For how long a period of time have you been acquainted with our young friend ?" He continued to kick the air, but his head was thrown back and his eyes fixed on the opposite wall, as if in aversion to the spectacle of Rowland's inevitable confusion.
"A very short time, I confess.

Hardly three days." "And yet you call yourself intimate, eh?
I have been seeing Mr.Roderick daily these three years, and yet it was only this morning that I felt as if I had at last the right to say that I knew him.

We had a few moments' conversation in my office which supplied the missing links in the evidence.

So that now I do venture to say I 'm acquainted with Mr.
Roderick! But wait three years, sir, like me!" and Mr.Striker laughed, with a closed mouth and a noiseless shake of all his long person.
Mrs.Hudson smiled confusedly, at hazard; Miss Garland kept her eyes on her stitches.

But it seemed to Rowland that the latter colored a little.
"Oh, in three years, of course," he said, "we shall know each other better.