Altogether, he felt as if Aunt Rebecca was slipping through his fingers, and would have liked to take that selfish old puppy, Dangerfield, by the neck and drown him out of hand in the river.

But, notwithstanding the state of his temper, he knew it might be his only chance to shine pre-eminently at that moment in amiability, wit, grace, and gallantry, and, though it was up-hill work, he did labour uncommonly.
When Mr.Dangerfield's spectacles gleamed through the crowd upon Dr.
Sturk, who was thinking of other things beside the music, the angler walked round forthwith, and accosted that universal genius.

Mrs.Sturk felt the doctor's arm, on which she leaned, vibrate for a second with a slight thrill--an evidence in that hard, fibrous limb of what she used to call 'a start'-- and she heard Dangerfield's voice over his shoulder.
And the surgeon and the grand vizier were soon deep in talk, and Sturk brightened up, and looked eager and sagacious, and important, and became very voluble and impressive, and, leaving his lady to her own devices, with her maid and children, he got to the other side of the street, where Nutter, with taciturn and black observation, saw them busy pointing with cane and finger, and talking briskly as they surveyed together Dick Fisher's and Tom Tresham's tenements, and the Salmon House; and then beheld them ascend the steps of Tresham's door, and overlook the wall on the other side toward the river, and point this way and that along the near bank, as it seemed to Nutter discussing detailed schemes of alteration and improvement.

Sturk actually pulled out his pocket-book and pencil, and then Dangerfield took the pencil, and made notes of what he read to him, on the back of a letter; and Sturk looked eager and elated, and Dangerfield frowned and looked impressed, and nodded again and again.

_Diruit aedificat, mutat quadrata rotundis_, under his very nose--he unconsulted! It was such an impertinence as Nutter could ill-digest.