"Are you sure I shock you?"
"What the devil do you mean by that? Look here, Gilbert, if you've come here to make yourself disagreeable you'll have to excuse me if I go to bed."
"My dear chap, why this sudden explosion! So far from wishing to make myself disagreeable my desire is all the other way; but you haven't yet let me explain to you the nature of the quandary I am in."
"I know Jim Baker better than you do. I've thrashed him within an inch of his life before to-day, and, by George! if what you say is true, I'd like to do it again. If you've come to retail any cock and bull stories emanating from that source I don't want to listen to them--that's plain."
"Perfectly plain. I've come to retail cock and bull stories emanating from no source. If you'll grant me thirty seconds I'll tell you what the trouble is. The trouble is that I've been retained by Miss Arnott to defend Jim Baker."
"The deuce!"
"Yes, as you observe, it is the deuce. She has behaved--in a pecuniary sense--very handsomely, and is apparently prepared--in that sense--to continue to behave very handsomely."
"Then where's the trouble if you're well paid for the work you're asked to do?"
"Supposing, for the sake of argument, that Miss Arnott is guilty, and that Jim Baker knows it, that, from one point of view, would be a sufficient reason why she should spend money like water in his defence, and I should be placed in a very awkward situation."
"Are you taking it for granted that what that blackguard says--"