Mr. Cursty, on second thoughts, began to imagine that perhaps it might end the affair more quietly if he did as the man urged, and though Mrs. Sandboys was for having the whole matter explained in her presence, Cursty deemed it more prudent to retire in company with the beadle, and accordingly stepped into the passage to ascertain what on earth could be the nature of the present charge against him. There the parish official explained to the gentleman, in as low a tone as possible, that he was wanted at the work’us on a case of desertion. “Desertion of what?—of whom?—shouted out the innocent Mr. Sandboys, in the height of his indignation. “I never was in t’army in all my life.” But the beadle mildly insinuated that he was afeard the matter didn’t consarn the harmy, though p’raps it might have summat to do with the hinfant-ry; but whether it were a child or a wife what Mr. Sandboys had left chargeable to the parish, he couldn’t say; all he knowed was, that he had horders to take the gen’elman back with him, on a charge of that naytur, and then he hoped no offence, and he axed the gen’elman’s pardon, but he’d a delikit dooty to preform, and he always struv to preform it with every regard to the feelings of the ladies and gen’elmen consarned; whereupon, having looked cautiously round, and whispered in Cursty’s ear that if he’d leave it all to him, it shouldn’t stand him in no more than 3_s._ 6_d._ a week, and what was more, he’d take care the papers didn’t get hold on it, the officer kept touching his hair and nodding his head in a manner that plainly indicated he expected some small gratuity for the discretion he had used, and the services he had proffered in connexion with the “delikit” dooty he had to preform. “I thought I’d keep it dark, you know, sir, from your old ’ooman,” he added, as Mr. Sandboys seemed disposed to pay no attention to his hints. “Females takes these little tender matters to heart, so that many gen’elmen’s told me it’s been worth scores of pounds to ’em my minding my p’s and q’s in the presence of their good ladies. Bless you, if I was to out with all I knows, I should ruin the peace of half the families in our parish. Gen’elmen will be gen’elmen, you know, sir;” and then making that peculiar noise out of the corner of his mouth, in which the drivers of horses delight, he nudged the astounded Cursty familiarly in the ribs, while he added, “but ladies can’t, for the lives on ’em, make no allowance for the secret _hammers_ of the lawful partners of their buzzems.” And “the authority” having delivered himself of these sentiments, went through the same insinuating pantomime as before.