"Oh, every man has his price," rejoined Mr. Radford, whose opinion of human nature, as the reader may have perceived, was not particularly high. "It's only because he wants to be bid up to. Mr. Mowle thinks himself above five or ten pounds; but the chink of a hundred guineas is a very pleasant sound." "He's as honest a fellow as ever lived," answered Harding, "and I tell you plainly, Mr. Radford, that if you offered him ten times the sum, he wouldn't take it. You would only shew him that this venture is not your grand one, without doing yourself the least good. He's a fair, open enemy, and lets every one know that, as long as he's a riding-officer here, he will do all he can against us." "Then he must be knocked on the head," said Mr. Radford, in a calm and deliberate tone; "and it shall be done, too, if he meddles with my affairs." "It will not be I who do it," replied Harding; "unless we come hand to hand together. Then, every man must take care of himself; but I should be very sorry, notwithstanding; for he's a straightforward, bold fellow, as brave as a lion, and with a good heart into the bargain. I wonder such an honest man ever went into such a rascally service." The last observation of our friend Harding may perhaps sound strangely to the reader's ears; but some allowance must be made for professional prejudices, and it is by no means too much to say that the smugglers of those days, and even of a much later period, looked upon their own calling as highly honest, honourable, and respectable, regarding the Customs as a most fraudulent and abominable institution, and all connected with it more or less in the light of a band of swindlers and knaves, leagued together for the purpose of preventing honest men from pursuing their avocations in peace. Such were the feelings which induced Harding to wonder that so good a man as Mowle could have anything to do with the prevention of smuggling; for he was so thoroughly convinced he was in the right himself, that he could not conceive how any one could see the case in any other point of view. "Ay," answered Mr. Radford, "that is a wonder, if he is such a good sort of man; but that I doubt. However, as you say it would not do to put oneself in his power, I'll have him looked after, and in the meanwhile, let us talk of the rest of the business. You say the night after to-morrow, or the night after that! I must know, however; for the men must be down. How are we to arrange that?"