“Lawyer Tippit knows a thing or two,” said the fisherman, in a low tone.

Here Squire Miller handed to Mr. Jenkins twelve and a half cents, for the four glasses of Jamaica he had drank, a portion of which some way or other seemed to have got into his last speech, and took his leave.

He had hardly left the store when who should come in but Constable Basset, bearing in his hand a black staff, “having a head with the arms of the State thereon,” the badge of his office, as provided by law, and which he was required to carry “upon proper occasions.”  Some such occasion had, in the judgment of the constable, evidently arisen, else it would not now be forthcoming.

He was a bullet-headed, carroty-haired little fellow, with a snub nose and eyes so diminutive and deeply sunken, that but for the sparks of light they emitted, they would have been undiscernible.  The expression of his face was like that of a wiry terrier, being derived partly from his occupation, which, in his opinion, required him to be as vigilant in spying out offenders as the aforesaid peppery animal, in scenting vermin, and being partly the gift of nature.  But though the person of Basset was small, such was not his opinion of himself.  That was in an inverse ratio to his size, and at once the source of his highest joys, and, sooth to say, of an occasional mortification.  But the former greatly preponderated, and, on the whole, it was a pleasure to a benevolent mind to look at him, if for no other reason than to consider how much enjoyment there may be in ignorance.

As soon as Gladding set his eyes on the constable, he hailed him: 

“Here, Basset,” he cried, “what are you going to do this morning with that are stick?”

The constable did not much relish hearing the badge of an office which he esteemed one of the most important in the State thus lightly spoken of and degraded to a common stick; he, therefore, replied somewhat shortly—­

“I guess, Mr. Gladding, you don’t see the head of my staff, do ye?”

“Don’t I?” said Gladding.  “I know old Authority-by-the-State-of-Connecticut a mile off, without seeing his head, I rather think.  But what are you up to now?”

Basset, who, though no Solomon, had too much wit to admit every one into his confidence, answered: 

“O, nothing; I was only looking for Squire Miller.”

“Why,” said Gladding, “he only left the store a minute ago.  I say Basset, you got a warrant agin old Holden?”

“Why,” said Basset, “what makes you ask?”

“Because,” replied Gladding, mischievously, who strongly suspecting an intention to arrest Holden, and knowing the constable’s cowardice, was determined to play upon his fears, “I shouldn’t like to be in your skin when you go for to take him.”

“I’d like to see the man what would dare to resist when I showed him my authority,” said the constable.  “I guess I’d make him cry copeevy in less than no time.”