Born a few centuries earlier, he would have enforced them with cold steel.
"Come, Mr.Brett," he almost shouted.

"If you are as good a judge of men as you say I am of tobacco, you will not think that the cowardly murderer who struck down my cousin would come to you, of all others, and reopen the story of a crime closed unwillingly by the law." Brett could, on occasion, exhibit an obstinate determination not to be drawn into expressing an opinion.

His visitor's masterful manner annoyed him.

Hume, metaphorically speaking, took him by the throat and compelled his services.

He rebelled against this species of compulsion, but mere politeness required some display of courteous tolerance.
"It seems to me," he said, "that we are beginning at the end.