! You think it’s grand to have a head-gardener as a servant, so that you can say, ‘Ring the bell, if you please! Get me a bottle of foreign wine, if you please!’ Everyone knows the real reason you pay that man to hang around. Only because you like to feel gentlemanly and refined in comparison with a great bully like that! Here’s your new assistant come to ask for his pay, for copying out your liquorish tales! Do you think he takes any interest in you really, or cares a farthing for your writing? Not a jot; not a jot⁠ ⁠… not any more than⁠—”

Wolf interrupted him at this point by flinging down the great white ledger-book on the table. The two glasses tinkled. One of them hit the side of the decanter with a silvery reverberation. Jason turned a stony face towards him. Mr. Urquhart blinked his eyes, moistened his lips with the tip of his tongue, closed his mouth, and shot at him a look like that which an experienced trapper, his right arm in the jaws of an infuriated bear, might cast towards a faithful dog!