The new supply arriving, he took the cup from his servant's hand;
and saying, with a charming affability, 'I am obliged to you, Peak,'
dismissed him.
'It is a remarkable circumstance,' he mused, dallying lazily with the
teaspoon, 'that my friend the madman should have been within an ace of
escaping, on his trial; and it was a good stroke of chance (or, as the
world would say, a providential occurrence) that the brother of my Lord
Mayor should have been in court, with other country justices, into whose
very dense heads curiosity had penetrated. For though the brother of my
Lord Mayor was decidedly wrong; and established his near relationship
to that amusing person beyond all doubt, in stating that my friend
was sane, and had, to his knowledge, wandered about the country with a
vagabond parent, avowing revolutionary and rebellious sentiments; I am
not the less obliged to him for volunteering that evidence. These insane
creatures make such very odd and embarrassing remarks, that they really
ought to be hanged for the comfort of society.'
The country justice had indeed turned the wavering scale against poor
Barnaby, and solved the doubt that trembled in his favour.
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