Mr. Longstaff mistook this last observation, and interpreted it as a compliment to his own beauty; he therefore felt himself bound to repeat his previously intended observation, and accordingly began, “You flat--” but for the third time was prevented giving utterance to it, through the interruption of Squire Lupton. “I 'll tell you what, Longstaff,--the thing is here. A little secresy and a little manoeuvring are just what's required. If you can _Talleyrand_ it a little,--you understand me?” And the squire eked out his meaning with a certain jerk upwards of the head more significant than words, but which when dimly translated into English, seemed to mean as much as the mysterious popular phrase, “that's your ticket.” He then drank a bumper, and, pushing the bottle to Longstaff, waited in seeming anxiety half a minute before he filled again. “Well, Longstaff, magistrate as I am, and bound, of course, to carry the law, while it is law, into execution, I must say this,--and I speak from my own observation and experience, as you well know,--while the members of the British Legislature allow that clause of the forty-third of Elizabeth to remain upon the statute-books, they do not do their duty as legislators either to man, woman, or child.” A loud thump on the table, accompanied with corresponding emphasis of speech, made the word _child_ sound a great deal bigger than either man or woman. The squire then went on,--“Look at the effect of it, Longstaff. Any man,--I myself,--you,--any of us, or all of us,--are liable at any time to have fathered upon us a thing, a brat,--any tinkers whelp that ever was bred, very likely in Cumberland or Cornwall, or a thousand miles off,--though, in point of fact, you or I had no more acquaintance with that child's mother--no, no more than we had with Donna Maria! Now mark, Longstaff. You know I've been something of a teazer in the course of my time to people of that sort. I've made them pay for their whistle, as Franklin says, pretty smartly. Well, what is the consequence?--what ensues? Why, just this. After I've ferreted out some of the worst of them, and put them, as I thought, upon better manners,--the very next time anything of the kind happens again, they lay their heads together, and have the audacious impudence,--the rascality, as I may call it,--the--the--the abominable--However, I should say, to--to go before the overseers of the parish, and persist in swearing every child, without exception, every one, girl and boy,--to _me_. Now, Longstaff, I dare say you have heard reports of this kind in the course of your acquaintance with one person or another, though I never mentioned a word about it before. Don't you think it a shame, a disgrace to the Parliament of Elizabeth that passed that law, that all county magistrates were not personally and especially _excepted_ from the operation of that clause?--and that it was not rendered a misdemeanour, punishable by imprisonment or the stocks, for any woman,