"Sir!" I stammered.
"Reflect on all my good friend has urged, Mr. Ellis," said Quirky, appearing suddenly behind me.
"I have reflected," said I, in a breathless voice, while playing nervously with a mahogany ruler—a pretty heavy one too.
"Then pen us the required statement—that you saw the girl, Amy Lee, burn her aunt's will?"
"But I never witnessed any such act," I replied. While panting with rage, I spoke slowly to gather time for thought and action. "I repeat, sir, that I never beheld any such deed!"
"But you might have seen it," said Macfarisee, suavely, and with a grimace which he meant to be excessively conciliating; "you might, my dear boy, and such a statement from you is necessary to complete a plan we have in view, to enforce the ends of justice and law, which are the same; for as the holy apostle saith, 'Law is good, if a man use it lawfully,' First Timothy, chapter first, hey-ho-hum!"
"What motive have you in view?"
"What the deuce have you, or such as you, to do with the motives or morals of those who employ you?" demanded Quirky, whose natural insolence for the moment got entirely the better of his prudence.
"Sir, sir,—I am a gentleman!"
"A gentleman—God help us! a fine gentleman, to whom we pay thirty pounds per annum."