ear World, you and I understand each other well,--we
are made for each other,--I never come in your way, nor you in mine. If
I get drunk every day in my own room, that's vice, you can't touch me;
if I take an extra glass for the first time in my life, and knock
down the watchman, that's a crime which, if I am rich, costs me one
pound--perhaps five pounds; if I am poor, sends me to the treadmill. If
I break the hearts of five hundred old fathers, by buying with gold
or flattery the embraces of five hundred young daughters, that's
vice,--your servant, Mr. World! If one termagant wench scratches my
face, makes a noise, and goes brazen-faced to the Old Bailey to swear to
her shame, why that's crime, and my friend, Mr. World, pulls a hemp-rope
out of his pocket.' Now, do you understand? Yes, I repeat," he added,
with a change of voice, "I never committed a crime in my life,--I have
never even been accused of one,--never had an action of crim. con.--of
seduction against me. I know how to manage such matters better. I was
forced to carry off this girl, because I had no other means of courting
her. To court her is all I mean to do now. I am perfectly aware that
an action for violence, as you call it, would be the more disagreeable,
because of the very weakness of intellect which the girl is said to
possess, and of which report I don't believe a word. I shall most
certainly avoid even the remotest appearance that could be so construed.
It is for that reason that no one in the house shall attend the girl
except yourself and your niece. Your niece I can depend on, I know; I
have been kind to her; I have got her a good husband; I shall get her
husband a good place;--I shall be godfather to her first child. To be
sure, the other servants will know there's a lady in the house, but to
that they are accustomed; I don't set up for a Joseph. They need know
no more, unless you choose to blab it out. Well, then, supposing that at
the end of a few days, more or less, without any rudeness on my part, a
young woman, after seeing a few jewels, and fine dresses, and a pretty
house, and being made very comfortable, and being convinced that her
grandfather shall be taken care of without her slaving herself to death,
chooses of her own accord to live with me, where's the crime, and who
can interfere with it?"

"Certainly, my lord, that alters the case," said Dykeman, considerably
relieved. "But still," he added, anxiously, "if the inquiry is made,-