"Afraid! Mr Spencer, you use the most extraordinary language. Why should I be afraid? I beg to inform you that I am afraid of nothing, and of no one."
"I'm sure of it! All you have to do is to show a bold front and you'll do as you like with the lot of them."
"So far I've not observed much of the bold front about you. You kowtow to everyone as if you liked nothing so much as being trampled on."
"That's diplomacy; bound to be diplomatic. This sort of thing always begins like this."
"Does it? Then I wish you'd told me so at the beginning. I hate diplomacy."
"Miss Wilson, you have the dramatic instinct--"
"Mr Spencer, I wish you wouldn't talk nonsense. I believe you say that to everyone. I heard you tell Mrs Lascelles that when she appears on the stage she'll hold the audience in the hollow of her hand."
"So she will. She's going to appear in short skirts. When they catch sight of her they'll kill themselves with laughing."
When he said that a dreadful suspicion flashed across my mind that he was making fun of us all, including me; having a joke at our expense. I had little doubt, after what I had seen and heard that afternoon, that he was perfectly capable of such disgraceful conduct. I did not hesitate to let him know at once what I suspected.
"Mr Spencer, is it your intention that we shall all of us make laughing-stocks of ourselves for your amusement? Because, if so, I beg to state that I, for one, decline. I heard what you said to Mrs Lascelles; I heard you tell her that she would make the hit of the piece."