‘By George!’ It depended chiefly upon him whether such a man as Melmotte should or should not be charged before the Lord Mayor.  ‘Perhaps I oughtn’t to have promised,’ he said to Squercum, sitting in the lawyer’s office on a high-legged stool with a cigar in his mouth.  He preferred Squercum to any other lawyer he had met because Squercum’s room was untidy and homely, because there was nothing awful about it, and because he could sit in what position he pleased, and smoke all the time.

‘Well; I don’t think you ought, if you ask me,’ said Squercum.

‘You weren’t there to be asked, old fellow.’

’Bideawhile shouldn’t have asked you to agree to anything in my absence,’ said Squercum indignantly.  &rsquo...