for a certain fee and reward my poor opinion as a medical man precisely as i may give it any day to jack or tom then why do i say our simply because i hear the phrase constantly repeated about me such is the involuntary operation of the mental faculty in the man mr believe you never take snuff you should these remarks on the part of the doctor and the lengthened and pinch with which he followed them up took a seat at the board as a man as ever he has been within the reader s knowledge it is too common with all of us but it is especially in the nature of a mean mind to be by fine clothes and fine furniture they had a very decided influence on now you two gentlemen have business to discuss i know said the doctor and your time is precious so is mine for several lives are waiting for me in the next room and i have a round of visits to make after � after i have taken em having had the happiness to introduce you to each other i may go about my business good bye but allow me mr before i go to say this of my friend who sits beside you that gentleman has done more sir his snuff box solemnly to reconcile me to human nature than any man alive or dead good bye with these words bolted abruptly out of the room and proceeded in his own official department to impress the lives in waiting with a sense of his keen in the discharge of his duty and the great difficulty of getting into the by feeling their looking at their tongues listening at their ribs them in the chest and so forth though if he didn t well know beforehand that whatever kind of lives they were the would accept them readily he was far from being the that his considered him and was not the original but a imitation mr also departed on the business of the morning and and were left alone i learn from our friend said drawing his chair towards with a winning ease of manner that you have been thinking � oh then he d no right to say so cried interrupting i didn t tell him my thoughts if he took it into his head that i was coming here for such or such a life and adventures of purpose why that s his look out i don t stand committed by that said this enough for over and above the habitual distrust of his character it was in his nature to seek to revenge himself on the fine clothes and the fine furniture in exact proportion as he had been unable to withstand their influence if i come here to ask a question or two and get a document or two to consider of i don t bind myself to anything let s understand that you know said my dear fellow cried clapping him on the shoulder i your frankness if men like you and i speak openly at first all possible misunderstanding is avoided why should i disguise what you know so well but what the crowd never dream off we companies are all birds of prey mere birds of prey the only question is whether in serving our own turn we can serve yours too whether in our own nest we can put a single into yours oh you re in our secret you re behind the scenes we make a merit of dealing plainly with you when we know we can t help it it was remarked on the first introduction of mr into these pages that there is a simplicity of cunning no less than a simplicity of innocence and that in all matters a faith in he was the most of men if mr had preferred any claim to high and honourable dealing would have suspected him though he had been a very model of but when he gave utterance to s own thoughts of everything and everybody began to feel that he was a pleasant fellow and one to be talked to freely he changed his position in his chair not for a less awkward but for a more attitude and smiling in his miserable conceit rejoined you an t a bad man of business mr you know how to set about it i will say tut tut said nodding and showing his white teeth we are not children mr we are grown men i hope assented and said after a short silence first spreading out his legs and sticking one arm to show how perfectly at home he was the truth don t say the truth interposed with another grin it s so like greatly charmed by this began again the long and the short of it is � better muttered much better � that i didn t consider myself very well used by one or two of the old companies in some i have had with em � once had i mean they started objections they had no right to start and put questions they had no right to put and carried things much too high for my taste as he made these observations he cast down his eyes and looked curiously at the carpet mr looked curiously at him he made so long a pause that came to the rescue and said in his manner take a glass of wine no no returned with a cunning shake of the head none of that no wine over business all very well for you but it wouldn t do for me what an old hand you are mr said leaning back in his chair and at him through his half shut eyes shook his head again as much as to say you re right there and then resumed not such an old hand either but that i ve 