“This is something new to me, Mr. Lorry. You deliberately advise me not to go up to Soho and offer myself⁠— my self, Stryver of the King’s Bench bar?”

“Do you ask me for my advice, Mr. Stryver?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Very good. Then I give it, and you have repeated it correctly.”

“And all I can say of it is,” laughed Stryver with a vexed laugh, “that this⁠—ha, ha!⁠—beats everything past, present, and to come.”