‘I allow,’ said the culprit, with a certain magnanimity, ‘that had I been engaged by you at, let us say, so much a day to make this copy, with a full understanding that it was to be your property, your question might be justified; but, as a matter of fact, no stipulations of the kind were made. You suggested to me that I should come here and copy your papers--with the benevolent intention of keeping me out of mischief--I suppose out of the company which you did not think good for me, of my faithful Joe.’ He had changed his position in the chair to a more easy one, and leaned forward a little, speaking, demonstrating slightly, easily, with his hand. John, in his sudden fury, and in the darkness of his distress, felt the current of his thoughts arrested, and his mind standing still with wonder. He gasped, but the words would not come. ‘But there was no engagement,’ resumed the speaker, with a smile; ‘nothing was said about so much a day. My labour was not put to any price, nor was there any time mentioned when it should be finished, or anything said about its ultimate destination. You will see that I am quite exact when you think over the circumstances. Isn’t it so? Well, then, by all laws of logic, the copy was mine, and I had a right to do what I liked with it; put it in the fire if I liked----’ ‘But not to offer my scheme, my work, my ideas to--to--another firm,’ cried John, in his confusion: ‘to an opposition--to a----’ He saw he had made a mistake, but in his excitement could not tell what it was. ‘Oh,’ said March, ‘I see! Now I understand; it is a question of rivalry: they’re competitors--they’re on the other side? Certainly that wasn’t at all what I intended: and now I understand.’ It was John’s impulse to seize him by the collar, to shake the sophistry out of this bland usurper of his rights. But he did not do so. He restrained himself with a strong effort, and recovered the thread of reason which had been snatched for a moment out of his hand. ‘We might go into that,’ he said, ‘if you had the least right to take from me what was my work, and not yours. But you are too clever not to see that this is quite a secondary question. Whatever you may say, you copied those papers for me, by my orders, for payment. Bah! what is the use of arguing about such a matter? You know it as well as I do. You know my papers are stolen, that you have tried to make a profit of them, that you have taken them from me, to whom they belonged----’ John’s aspect in spite of himself was threatening: his countenance flushed, he changed his position, he clenched his hand. He was a powerful young man and the other was feeble and limp if not very old. Montressor, with his stage instinct, found it time for him to interfere.