SQUIRE.--"Unoffending! Upset me amidst a thistle-bed in my own village green. I remember it. Well, what did he say _had_ become of the donkey?" PARSON.--"He said but one word; but that showed all the vindictiveness of his disposition. He said it with a horrid wink, that made my blood run cold. 'What's become of your poor donkey?' said I, and he answered--" SQUIRE.--"Go on. He answered--" PARSON.--"'Sausages.'" SQUIRE.--"Sausages! Like enough; and sold to the poor; and that's what the poor will come to if they listen to such revolutionizing villains. Sausages! Donkey sausages!--(spitting)--'Tis as bad as eating one another; perfect cannibalism." Leonard, who had been thrown into grave thought by the history of Sprott and the village genius, now pressing the Parson's hand, asked permission to wait on him before Mr. Dale quitted London; and was about to withdraw, when the Parson, gently detaining him, said, "No; don't leave me yet, Leonard--I have so much to ask you, and to talk about. I shall be at leisure shortly. We are just now going to call on a relation of the Squire's, whom you must recollect, I am sure--Captain Higginbotham--Barnabas Higginbotham. He is very poorly." "And I am sure he would take it kind in you to call, too," said the Squire, with great good-nature. LEONARD.--"Nay, sir, would not that be a great liberty?" SQUIRE.--"Liberty! To ask a poor sick gentleman how he is? Nonsense. And I say, sir, perhaps, as no doubt you have been living in town, and know more of new-fangled notions than I do--perhaps you can tell us whether or not it is all humbug, that new way of doctoring people?" "What new way, sir? There are so many." "Are there? Folks in London _do_ look uncommonly sickly. But my poor cousin (he was never a Solomon) has got hold, he says, of a homely--homely--what's the word, Parson?" PARSON.--"Homoeopathist." SQUIRE.--"That's it. You see the Captain went to live with one Sharpe Currie, a relation who had a great deal of money, and very little liver;--made the one, and left much of the other in Ingee, you understand. The Captain had _expectations_ of the money. Very natural, I dare say; but, Lord, sir! what do you think has happened? Sharpe Currie has done him! Would not die, sir; got back his liver, and the Captain has lost his own. Strangest thing you ever heard. And then the ungrateful old Nabob has dismissed the Captain, saying, 'He can't bear to have invalids about him;' and is going to marry, and I have no doubt will have children by the dozen!"