Mrs. L. He’s out, Mr. Butts. What is the matter?
Butts. Matter! What should be the matter, when a set of jackanapes are allowed to roam through the village, pillaging, burning, and insulting? I won’t have it: the law shall be respected.
Mrs. L. Burning and pillaging! Why, Mr. Butts, have any of our young gentlemen been engaged in such disreputable proceedings?
Butts. Worse than that, marm. Worse than that. I’m disgusted with seminaries. If I could have my way, there shouldn’t be any thing like a school in the land.
Mrs. L. Then I’m very glad you do not have your way. What is the cause of complaint now?
Butts. The majesty of the law has been outraged; and I, as the representative of the law, have been insulted. Those rascals of yours have been at their pranks. Going to my office this morning, I found a crowd of the rag, tag, and bobtail of the village gathered about it, hooting and yelling at some object in the window. Madam, imagine my indignation when I found that object to be a stuffed figure wrapped in my dressing-gown, with a foolscap on its head, and labelled “Jonathan Wild Butts, Thief-taker,”—seated in my arm-chair too, at the open window. Think of that, marm!—an outrage, a diabolical outrage, upon justice!
Mrs L. Who could have done it?
Butts. You ask that, marm?—you who have lived for ten years in this den of iniquity, this nursery of roguery, this incubating machine of vice? Who did it?—why, Dr. Harlem’s pupils, of course.
Lucy. Why, Mr. Butts! They’re all gone except Fred Hastings and Bob Winders.