“Is that it, James?” he asked, while the magistrate inspected the cornice of the room.
“Nay, if ye will come in like that——”
“Does he mean Cope’s trafficking wi’ Ford magistrates and leaving ours alone?”
“Why won’t ye leave John to me?”
“No need; it’s plain enough. We’ve been looking west instead o’ east, that’s all.” (The magistrate nodded, and immediately seemed to doze, nodding again twice or thrice.) “There’s the Gazette at the clogger’s, with its pigeons and creeping about and all that, that’s all west; and east, there’s them I warned ye o’ before, that’ll ha’ nothing to do with us, and Ford, and a Ford magistrate’s clerk i’ Horwick.—His legs don’t amount to much, but he can get letters, and sit in the ‘Pipes’ all ears, and set fools sniggering with his ‘La, Mr. Monjoy!’”
“Well, let me get what I can out o’ John.”
“Ay, let’s have the clever work.”
Eastwood rose, set his hand for a moment to the crack of the door, and returned to Emmason.
“Ye’re wrong, John; it’s from the door, not the window. Come and sit between us,” he said.
The magistrate took the wool from his ears and changed his place, and while the others rested their elbows on the table he leaned back between them. Eastwood began the farce slowly.