"Must you? Of course you must," answered Smithers. "Why, what the devil are you snivelling at now? I'd wager a crown to a brass farthin' that there's many a young nobleman who'd give fifty pounds to be able to do it. Look how they hire the winders opposite Newgate! Lord bless their souls, it does me good to think that the aristocracy and gentry patronises hanging as well as the other fine arts. What would become of the executioners if they didn't? Why—the legislature would abolish capital punishment at once." Gibbet clasped his hands together, and raised his eyes in an imploring manner, as much as to say, "Oh! how I wish they would!" Fortunately for him, his father did not perceive this expression of emotion, for the executioner had approached the candle to the model-gallows, and was now busily occupied in arranging the figure for his son's practice. "I'll tell you who are the patrons of my business—profession, I mean," continued the executioner; "and if you had a grain of feeling for your father, you'd go down on your knees night and morning and pray for them. The old Tories and the Clergy are my friends; and, thank God! I'm a stanch Tory, too. I hate changes. What have changes done? Why swept away the good old laws that used to hang a man for stealing anything above forty shillings. Ah! George the Third was the best king we ever had! He used to tuck 'em up—three, four, five, six—aye, seven at once! Folks may well talk of the good old times—when an executioner could make his twenty or thirty guineas of a morning! I'd sooner take two guineas for each man under such an excellent system, than have the ten pounds as I do now." While Smithers was thus talking, he had lowered the figure until it stood upon the drop. He then took off the halter; but the puppet still retained its upright position, because it was well stiffened and had heavy plates of lead fastened to the soles of its feet. "Now what a cry the rascally radical Sunday papers make against the people they call the _saints_," continued Smithers, as he unfastened the cord which pinioned the arms of the puppet; "and yet those very _saints_ are the ones that are most in favour of punishment of death. For my part, I adore the _saints_—I do. When Fitzmorris Shelley brought forward his measure to do away with capital penalty, didn't Dinglis and Cherrytree and all those pious men make a stand against him? And don't they know what's right and proper? Of course they do! Ah! I never read so much of House of Commons' business before, as I did then:—but I was in a precious fright, it's true. I thought of calling a public meeting of all the executioners in the kingdom to petition Parliament against the measure; but I didn't do it—because the House of Commons might have thought that we was interested."