It was remarkable how the fact that I was a justice of the peace as well as himself affected his demeanour. He developed a sudden affability towards me, and used a special tone in which to address me. He discovered such a respect for my opinion, showed so many marks of his consideration for me, and generally endeavoured to ingratiate himself into my esteem in a way that allowed it to be clearly understood that to his mind the office of a magistrate had lifted me at once out of the ruck of common men. I was one who, like himself, had been as it were initiated into the Eleusinian mysteries. My look, my lightest word, was to him of vastly more importance than even the business he had come upon. Indeed he was quite overjoyed to find himself in the society of a person who was of his own rank in life, and one with whom he might converse without imperilling his own uneasy dignity. It was delightful to observe how my presence unfitted him to pay the slightest attention to any one other than myself. He could hardly bring himself to address the innkeeper or his attendants in the presence of a brother magistrate. And to such an extent was he worked upon that even the business that had brought him thither paled into insignificance before so felicitous a meeting. After a full five minutes had been spent on his affable reception of me, and he had repeated again and again how pleased and honoured he was to meet me; and he had asked me how long I had been in the commission, and had told me how long he had been in it, and how long his father had been in it before him; with other matters of the first importance, and all mightily pertinent to the robbery of the royal mail, one of his men had the temerity to make a suggestion. "Begging your honour's pardon," says he, politely touching his hat, "but what does your honour think we had better do, seeing as how the man don't seem to be here?" "Do," says the squire, taking him up angrily. "Burn me, was there ever such insolence? Are you not aware that I am at present engaged with your betters, and yet you have the damnable impertinence to ask me what you shall do." "But the highwayman, if you please, your honour," says the other, who was rather a stubborn fellow. "Oh, the highwayman," says the squire. "How dare you intrude a person of that low character when I am engaged with a brother magistrate? Let the highwayman go to the devil too." "In short," says I, reading the squire's disposition, "you can all go to the devil, the sooner the better. Do you think the meeting of two gentlemen can be disturbed by such a petty matter? I am about to ask the honour of the company of my brother justice over a bottle. Landlord, have the goodness to bring up some more of your excellent Burgundy, and also do us the service of sending these dirty rascals about their business. There are no highwaymen here, and if there were, do you suppose that gentlemen are to be put to inconvenience by them?"