“Happy to see you, Mr. Clink,” said he. “I have been anxious to meet with you now for some time past. If I am not mistaken, you are the same gentleman who did me the honour to climb the wall of my premises by night, a while ago?”
“The very same, sir,” replied Colin.
“Ah!—indeed! Well, that's plain, at all events. You hear that, Mr. Lupton?”
The Squire assumed an air of astonishment at the scene before him, in order to encourage the Doctor in what appeared likely to prove a somewhat ludicrous mistake. It was evident he fancied he had unexpectedly got Colin “on the hip,” and was drawing from him a confession of his guilt before the very face of a witness and a magistrate; while the well-played expression of Mr. Lupton's countenance tended powerfully to confirm the notion.
“But, sir,” said the Doctor, very blandly addressing the last-named gentleman, “you have business with me, which I will not interrupt. Only, as I have a serious charge to make against this young gentleman, and have most unexpectedly met with him here—”
“I beg by all means you will proceed,” objected the Squire; “and be assured, if you have any charge to make against him, I shall most gladly hear it; for I have taken him into my confidence, in consequence of certain good qualities which seemed to be displayed in him. And if I am deceived—”
“Sir,” said the Doctor, gravely, “I deeply fear you are. You know who he is, of course?”
“Why, sir, who is he?” demanded Mr. Lupton, with feigned amazement.
“Who is he, sir! I 'll tell you, sir, who he is. That young man, sir,—he, sir,—he is neither more nor less, sir, than the son of a little huckster woman in your own village, sir. I know it for a fact; for I attended his mother myself.”
“And what then, Doctor?”