"I don't see anything to laugh at," said Mr. Skinner, looking still more solemn and black than was his wont. "Possibly there is a case for a 'statarium.' As for me, I don't think it is your old gipsy, but if——"
"If it is not Peti," cried Akosh, laughing; "if that fellow dares to sport a white skin, there is not, of course, any obstacle to his being hanged."
"Enough of this! who says the fellow yonder is not a gipsy? but I say, who knows whether that old rascal, whom you mistake for an innocent musician——?"
"Has not masqueraded as a gipsy all along! But you will bring the truth to light. You, Skinner, will skin the culprit. You'll strip him of his brown hide; you'll show the world that Viola the great robber is identical with Peti the gipsy."
"Don't make a fool of me, sir! I won't suffer it!" cried the justice, whose pipe had gone out with the excess of his rage. "Paul Skinner is not the man whom you can fool, I can tell you! But never mind; who knows what that fellow Peti has done all his life besides brick-making? and I apprehend that if he set out with being a hangman, he'll end with being a hanged man."
This said, the justice lighted his pipe, muttering his imprecations against untimely jokes and bad tinder.
Poor Peti had meanwhile proceeded to a distance of five hundred yards from the Turk's Hill; and so great was the good man's natural politeness, that even at that distance he bowed to the party on the hill. Little did he know the intensity of Paul Skinner's rage; but the first words of the worthy magistrate showed him that it was an evil hour, indeed, in which he had come before his judge.
"Hast at last gone into the snare, thou precious bird?" thundered Skinner. "Never mind, you old rascal! never mind! I'll pay you, and with a vengeance, too!"
"Most sublime——" sighed the wretched musician; but the justice, unmindful of this appeal to his better feelings, continued:—
"Hold your tongue! I know all! all, I tell you. And if you will not confess, I'll freshen your memory!"