"You have been strangely importunate. If it should appear, after all, that what you have to say does not concern me — and I don't know how it can, and don't expect that it will — you will allow me to cut you short with but little ceremony. Say what you have to say, if you please."
My Lady, with a careless toss of her screen, turns herself towards the fire again, sitting almost with her back to the young man of the name of Guppy.
"With your ladyship's permission, then," says the young man, "I will now enter on my business. Hem! I am, as I told your ladyship in my first letter, in the law. Being in the law, I have learnt the habit of not committing myself in writing, and therefore I did not mention to your ladyship the name of the firm with which I am connected and in which my standing —