‘Hush!’ said the secretary, suffering the faintest smile to play upon his face. ‘Hush! God bless me, Dennis! We associate, you know, for strictly peaceable and lawful purposes.’
‘I know, bless you,’ returned the man, thrusting his tongue into his cheek; ‘I entered a’ purpose, didn’t I!’
‘No doubt,’ said Gashford, smiling as before. And when he said so, Dennis roared again, and smote his leg still harder, and falling into fits of laughter, wiped his eyes with the corner of his neckerchief, and cried, ‘Muster Gashford agin’ all England hollow!’
‘Lord George and I were talking of you last night,’ said Gashford, after a pause. ‘He says you are a very earnest fellow.’
‘So I am,’ returned the hangman.
‘And that you truly hate the Papists.’
‘So I do,’ and he confirmed it with a good round oath. ‘Lookye here, Muster Gashford,’ said the fellow, laying his hat and stick upon the floor, and slowly beating the palm of one hand with the fingers of the other; ‘Ob-serve. I’m a constitutional officer that works for my living, and does my work creditable. Do I, or do I not?’
‘Unquestionably.’
‘Very good. Stop a minute. My work, is sound, Protestant, constitutional, English work. Is it, or is it not?’
‘No man alive can doubt it.’