“_Tace_, madam,” answered Murphy, “is Latin for a candle: I commend your prudence. I shall know the particulars of your case when we are alone.” “I hope the lady,” said Robinson, “hath no suspicion of any person here. I hope we are all persons of honour at this table.” “D--n my eyes!” answered a well-dressed woman, “I can answer for myself and the other ladies; though I never saw the lady in my life, she need not be shy of us, d--n my eyes! I scorn to rap [Footnote: A cant word, meaning to swear, or rather to perjure yourself] against any lady.” “D--n me, madam!” cried another female, “I honour what you have done. I once put a knife into a cull myself--so my service to you, madam, and I wish you may come off with _se diffidendo_ with all my heart.” “I beg, good woman,” said Miss Matthews, “you would talk on some other subject, and give yourself no concern about my affairs.” “You see, ladies,” cried Murphy, “the gentle-woman doth not care to talk on this matter before company; so pray do not press her.” “Nay, I value the lady’s acquaintance no more than she values mine,” cries the first woman who spoke. “I have kept as good company as the lady, I believe, every day in the week. Good woman! I don’t use to be so treated. If the lady says such another word to me, d--n me, I will darken her daylights. Marry, come up! Good woman!--the lady’s a whore as well as myself! and, though I am sent hither to mill doll, d--n my eyes, I have money enough to buy it off as well as the lady herself.” Action might perhaps soon have ensued this speech, had not the keeper interposed his authority, and put an end to any further dispute. Soon after which, the company broke up, and none but himself, Mr. Murphy, Captain Booth, and Miss Matthews, remained together. Miss Matthews then, at the entreaty of the keeper, began to open her case to Mr. Murphy, whom she admitted to be her solicitor, though she still declared she was indifferent as to the event of the trial. Mr. Murphy, having heard all the particulars with which the reader is already acquainted (as far as related to the murder), shook his head and said, “There is but one circumstance, madam, which I wish was out of the case; and that we must put out of it; I mean the carrying the penknife drawn into the room with you; for that seems to imply malice prepensive, as we call it in the law: this circumstance, therefore, must not appear against you; and, if the servant who was in the room observed this, he must be bought off at all hazards. All here you say are friends; therefore I tell you openly, you must furnish me with money sufficient for this purpose. Malice is all we have to guard against.” “I would not presume, sir,” cries Booth, “to inform you in the law; but I have heard, in case of stabbing, a man may be indicted upon the statute; and it is capital, though no malice appears.”