All three repetitions Mr George pronounces in a mechanical manner, looking straight at Mr Tulkinghorn; nor does he so much as glance at the affidavit in Jarndyce and Jarndyce, that has been given to him for his inspection (though he still holds it in his hand), but continues to look at the lawyer with an air of troubled meditation.

“Well?” says Mr Tulkinghorn. “What do you say?”

“Well, sir,” replies Mr George, rising erect and looking immense, “I would rather, if you’ll excuse me, have nothing to do with this.”

Mr Tulkinghorn, outwardly quite undisturbed, demands “Why not?”

“Why, sir,” returns the trooper. “Except on military compulsion, I am not a man of business. Among civilians I am what they call in Scotland a ne’er-do-weel. I have no head for papers, sir. I can stand any fire better than a fire of cross questions. I mentioned to Mr Smallweed, only an hour or so ago, that when I come into things of this kind I feel as if I was being smothered. And that is my sensation,” says Mr George, looking round upon the company, “at the present moment.”

With that, he takes three strides forward to replace the papers on the lawyer’s table, and three strides backward to resume his former station: where he stands perfectly upright, now looking at the ground, and now at the painted ceiling, with his hands behind him as if to prevent himself from accepting any other document whatever.

Under this provocation, Mr Smallweed’s favourite adjective of disparagement is so close to his tongue, that he begins the words “my dear friend” with the monosyllable “Brim;” thus converting the possessive pronoun into Brimmy, and appearing to have an impediment in his speech. Once past this difficulty, however, he exhorts his dear friend in the tenderest manner not to be rash, but to do what so eminent a gentleman requires, and to do it with a good grace: confident that it must be unobjectionable as well as profitable. Mr Tulkinghorn merely utters an occasional sentence, as “You are the best judge of your own interest, serjeant.” “Take care you do no harm by this.” “Please yourself, please yourself.” “If you know what you mean, that’s quite enough.” These he utters with an appearance of perfect indifference, as he looks over the papers on his table, and prepares to write a letter.

Mr George looks distrustfully from the painted ceiling to the ground, from the ground to Mr Smallweed, from Mr Smallweed to Mr Tulkinghorn, and from Mr Tulkinghorn to the painted ceiling again: often in his perplexity changing the leg on which he rests.

“I do assure you, sir,” says Mr George, “not to say it offensively, that between you and Mr Smallweed here, I really am being smothered fifty times over. I really am, sir. I am not a match for you gentlemen. Will you allow me to ask, why you want to see the captain’s hand, in the case that I could find any specimen of it?”

Mr Tulkinghorn quietly shakes his head. “No. If you were a man of business, serjeant, you would not need to be informed that there are confidential reasons, very harmless in themselves, for many such wants, in the profession to which I belong. But if you are afraid of doing any injury to Captain Hawdon, you may set your mind at rest about that.”

“Ay! he is dead, sir.”

“Is he?” Mr Tulkinghorn quietly sits down to write.

“Well, sir,” says the trooper, looking into his hat, after another disconcerted pause; “I am sorry not to have given you more satisfaction. If it would be any satisfaction to any one, that I should be confirmed in my judgment that I would rather have nothing to do with this, by a friend of mine, who has a better head for business than I have, and who is an old soldier, I am willing to consult with him. I — I really am