fell into good hands, you see.'

'What is this!' said Gashford, turning it over with an air of perfectly
natural surprise. 'Where did you get it from, my good fellow; what does
it mean? I don't understand this at all.'

A little disconcerted by this reception, Hugh looked from the secretary
to Dennis, who had risen and was standing at the table too, observing
the stranger by stealth, and seeming to derive the utmost satisfaction
from his manners and appearance. Considering himself silently appealed
to by this action, Mr Dennis shook his head thrice, as if to say of
Gashford, 'No. He don't know anything at all about it. I know he don't.
I'll take my oath he don't;' and hiding his profile from Hugh with one
long end of his frowzy neckerchief, nodded and chuckled behind this
screen in extreme approval of the secretary's proceedings.

'It tells the man that finds it, to come here, don't it?' asked Hugh.
'I'm no scholar, myself, but I showed it to a friend, and he said it
did.'

'It certainly does,' said Gashford, opening his eyes to their utmost
width; 'really this is the most remarkable circumstance I have ever
known. How did you come by this piece of paper, my good friend?'

'Muster Gashford,' wheezed the hangman under his breath, 'agin' all
Newgate!'

Whether Hugh heard him, or saw by his manner that he was being played
upon, or perceived the secretary's drift of himself, he came in his
blunt way to the point at once.

'Here!' he said, stretching out his hand and taking it back; 'never mind
the bill, or what it says, or what it don't say. You don't know anything
about it, master,--no more do I,--no more does he,' glancing at Dennis.
'None of us know what it means, or where it comes from: there's an end
of that. Now I want to make one against the Catholics, I'm a No-Popery
man, and ready to be sworn in. That's what I've come here for.'

'Put him down on the roll, Muster Gashford,' said Dennis approvingly.
'That's the way to go to work--right to the end at once, and no
palaver.'

'What's the use of shooting wide of the mark, eh, old boy!' cried Hugh.

'My sentiments all over!' rejoined the hangman. 'This is the sort of
chap for my division, Muster Gashford. Down with him, sir. Put him on
the roll. I'd stand godfather to him, if he was to be christened in a
bonfire, made of the ruins of the Bank of England.'

With these and other expressions of confidence of the like flattering
kind, Mr Dennis gave him a heart