"Will he?" said the magistrate, "but I will take care he does not; for unless something is agreed upon before he leaves this office, I will commit him to prison; and then we shall see how he will manage to leave the country."
The professor asked ten thousand pardons for offending his worship; and begged to observe that madame could earn seventeen shillings a-week for herself, by her own hands.
Madame replied, that it was hat binding to which the professor alluded; but she was sorry to say, she was not so far accomplished in it at present, as to be able to earn half that money.
After some further conversation, it was agreed that six shillings a-week should be the stipulated allowance; but then the parish must be indemnified.
The professor said there was not the least danger that Mons. Flament would run away—
"Then why did you threaten that he would?" asked the magistrate.
"I did not mean, Sare, that he should leave the country—the England," replied the professor, "only this town, Sare—that he should go out—into—the country, is all what I mean."
The magistrate observed, that it was not the custom in this country to say one thing and mean another—
"Vera true—your worship," replied the smiling professor with a low bow—"but John Bull say many things he does not mean, for all that."
His worship smiled also, and did not take the trouble of refuting the slander; and the matter ended in the professor and another friend of Mons. Flament becoming sureties to the parish on his behalf.