"This was accordingly done, the bond signed, and the money handed over; and M'Flummery shook hands with my master, saying,
"'Snaps, you are a cunning fellow!'
"'Oh! my dear sir,' said my master, attempting to blush,—a feat, by the way, he never accomplished during his life that I know of.
"'But I recollect,' continued M'Flummery, 'an old fisherman telling me, when I was a boy, that, deep as some fishes were in the sea, there were always others that swam just as deep. Good-b'ye, old Shylock! you shall have your bond.' So saying, he left.
"I confess, this curious remark so astonished me that I quite forgot at the moment to ask for the fare of the coach. My master also seemed struck with the observation.
"'What can he mean?' said Snaps; 'surely there is nothing wrong? Pooh! pooh! impossible! There is the chest, and possession is nine points of the law.'
"'The first of the maxims, sir,' said I."
Here Pounce paused, filled his pipe, and emptied his tumbler of grog into that depository where grog had gone in goes for years and years.
"Well!" said the president, "may I be spiflicated,—ay, and exspiflicated,—if you have not been humbugging us, Pounce, with a pretty piece of bam! What the deuce has all that you have said to do with the fact of the gentleman being hanged?"
"Everything," cried Pounce.