On the morning after the Reverend Martin Gurwood and Madame Du Tertre had had their game at chess, and held the conversation just recorded, a straggling sunbeam, which had lost its way, turned by accident into 'Change-alley, and fell straight on to the bald head of a gentleman in the second-floor of one of the houses there. This gentleman, who, according to the inscription on the outer door jamb, was Mr. Humphrey Statham, was so astonished at the unexpected solar apparition, that he laid down the bundle of red tape with which he was knotting some papers together, and advancing to the grimy window, rubbed a square inch of dirt off the pane, and bending down, looked up at as much as he could discern of the narrow strip of dun-coloured sky which does duty for the blue empyrean to the inhabitants of 'Change-alley. The sun but rarely visits 'Change-alley in summer, and in winter scarcely ever puts in--an appearance; the denizens endeavour to compensate themselves for its absence by hanging huge burnished tin reflectors outside their windows, or giving up all attempts at deception, and sitting under gaslight from morning till eve. So that what Mr. Statham saw when he looked up was as satisfactory as it was unexpected, and he rubbed his hands together in sheer geniality, as he muttered something about having "decent weather for his trip."  
A tall, strongly-built man, and good-looking after his fashion, with a fringe of dark-brown hair round his bald crown, large regular features, piercing hazel eyes, somewhat overhanging brows, a pleasant mobile mouth, and a crisp brown beard.
 
Humphrey Statham was a ship-broker, though, from a cursory glance at his office, it would have been difficult to guess what occupation he pursued, furnished as it was in the ordinary business fashion. There was a large leather-covered writing-table, at which he was seated, a standing desk in the window, an old worn stained leather easy-chair for clients, the customary directories and commercial lists on shelves against the wall, the usual Stationers' Almanac hanging above the mantelpiece, the usual worn carpet and cinder-browned hearth-rug. In the outer office, where the four clerks sat, and where the smaller owners and the captains had to wait Mr. Statham's leisure (large owners and underwriters being granted immediate audience), the walls were covered with printed bills, announcing the dates of departure of certain ships, the approaching sale of others; the high desks were laden with huge ledgers and files of Lloyd's lists; and one of the clerks, who took a deep interest in his business, gave quite a maritime flavour to the place by invariably wearing a particular short pea-jacket and a hard round oilskin hat.
 
Not much leisure had these clerks; they were, to use their own phrase, "at it" from morning till night, for Mr. Statham's business was a large one, and though all the more important part of it was discharged by himself, there was plenty of letter-writing and agreement copying, ledger-entering, and running backwards and forwards between the office and Lloyd's when the "governor," as they called him, was busy with the underwriters. This year had been a peculiarly busy one; so busy, that Mr. Statham had been unable to take his usual autumnal holiday, a period of relaxation which he always looked forward to, and which, being fond of athletics, and still in the very prime of life, he usually passed among the Swiss Alps. This autumn he had passed it at Teddington instead of Courmayeur, and had substituted a couple of hours' pull on the river in the evening for his mountain climbing and hairbreadth escapes. But the change had not been sufficient; his head was dazed, he suffered under a great sense of lassitude; and his doctor had ordered him to knock-off work, and to start immediately for a clear month's vacation. Where he was to go he had scarcely made up his mind. Of course, Switzerland in November was impossible, and he was debating between the attractions of a month's snipe-shooting in Ireland and the delight of passing his time on board one of the Scilly Islands pilot-boats, roughing it with the men, and thoroughly enjoying the wild life and the dangerous occupation. A grave, plain-mannered man in his business--somewhat over cautious and reserved they thought him at Lloyd's--Humphrey Statham, when away for his holiday, had the high spirits of a boy, and never was so happy as when he had thrown off all the ordinary constraints of conventionality, and was leading a life widely different from that normally led by him, and associating with persons widely different from those with whom he was ordinarily brought into contact. Mr. Statham was, however, in his business just now, and had not thrown off his cautious habits. By his side stood a large iron safe, with one or two of its drawers open, and before him lay a number of letters and papers, which he read through one by one, or curiously glanced at, duly docketed them, made some memorandum regarding them in his note-book, and stowed them away in a drawer in the safe. As he read through some of them, he smiled; at others he glanced with an angry frown or a shoulder-shrug of contempt; but there were one or two during the perusal of which the lines in his face seemed to deepen perceptibly, and before he laid them aside he pondered long and deeply over their contents.
 
"What a queer lot it is!" said Humphrey Statham wearily, throwing himself back in his chair; "and how astonished people would be if they only knew what a strange mass of human interests these papers represent! With the exception of Collins, outside there, no one, I suppose, comes into this room who does not imagine that this safe contains nothing but business memoranda, insurances, brokerages, calculations, and commissions; details concerning the Lively Polly of Yarmouth, or the Saucy Sally of Whitstable; or who has the faintest idea that among the business documents there are papers and letters which would form good stock-in-trade for a romance writer! Why on earth do those fellows spin their brains, when for a very small investment of cash they could get people to tell them their own experiences, actual facts and occurrences, infinitely more striking and interesting than the nonsense which they invent? Every man who has seen anything of life must at one time or other have had some strange experience: the man who sells dog-collars and penknives at the corner of the court; the old broken-down hack in the outer office, who was a gentleman once, and now copies letters and runs errands for fifteen shillings a week; and I, the solemn, grave, trusted man of business--I, the cautious and reserved Humphrey Statham--perhaps I too have had my experiences which would work into a strange story! A story I may have to tell some day--may have to tell to a man, standing face to face with him, looking straight into his eyes, and showing him how he has been delivered into my hands." And Humphrey Statham crossed his arms before him and let his chin sink upon his breast, as he indulged in a profound reverie.
 
