"Pleased to meet you, sir.

What have you to say to me ?" "Say!" cried the Major, loosing a sudden tempest; "why, I want this confounded thing settled.

I want--" "Certainly, sir," said Northover, jumping up with a slight elevation of the eyebrows.

"Will you take a chair for a moment." And he pressed an electric bell just above him, which thrilled and tinkled in a room beyond.

The Major put his hand on the back of the chair offered him, but stood chafing and beating the floor with his polished boot.
The next moment an inner glass door was opened, and a fair, weedy, young man, in a frock-coat, entered from within.
"Mr Hopson," said Northover, "this is Major Brown.