It happened about this time, that a poor old man, to whom Buckhurst Falconer had given that puppy which his brother John had so bitterly regretted, came to Mr. Percy to complain that the dog had brought him into great trouble. The puppy had grown into a dog, and of this the old man had forgotten to give notice to the tax-gatherer. Mr. Percy perceiving clearly that the man had no design to defraud, and pitying him for having thus, by his ignorance or carelessness, subjected himself to the heavy penalty of ten pounds, which, without selling his only cow, he was unable to pay, advised him to state the simple fact in a petition, and Mr. Percy promised to transmit this petition to government, with a memorial against the tax-gatherer, who had been accused, in many instances, of oppressive and corrupt conduct. He had hitherto defied all complainants, because he was armed strong in law by an attorney who was his near relation--an attorney of the name of Sharpe, whose cunning and skill in the doubles and mazes of his profession, and whose active and vindictive temper had rendered him the terror of the neighbourhood. Not only the poor but the rich feared him, for he never failed to devise means of revenging himself wherever he was offended. He one morning waited on Mr. Percy, to speak to him about the memorial, which, he understood, Mr. Percy was drawing up against Mr. Bates, the tax-gatherer. “Perhaps, Mr. Percy,” said he, “you don’t know that Mr. Bates is my near relation?” Mr. Percy replied, that he had not known it; but that now that he did, he could not perceive how that altered the business; as he interfered, not from any private motive, but from a sense of public justice, which made him desire to remove a person from a situation for which he had shown himself utterly unfit. Mr. Sharpe smiled a malicious smile, and declared that, for his part, he did not pretend to be a reformer of abuses: he thought, in the present times, that gentlemen who wished well to their king and the peace of the country ought not to be forward to lend their names to popular discontents, and should not embarrass government with petty complaints. Gentlemen could never foresee where such things would end, and therefore, in the _existing circumstances_, they ought surely to endeavour to strengthen, instead of weakening, the hands of government. To this commonplace _cant_, by which all sorts of corruption and all public delinquents might be screened, and by which selfishness and fraud hope to pass for loyalty and love of the peace of the country, Mr. Percy did not attempt, or rather did not deign, any reply.