'D—n you, you old cur! do you speak of "defrauding" to me—you, a lawyer?' said Shafto, grasping his cane.
'I do,' replied Mr. Kippilaw firmly. Shafto quailed under his gaze, and turned to leave the room. 'Mr. Gyle!' said the lawyer, ere he could do so.
Shafto turned and faced him.
'Ha!—you answer to your name, I see!'
'What do you mean?'
'Simply that I begin to think you are an impostor!'
Shafto glared at him, white with rage and dismay, while a minute's silence ensued.
Perhaps the astute lawyer had read that remarkable essay by Lord Bacon on cunning, wherein he tells us that an unexpected question or assertion may startle a man and lay him open. 'Like to him,' he continues, 'that having changed his name, and was walking in St. Paul's, another came behind him, and called him suddenly by his true one, whereat straightways he looked back.'
'An impostor, dare you say?' exclaimed Shafto, taking one pace to his front.
'Considering your conduct, I begin to think so.'