‘What’s the use of shooting wide of the mark, eh, old boy!’ cried Hugh.
‘My sentiments all over!’ rejoined the hangman. ‘This is the sort of chap for my division, Muster Gashford. Down with him, sir. Put him on the roll. I’d stand godfather to him, if he was to be christened in a bonfire, made of the ruins of the Bank of England.’
With these and other expressions of confidence of the like flattering kind, Mr Dennis gave him a hearty slap on the back, which Hugh was not slow to return.
‘No Popery, brother!’ cried the hangman.
‘No Property, brother!’ responded Hugh.
‘Popery, Popery,’ said the secretary with his usual mildness.
‘It’s all the same!’ cried Dennis. ‘It’s all right. Down with him, Muster Gashford. Down with everybody, down with everything! Hurrah for the Protestant religion! That’s the time of day, Muster Gashford!’
The secretary regarded them both with a very favourable expression of countenance, while they gave loose to these and other demonstrations of their patriotic purpose; and was about to make some remark aloud, when Dennis, stepping up to him, and shading his mouth with his hand, said, in a hoarse whisper, as he nudged him with his elbow:
‘Don’t split upon a constitutional officer’s profession, Muster Gashford. There are popular prejudices, you know, and he mightn’t like it. Wait till he comes to be more intimate with me. He’s a fine-built chap, an’t he?’
‘A powerful fellow indeed!’