e. In the next place, there are many rents left unpaid, through
the inability of the people, which we could get paid by the making of
these roads, and other county arrangements, which the ill-thinking call
jobs. In the third and last place, he has on his property no magistrate
friendly to his aforesaid interests, and who would devote himself
to them with suitable energy and zeal. Indeed, with regard to the
murmurings and heart-burnings alluded to, I fear that such a magistrate
will soon become a matter of necessity. There is a bad spirit rising and
getting abroad, wherever it came from--and you know, my dear M'Slime,
that it could not proceed from either you or me. You know that--you
feel it. Now, what I would propose is this--Lord Cumber has
sufficient interest with the government, to have me--all-unworthy as
I am--appointed a magistrate. Let the government but hint to the
chancellor, and the thing is done. In that event, instead of giving him
this large sum of money as a loan, let it go as a _per contra_ to my
appointment to the bench. And there is another consideration by no means
to be overlooked, which is, that by this arrangement the government
would be certain to have in the commission a man who would prove himself
one of the precise class which they stand in need of--that is, a useful
man, devoted to their wishes.

"Now, my dear M'Slime, I mention this to you with all the confidence
of unshaken friendship. From you these representations will go to his
lordship with a much better grace than they would from me. Tell him
in your own peculiar way, that he shall have the two thousand for the
magistracy. That is my first object as his friend--this once obtained,
I have no doubt of seeing myself, ere long, a member of the grand panel,
and capable of serving him still more extensively.

"Believe me to be,
"My dear M'Slime, &c,
"Valentine M'Clutchy.

"P.S.--I heard you once express a wish about a certain farm--but mum's
the word--only this, I have something in my eye for you."

Solomon M'Slime to the Right Hon. Lord Cumber:--

"My Gracious Lord:

"I, of course, cannot look upon the condition you annex to the
appointment of the agent as unreasonable, although my friend M'Clutchy
insists, he says, for the honor of the aristocracy, that it was a
mistake on your lordship's part, and that a loan only was meant. Be this
as it may, I humbly hope a thought has been vouchsafed to me, by which
the matter may, under Provi