"What! whatever my political opinions may be?"
"You must poll for his lordship's candidate."
"This is infamous, oppressive, tyrannical!"
"Perhaps you may think so. Your politics, as you say, may differ from those of his lordship, but his lordship must be in the right. Primò, he is lord of the manor; secundò, his property in the county is very considerable; and, ergo, he has a better right to know what is good for the people than a mere tenant."
"But, sir, he has no right—"
"Once more, sir, every one has a right to do what he likes with his own."
"Then, let me tell you, sir," replied Mr. Cannon, in a paroxysm of rage, "that there cudgel is my own, and suppose I knocked you down with it? This here foot is my own, and suppose I kicked you out of my house, Mr. Thingembob?"
"In that case," replied Carrydot, with a tranquillity which would have made Job himself smash all his crockery,—"In that case, sir, if you made use of that there cudgel, as you call it, the law would soon make you cut your stick; and if you did make the aforesaid use of that there foot, unless you took leg-bail, you should pay dearly for the experiment."
So saying, Mr. Carrydot took an enormous pinch of snuff, clapped on his broad beaver with forensic dignity, pulled up his coat-sleeves still higher with a twisting thrust of the hand, ready for anything—as the Irish say—from pitch-and-toss to manslaughter, and bidding Cannon, in a vulgar language unbecoming a solicitor, to prepare "to tip his rags a gallop by roast-goose time," which in the dignified metaphorical phraseology of the bar meaneth Michaelmas, he left Commodus Cannon to his deep reflections.
He was roused from this apathetic state by the entrance of Mrs. Cannon. "Well, sir?" said she, in an anxious tone. "Well, sir?"