y slap on the back, which Hugh was not
slow to return.

'No Popery, brother!' cried the hangman.

'No Property, brother!' responded Hugh.

'Popery, Popery,' said the secretary with his usual mildness.

'It's all the same!' cried Dennis. 'It's all right. Down with him,
Muster Gashford. Down with everybody, down with everything! Hurrah for
the Protestant religion! That's the time of day, Muster Gashford!'

The secretary regarded them both with a very favourable expression of
countenance, while they gave loose to these and other demonstrations of
their patriotic purpose; and was about to make some remark aloud, when
Dennis, stepping up to him, and shading his mouth with his hand, said,
in a hoarse whisper, as he nudged him with his elbow:

'Don't split upon a constitutional officer's profession, Muster
Gashford. There are popular prejudices, you know, and he mightn't like
it. Wait till he comes to be more intimate with me. He's a fine-built
chap, an't he?'

'A powerful fellow indeed!'

'Did you ever, Muster Gashford,' whispered Dennis, with a horrible
kind of admiration, such as that with which a cannibal might regard his
intimate friend, when hungry,--'did you ever--and here he drew still
closer to his ear, and fenced his mouth with both his open bands--'see
such a throat as his? Do but cast your eye upon it. There's a neck for
stretching, Muster Gashford!'

The secretary assented to this proposition with the best grace he could
assume--it is difficult to feign a true professional relish: which is
eccentric sometimes--and after asking the candidate a few unimportant
questions, proceeded to enrol him a member of the Great Protestant
Association of England. If anything could have exceeded Mr Dennis's joy
on the happy conclusion of this ceremony, it would have been the rapture
with which he received the announcement that the new member could
neither read nor write: those two arts being (as Mr Dennis swore) the
greatest possible curse a civilised community could know, and militating
more against the professional emoluments and usefulness of the great
constitutional office he had the honour to hold, than any adverse
circumstances that could present themselves to his imagination.

The enrolment being completed, and Hugh having been informed by
Gashford, in his peculiar manner, of the peaceful and strictly lawful
objects contemplated by the body to which he now belonged--during which
recital Mr Dennis nudged him very