t deal with grave matters after supper," said the Justice. "Come
again in the morning. Take a pear."

"Sir, this is a serious business."

"Business hours are over. I never do business out of hours."

"To-night, Master Roberts, and to-night only, shall serve for this
business."

"I do no business out of hours!" solemnly repeated the officer of the
law. "Take a pear--take two pears, and come again in the morning."

Mr Benden shook his head in a tragic manner, and let the pears alone.

"They are good pears," said the Justice. "If you love no pears, put one
in your pocket with my commendations to good Mistress Benden. How doth
she?--well, I hope."

"Were I able, Sir," replied the visitor impressively, "to bear your
commendations to good Mistress Benden, I were the happier man. But,
alas! I am not at that pass."

"What, come you hither to complain of your wife? Fie, Master Benden!
Go you home and peace her, like a wise man as you are, and cast her half
a suffering for some woman's gear."

Mr Benden might most truthfully have made reply that he had ere that
evening bestowed on his wife not half a suffering only, but many whole
ones: but he knew that the Justice meant half a sovereign, which was
then pronounced exactly like suffering.

"Sir!" he said rather angrily, "it pleases you to reckon lightly of this
matter: but what, I pray you, if you have to make account thereon with
the Queen's Grace's laws, not to speak of holy Church? Sir, I give you
to wit that my wife is an ill hussy, and an heretic belike, and lacketh
a sharp pulling up--sharper than I can give her. She will not go to
church, neither hear mass, nor hath she shriven her this many a day.
You are set in office, methinks, to administer the laws, and have no
right thus to shuffle off your duty by hours and minutes. I summon you
to perform it in this case."

Mr Justice Roberts was grave enough now. The half-lazy, half-jocose
tone which he had hitherto worn was cast aside entirely, and the
expression of his face grew almost stern. But the sternness was not all
for the culprit thus arraigned before him; much of it was for the
prosecutor. He was both shocked and disgusted with the course Mr
Benden had taken: which course is not fiction, but fact.

"Master Benden," said he, "I am two men--the Queen's officer of her
laws, and plain Anthony Roberts of Cranbrook. You speak this even but
to Anthony Roberts: and as such, good Master, I would have