Here occurred the great _tour de force_ in manners of ’Squire Timms. Considerately turning his person quartering towards his host, and seizing himself by the nose, much as if he had a quarrel with that member of his face, he blowed a blast that sounded sonorously, and which fulfilled all that it promised. Now a better mannered man than Dunscomb it would not be easy to find. He was not particularly distinguished for elegance of deportment, but he was perfectly well-bred. Nevertheless, he did not flinch before this broad hint from vulgarity, but stood it unmoved. To own the truth, so large has been the inroad from the base of society, within the last five-and-twenty years, on the habits of those who once exclusively dwelt together, that he had got hardened even to _this_ innovation. The fact is not to be concealed, and, as we intend never to touch upon the subject again, we shall say distinctly that Mr. Timms blowed his nose with his fingers, and that, in so doing, he did not innovate one half as much, to-day, on the usages of the Upper Ten Thousand, as he would have done had he blowed his nose with his thumb only, a quarter of a century since. Dunscomb bore this infliction philosophically; and well he might, for there was no remedy. Waiting for Timms to use his handkerchief, which was produced somewhat tardily for such an operation, he quietly opened the subject of their interview. “So the grand jury has actually found a bill for murder and arson, my nephew writes me,” Dunscomb observed, looking enquiringly at his companion, as if really anxious for further intelligence. “Unanimously, they tell me, Mr. Dunscomb,” answered Timms. “I understand that only one man hesitated, and he was brought round before they came into court. That piece of money damns our case in old Duke’s.” “Money saves more cases than it damns, Timms; and no one knows it better than yourself.” “Very true, sir. Money may defy even the new code. Give me five hundred dollars, and change the proceedings to a civil action, and I’ll carry anything in my own county that you’ll put on the calendar, barring some twenty or thirty jurors I could name. There _are_ about thirty men in the county that I can do nothing with—for that matter, whom I dare not approach.” “How the deuce is it, Timms, that you manage your causes with so much success? for I remember you have given me a good deal of trouble in suits in which law and fact were both clearly enough on my side.” “I suppose those must have been causes in which we ‘horse-shedded’ and ‘pillowed’ a good deal.” “Horse-shedded and pillowed! Those are legal terms of which I have no knowledge!” “They are country phrases, sir, and country customs too, for that matter. A man might practise a long life in town, and know nothing about them. The Halls of Justice are not immaculate; but they can tell us nothing of horse-shedding and pillowing. They do business in a way of which we in the country are just as ignorant as you are of our mode.”