Sunday. Such was Mr Squercum,--a sign, in his way, that the old things
are being changed.

Squercum sat at a desk, covered with papers in chaotic confusion, on a
chair which moved on a pivot. His desk was against the wall, and when
clients came to him, he turned himself sharp round, sticking out his
dirty shoes, throwing himself back till his body was an inclined
plane, with his hands thrust into his pockets. In this attitude he
would listen to his client's story, and would himself speak as little
as possible. It was by his instructions that Dolly had insisted on
getting his share of the purchase money for Pickering into his own
hands, so that the incumbrance on his own property might be paid off.
He now listened as Dolly told him of the delay in the payment.
'Melmotte's at Pickering?' asked the attorney. Then Dolly informed him
how the tradesmen of the great financier had already half knocked down
the house. Squercum still listened, and promised to look to it. He did
ask what authority Dolly had given for the surrender of the
title-deeds. Dolly declared that he had given authority for the sale,
but none for the surrender. His father, some time since, had put
before him, for his signature, a letter, prepared in Mr Bideawhile's
office, which Dolly said that he had refused even to read, and
certainly had not signed. Squercum again said that he'd look to it,
and bowed Dolly out of his room. 'They've got him to sign something
when he was tight,' said Squercum to himself, knowing something of the
habits of his client. 'I wonder whether his father did it, or old
Bideawhile, or Melmotte himself?' Mr Squercum was inclined to think
that Bideawhile would not have done it, that Melmotte could have had
no opportunity, and that the father must have been the practitioner.
'It's not the trick of a pompous old fool either,' said Mr Squercum,
in his soliloquy. He went to work, however, making himself detestably
odious among the very respectable clerks in Mr Bideawhile's office,--
men who considered themselves to be altogether superior to Squercum
himself in professional standing.

And now there came this rumour which was so far particular in its
details that it inferred the forgery, of which it accused Mr Melmotte,
to his mode of acquiring the Pickering property. The nature of the
forgery was of course described in various ways,--as was also the
signature said to have been forged. But there were many who believed,
or almost believed,