A moment before he had been cursing and swearing at me, and speaking to me as if I had been his shoeblack.

But, look you, I was not going to put up with any more of Madam Brough's airs, or of his.

With me they might act as they thought fit; but I did not choose that my wife should be passed over by them, as she had been in the matter of the visit to Fulham.
Brough ended by warning me of Hodge and Smithers.

"Beware of these men," said he; "but for my honesty, your aunt's landed property would have been sacrificed by these cormorants: and when, for her benefit--which you, obstinate young man, will not perceive--I wished to dispose of her land, her attorneys actually had the audacity--the unchristian avarice I may say--to ask ten per cent.

commission on the sale." There might be some truth in this, I thought: at any rate, when rogues fall out, honest men come by their own: and now I began to suspect, I am sorry to say, that both the attorney and the Director had a little of the rogue in their composition.