“And what may his name be, pray, Mr. Fenton?” with a peculiar emphasis on the Mr.

“Caution,” said Fenton; “don’t overdo the thing, I say, otherwise I am silent as the grave.  Heigh-ho! what put that in my head?  Well, sir, you shall know all you wish to know.  In the first place, as to his name—­it is Harry Hedles.  He was clerk to a toothbrush-maker in London, but it seems he made a little too free with a portion of the brush money:  he accordingly brushed off to our celebrated Irish metropolis, ycleped Dublin, where, owing to a tolerably good manner, a smooth English accent, and a tremendous stock of assurance, he insinuated himself into several respectable families as a man of some importance.  Among others, it is said that he has engaged the affections of a beautiful creature, daughter and heiress to an Irish baronet, and that they are betrothed to each other.  But as to the name or residence of the baronet, O Crackenfudgius, I am not in a condition to inform you—­for this good reason, that I don’t know either myself.”

“But is it a fair question, Mr. Fenton, to ask how you became acquainted with all this?”

“How?” exclaimed Fenton, with a doughty but confident swagger; “incredulous varlet, do you doubt the authenticity of my information?  He disclosed to me every word of it himself, and sought me out here for the purpose of getting me to influence my friends, who, you distrustful caitiff, are persons of rank and consequence, for the purpose of bringing about a reconciliation between him and old Grinwell, the toothbrush man, and having the prosecution stopped.  Avaunt! now, begone!  This is all the information I can afford upon the subject of that stout but gentlemanly impostor.”

Crackenfudge, we should have said, was on horseback during the previous dialogue, and no sooner had Fenton passed on, with a look of the most dignified self-consequence on his thin and wasted, though rather handsome features, than the candidate magistrate set spurs to his horse, and with a singularly awkward wabbling motion of his feet and legs about the animal’s sides, his right hand flourishing his whip at the same time into circles in the air, he approached Red Hall, as if he brought tidings of some great national victory.

He found the baronet perusing a letter, who, after having given him a nod, and pointing to a chair, without speaking, read on, with an expression of countenance which almost alarmed poor Crackenfudge.  Whatever intelligence the letter may have contained, one thing seemed obvious—­that it was gall and wormwood to his heart.  His countenance, naturally more than ordinarily dark, literally blackened with rage and mortification, or perhaps with both; his eyes flashed fire, and seemed as about to project themselves out of his head, and poor Crackenfudge could hear most distinctly the grinding of his teeth.  At length he rose up, and strode, as was his custom, through the room, moved by such a state of feeling