He stirred in his seat. 'I have been wanting to speak to you, Jekyll,' he began. 'You know that will of yours?'

I had thought he might want to raise the matter of Hyde sharing my house, but this was a route I had not foreseen. In fact, the matter of the will had been all but forgotten by me. 'My poor Utterson, you are unfortunate in such a client. I never saw a man so distressed as you were by my will; unless it were that hide-bound pedant, Lanyon, at what he called my scientific heresies. Oh, I know he's a good fellow - you needn't frown - an excellent fellow, and I always mean to see more of him; but a hide-bound pedant for all that; an ignorant, blatant pedant. I was never more disappointed in any man than Lanyon.'

'You know I never approved of it,' pursued Utterson, ruthlessly disregarding my attempt to introduce a fresh topic.

'My will? Yes, certainly, I know that,' I replied, somewhat peeved at his own show of pedantry. 'You have told me so.'

'Well, I tell you so again,' continued the lawyer. 'I have been learning something of young Hyde.'

And so we turned to the meat of the matter.