This was a watch-house charge, and appeared to have originated thus:--Mr. Leonard lodges in the house of Mr. Reid, and like most of his countrymen of the like class, he is given to imbibing more beer than his brains will bear. This seems to have been the case with him on Saturday night, for he came home at a most unseasonable hour, and because Mr. Reid would not get up and light a candle for him, he most unconscionably threatened to fracture his skull, break his back, and put his nose out of joint. Now Mr. Reid is a quiet, harmless, little man, and, being at that time warm and comfortable in his bed, he thought it best to lie still and take no notice. But Mrs. Reid--knowing Ted Leonard's furious propensities, and fearing he would really attempt to do some one or other of those things he had mentioned--got up to remonstrate with him; and in so doing she was rudely pushed about by Ted Leonard, who talked of the liberties he ought to be allowed as a lodger. The d----l a bit he cared for the whole house put together, he said; and, if it was not for the trouble of it, he would make every man and woman in the place fly out of the top of the chimney! And still he kept calling upon poor Mr. Reid to get up and have his nose put out of joint; and he made such a tremendous hubbub, not only in the house, but in the whole neighbourhood, that at last, by common consent, he was sent off to the watch-house. The poor woman was either so unwell, or so much agitated, whilst she was telling this story, that the magistrate ordered her a chair, and Mr. Reid himself was pale as death with fear! but nevertheless they both said they had no wish to proceed in the business--all they wanted was to be allowed to sleep more quietly in future. As for Teddy Leonard himself, he seemed perfectly at his ease, though he was in wretched case for so high-spirited a person! His principal garment had doubtless done good service to at least a dozen proprietors in succession, his inexpressibles (drab _slacks_) were napless, grease-spotted, and ventilated at the knees; and he had only one shoe--but then he had plenty of black eyes, and his large small-pox-indented cheeks were very handsomely overlaid with a fret-work of scratches. When Mr. and Mrs. Reid had said all that they had to say, he never attempted to reply; but stood lounging against the bar, sucking his teeth and twirling his hat, until the magistrate called upon him for his defence, and thereupon ensued the following colloquy:-- "What have you to say to all this, Mr. Leonard?" "Humph, I don't know! they've served me pretty tidy going along, I think, punching at me with their shilaleghs as they would at a woolsack!" "Perhaps you did not go along quietly?" "No, 'faith, I wasn't likely, for I was thinking of going to bed at that time; and there's no fun in being pulled away to a watch-house when a man's thinking of going to bed." "What are you? what is your trade?" "My trade?--why I'm a tailor--the more's my luck!"