"Do you mean Mr. Culver or M. Gaubion, good woman?" asked an impartial examiner. "Same's he they call Mounseer Go-be-hung," Tom called out from behind. "What, this gentleman?" and they made way for the Frenchman to show himself. At the sight of him, Tom reddened prodigiously, and poked over his work as if his life depended on his weaving half a yard an hour. "What are you ashamed of, all in a moment?" asked one of the visitors. "I am afraid you had some hand in the riots the other night, like many an idle boy. Come, tell me; do not you like to light a bonfire?" "Indeed I can't say that my Tom is any thing better than a middling boy," observed Mrs. Ellis. "Would you believe it, gentlemen, he left his work a full quarter of an hour sooner than he had leave to do, the night of the riot; and when he came home, the skin was off the palm of his hand as clean as if it had been peeled, and he has never had the grace to seem sorry for it." "Indeed, I don't know who should be sorry for such a misfortune, if he is not," observed a visitor, gravely. "Come, Tom, tell me how it happened. You had been pulling down shutters, or pulling up palings, I am afraid." "I hadn't though," said Tom, attempting to set the treadles going, but being instantly deprived by his mother of his shuttle. "Then I doubt you helped to carry the gibbet, and hang the effigy?" "I didn't though," answered Tom. "Who hurt your hand so, then? It must have been somebody in a great passion." "No, 'twarnt; I got it done myself." "Well, I wonder at your taste. I would always keep a whole skin, if I could." Tom pulled his forelock respectfully, and went on with his work, his mother shaking her head, as if she thought his case desperate. Other people's leaving off speaking to him was the signal for M. Gaubion to begin. "I think I saw you, Tom, the night of the riot." Tom looked up. "Was it not you that cut the rope, and tried to drag the effigy away?" Tom nodded. "What did you do next? I was obliged to go from the window then." "So you _war_ there! I jist crinkle-crankled myself up in the rope, so that they couldn't burn you without me too." "But they did not burn you, I hope?" "Jist singed a bit; no more. This," pointing to his hand, "comed of a great nail in the gibbet, that gived me a good hould as long as it lasted." "So you pulled it out." "We split the gibbet's self 'mong us; and then 'twar all over with me, and I comed home directly then." "Why did not you stay to see the sight, when once you found you could not help its going forward?" "They put me in a rare passion, 'mong 'em; and I didn't want to see nought of their sights." "What were you in a passion about? What had you to do with it?" To this question no answer was to be got, but instead thereof an inquiry. "For all they say, you won't think of going away for sich as they? They'll come round, when they see you don't go off in a huff."