He was a tall man who wore a long black Prince Albert coat which came down below his knees, a broad felt hat, and no overcoat.

He looked cold, and rather shabby; but he talked with a good deal of style, and used many big words.
"Stranger here ?" he asked.
I admitted that I was.
"May I offer," said he, "the hospitalities of the city in the form of a hot whisky toddy ?" I thanked him and asked to be excused.
"Your name," he ventured, after clearing his throat, "is Vandemark." Then I looked at him still more sharply.

How did he know my name?
"I have been looking for you," said he, "for some months--some months; and I was so fortunate as to observe the fact when you made a call last evening on our fellow-citizen, Doctor Rucker.

I was--ahem--consulted professionally by the late lamented Mrs.Rucker--I am a lawyer, sir--before her death, for the purpose of securing my services in looking after the interests of her son, Mr.Jacob H.Vandemark." "Jacob T.Vandemark," said I.
"Why, damn me," said he, looking again at his book, "it _is_ a 'T.' Lawyer's writing, Jacob, lawyer's writing--notoriously bad, you know." I sat thinking about the expression, "the interests of Jacob T.
Vandemark," for a long time; but the truth did not dawn an me, my mind working slowly as usual.
"What interests ?" I asked finally.
"The interest," said he, "of her only child in the estate of Mrs.
Rucker." Then there recurred to my mind the words in my mother's last letter; that the money had been paid on the settlement of my father's estate, and that she and Rucker were coming out West to make a new start in life.

I had never given it a moment's thought before, and should have gone away without asking anybody a single question about it, if this scaly pettifogger, as I now know him to have been, had not sidled up to me.
"The estate," said my new friend, "is small, Jacob; but right is right, and there is no reason why this man Rucker should not be made to disgorge every cent that's coming to you--every cent! I know Doctor Rucker slightly, and I hope I shall not shock you if I say that in my opinion he would steal the Lord's Supper, and wipe his condemned lousy red whiskers and his freckled claws with the table-cloth! That's the kind of pilgrim and stranger Rucker is.