We will anticipate the story which Mr. Statham imagined that he would some day have to tell under such peculiar circumstances.
 
Humphrey Statham's father was a merchant and a man of means, living in good style in Russell-square; and, though of a somewhat gloomy temperament and stern demeanour, in his way fond of his son, and determined that the lad should be educated and prepared for the position which he would afterwards have to assume. Humphrey's mother was dead--had died soon after his birth--he had no brothers or sisters; and as Mr. Statham had never married again, the household was conducted by his sister, a meek long-suffering maiden lady, to whom hebdomadal attendance at the Foundling Chapel was the one joy in life. It had first been intended that the child should be educated at home; but he seemed so out of place in the big old-fashioned house, so strange in the company of his grave father or melancholy aunt, that, to prevent his being given over entirely to the servants, whom he liked very much, and with whom he spent most of his time, he was sent at an early age to a preparatory establishment, and then transferred to a grammar-school of repute in the neighbourhood of London. He was a dare-devil boy, full of fun and mischief, capital at cricket and football, and though remarkably quick by nature, and undoubtedly possessing plenty of appreciative common-sense and savoir faire, yet taking no position in the school, and held in very cheap estimation by his master. The half-yearly reports which, together with the bills for education and extras, were placed inside Master Humphrey's box, on the top of his neatly-packed clothes, and accompanied him home at every vacation from Canehambury, did not tend to make Mr. Statham any the less stern, or his manner to his son any more indulgent. The boy knew--he could not help knowing--that his father was wealthy and influential, and he had looked forward to his future without any fear, and, indeed, without very much concern. He thought he should like to go into the army, which meant to wear a handsome uniform and do little or nothing, to be petted by the ladies, of whose charms he had already shown himself perfectly cognisant, and to lead a life of luxury and ease. But Mr. Statham had widely different views. Although he had succeeded to his business, he had vastly improved it since he became its master, and had no idea of surrendering so lucrative a concern to a stranger, or of letting it pass out of the family. As he had worked, so should his son work in his turn; and accordingly, Master Humphrey on his removal from Canehambury was sent to a tutor resident in one of the Rhineland towns, with a view to his instruction in French and German, and to his development from a careless, high-spirited lad into a man of business and of the world.
 
The German tutor, a dreamy misty transcendentalist, was eminently unfitted for the charge intrusted to him. He gave the boy certain books, and left him to read them or not, as he chose; he set him certain tasks, but never took the trouble to see how they had been performed, or, indeed, whether they had been touched at all, till he was remarkably astonished after a short time to find his pupil speaking very excellent German, and once or twice took the trouble to wonder how "Homfrie," as he called him, could have acquired such a mastery of the language. Had an explanation of the marvel ever been asked of Humphrey himself, he could have explained it very readily. The town selected for his domicile was one of the celebrated art-academies of Germany, a place where painters of all kinds flocked from all parts to study under the renowned professors therein resident. A jovial, thriftless, kindly set of Bohemians these painters, in the strict sense of the word, impecunious to a degree, now working from morn till eve for days together, now not touching pencil or maulstick for weeks, living in a perpetual fog of tobacco, and spending their nights in beer-drinking and song-singing, in cheap epicureanism and noisy philosophical discussions. To this society of careless convives Humphrey Statham obtained a ready introduction, and among them soon established himself as a prime favourite. The bright face and interminable spirits of "Gesellschap's Englander," as he was called (Gesellschap was the name of his tutor), made him welcome everywhere. He passed his days in lounging from studio to studio, smoking pipes and exchanging jokes with their denizens, occasionally standing for a model for his hosts, now with bare neck and arms appearing as a Roman gladiator, now with casque and morion as a young Flemish burgher of Van Artevelde's guard, always ready, always obliging, roaring at his own linguistic mistakes, but never failing to correct them; while at night at the painters' club, the Malkasten, or the less aristocratic Kneipe, his voice was the cheeriest in the chorus, his wit the readiest in suggesting tableaux vivants, or in improvising practical jokes.
 
A pleasant life truly, but not, perhaps, a particularly reputable one. Certainly not one calculated for the formation of a City man of business according to Mr. Statham's interpretation of the term. When at the age of twenty the young man tore himself away from his Bohemian comrades, who kissed him fervently, and wept beery tears at his departure, and, in obedience to his father's commands, returned to England and to respectability, to take up his position in the paternal counting-house, Mr. Statham was considerably more astonished than gratified at the manner in which his son's time had been passed, and at its too evident results. About Humphrey there was nothing which could be called slang in the English sense of the term, certainly nothing vulgar; but there was a reckless abandon, a defiance of set propriety, a superb scorn for the respectable conventionality regulating the movements and the very thoughts of the circle in which Mr. Statham moved, which that worthy gentleman observed with horror, and which he considered almost as loathsome as vice itself. Previous to his presentation to the establishment over which he was to rule, Humphrey's long locks were clipped away, his light downy beard shaved off, his fantastic garments exchanged for sad-coloured soberly-cut clothes; and when this transformation had been accomplished, the young man was taken into the City and placed in the hands of Mr. Morrison the chief clerk, who was enjoined to give a strict account of his business qualifications. Mr. Morrison's report did not tend to dissipate the disappointment which had fallen like a blow on the old man's mind. Humphrey could talk German as glibly and with as good an accent as any Rhinelander from Manheim to Düsseldorf; he had picked up a vast amount of conversational French from the French artists who had formed part of his jolly society; and had command of an amount of argot which would have astonished Monsieur Philarète Chasles himself; but he had never been in the habit of either reading or writing anything but the smallest scraps of notes; and when Mr. Morrison placed before him a four-sided letter from their agent at Hamburg, couched in commercial German phraseology, and requested him to re-translate and answer it, Humphrey's expressive face looked so woe-begone and he boggl............