"This ain't Sunday, sir; there ain't no service here to-day."
"I don't suppose there is," replied the magistrate; "but I see you have workmen here. What is it you are about?"
"Well, of all the impudence that ever I came near, this is the worstest—to ask a beadle what he is about; I beg to say, sir, this is quite private, and there's the door."
"Yes, I see it, and you may go out at it just as soon as you think proper."
"Oh, conwulsions! oh, conwulsions! This to a beadle."
"What is all this about?" said a gentlemanly-looking man, stepping forward from a part of the church where several masons were employed in raising some of the huge flag-stones with which it was paved. "What disturbance is this?"
"I believe, Mr. Antrobus, you know me," said the magistrate.
"Oh, Sir Richard, certainly. How do you do?"
"Gracious," said the beadle, "I've put my blessed foot in it. Lor' bless us, sir, how should I know as you was Sir Richard? I begs as you won't think nothing o' what I said. If I had a knowed you, in course I shouldn't have said it, you may depend, Sir Richard—I humbly begs your pardon."
"It's of no consequence—I ought to have announced myself; and you are perfectly justified in keeping strangers out of the church, my friend."