Our Mutual Friend Book 3 Chapter 13 - Give a Dog a Bad Name, and Hang Him

In which we find the crafty Mr Fledgeby presiding over a counting-house with a jaunty air, engaging in a shrewd and somewhat mocking dialogue with the dolls’ dressmaker and a timid gentleman named Twemlow, whose financial troubles elicit a mixture of compassion and cynical amusement. The scene unfolds with the arrival of the stern Mr Riah, whose inexorable insistence on debts unsettles the gentle Twemlow and draws from Fledgeby a complex blend of chivalry and sharp business acumen.