him were two other chairs of slender construction for the use of clients. Along the walls more pigeon holes crammed⁸ with papers, a tall bookshelf filled with hard-looking law books, which had a

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