"If half what I've heard is true, Merry Down is as good as gone. The fellow means to have it, and he's rich enough to buy the county itself. Short of assassination, I don't see what anybody can do. Of course, if you like, you can reproduce him in wax and then stick pins into the image. But that's very old-fashioned, and renders you liable to cremation without the option of a fine. Besides, as a magistrate, I feel it my bounden duty to——"
"I thought witchcraft and witches were out of date," said Adèle.
"Not at all," said Berry. "Only last week we bound one over for discussing the housing question with a wart-hog. The animal, which, till then, had been laying steadily, became unsettled and suspicious and finally attacked an inoffensive Stilton with every circumstance of barbarity."
"How awful!" said Adèle. "You do see life as a magistrate, don't you? And I suppose somebody kissed the wart-hog, and it turned into a French count? You know, it's a shame about you."
Berry looked round.
"Mocked," he said. "And at my own table. With her small mouth crammed with food, for which I shall be called upon to pay, she actually——"
"O-o-oh!" cried Adèle. "It wasn't. Besides, you shouldn't have asked me."
"I can only say," said Berry, "that I am surprised and pained. From the bosom of my family I, as the head, naturally expect nothing but the foulest scurrility and derision. But when a comparative stranger, whom, with characteristic generosity, I have made free of my heart, seizes a moment which should have been devoted to the mastication of one of my peaches to vilify her host, then indeed I feel almost unsexed—I mean unmanned. Are my veins standing out like cords?"
"Only on your nose," said I. "All gnarled, that is."
"There you are," said Berry. "The slow belly reviles the sage. The——"