“The devil take the Courts!  I’m sick of ’em,” said Mr. Rushton, with great fervor, “and as to character, there is no character anywhere, or in anybody.”  Having enunciated which proposition, Mr. Rushton rose to go.

The Squire rose too, holding him by the button.

“I’d like to argue that point with you,” he said, laughing.  “Come now, tell me how—­”

“I won’t—­I refuse—­I will not argue.”

“Stay to dinner, then, and I promise not to wrangle.”

“No—­I never stay to dinner!  A pretty figure my docket would cut, if I staid to your dinners and discussions!  You’ve got the deeds I came to see you about; my business is done; I’m going back.”

“To that beautiful town of Winchester!” laughed the Squire, following his grim guest out.

“Abominable place!” growled Rushton; “and that Roundjacket is positively growing insupportable.  I believe that fellow has a mania on the subject of marrying, and he runs me nearly crazy.  Then, there’s his confounded poem, which he persists in reading to himself nearly aloud.”

“His poem?” asked the Squire.

“Yes, sir! his abominable, trashy, revolting poem, called—­’The Rise and Progress of the Certiorari.’  The consequence of all which, is—­here’s my horse; find the martingale, you black cub!—­the consequence is, that my office work is not done as it should be, and I shall be compelled to get another clerk in addition to that villain, Roundjacket.”

“Why not exchange with some one?”

“How?”

“Roundjacket going elsewhere—­to Hall’s, say.”

Mr. Rushton scowled.

“Because he is no common clerk; would not live elsewhere, and because I can’t get along without him,” he said.  “Hang him, he’s the greatest pest in Christendom!”

“I have heard of a young gentleman called Jinks,” the Squire said, with a sly laugh, “what say you to him for number two?”

“Burn Jinks!” cried Mr. Rushton, “he’s a jack-a-napes, and if he comes within the reach of my cane, I’ll break it over his rascally shoulders!  I’d rather have this Indian cub who has just left us.”

“That’s all very well; but you can’t get him.”

“Can’t get him?” asked Rushton, grimly, as he got into the saddle.

“He would never consent to coop himself up in Winchester.  True, my little Redbud, who is a great friend of his, has taught him to read, and even to write in a measure, but he’s a true Indian, whether such by descent or not.  He would die of the confinement.  Remember what I said about character just now, and acknowledge the blunder you committed when you took the position that there was no such thing.”

Rushton growled, and bent his brows on the laughing Squire.

“I said,” he replied, grimly, “that there was no character to be found anywhere; and you may take it as you choose, you’ll try and extract an argument out of it either way.  I don’t mean to take part in it.  As to this cub of the woods, you say I couldn’t make anything of him—­see if I don’t!  You have provoked me into the thing—­defied me—­and I accept the challenge.”