Nay, it was enough to make the hair of any respectable tradesman turn grey on the spot to hear the language which they used. They said that no man had a right to keep any property to himself, but that every one was entitled by the laws of nature to help himself to whatever he fancied. They averred that the boy of all work, who swept out the shop of a morning and ran the errands, was entitled to demand a half share of all his master's profits; and these damnable heresies, they said, they were determined to enforce in future. So you may easily conceive the taking in which all people were on the estate who had a Sunday's suit of clothes, a stick of furniture, or, mayhap, a bag of money. In short, matters proceeded from bad to worse, and at last became so intolerable that three or four of the old servants, who had contrived to keep a garret to themselves, sent for one Budge, who had been chief constable in Philip Baboon's time, and told him plainly that, unless he could assist them in turning out this villanous crew, everything must necessarily go to wreck and ruin. Budge was an old soldier, who had seen service--a devilish determined kind of fellow when he took any job in hand, and not at all in the habit of sticking at trifles. It was more than whispered that, if Philip Baboon had not lost head altogether at the first brush, but been capable of giving orders, Budge would have stood by him; and such was his influence over the police that there is no saying what might have been the result. As it was, he heard them to the end without uttering a word, and then, taking the pipe from his mouth, and knocking out the ashes on the hob, he delivered himself in the following oracular fashion:-- "Harkye, mounseers! If so be as how you want the job done, and them raff utterly scomfished, I'm the man that can do it. The force will stick to me, because I sticks to the force. Moreover, they knows by this time that there ain't no chance of their getting their pay so long as this shindy is allowed. They're ready, and I'm ready. Only this--I is to be allowed to do as I likes. I takes my orders from you, and them orders is to be, that I may shoot, hang, or blow up every scoundrel who stands in my way. Them's my terms; and the sooner you puts it down on black and white the better!"