But I live a busy life, and I speak under correction by you readers, who ought to know everything, and I daresay do.' By this time they had both become savage; Mr.Neville out in the open; Edwin Drood under the transparent cover of a popular tune, and a stop now and then to pretend to admire picturesque effects in the moonlight before him.
'It does not seem to me very civil in you,' remarks Neville, at length, 'to reflect upon a stranger who comes here, not having had your advantages, to try to make up for lost time.

But, to be sure, I was not brought up in "busy life," and my ideas of civility were formed among Heathens.' 'Perhaps, the best civility, whatever kind of people we are brought up among,' retorts Edwin Drood, 'is to mind our own business.

If you will set me that example, I promise to follow it.' 'Do you know that you take a great deal too much upon yourself ?' is the angry rejoinder, 'and that in the part of the world I come from, you would be called to account for it ?' 'By whom, for instance ?' asks Edwin Drood, coming to a halt, and surveying the other with a look of disdain.
But, here a startling right hand is laid on Edwin's shoulder, and Jasper stands between them.

For, it would seem that he, too, has strolled round by the Nuns' House, and has come up behind them on the shadowy side of the road.
'Ned, Ned, Ned!' he says; 'we must have no more of this.

I don't like this.