can I do?  I am seventy-nine years of age; I am bad on my feet, and dar’n’t go after him.”—­“Shall I go?” said I; “the fellow is a thief, and any one has a right to stop him.”  “Oh, if you could but bring her again to me,” said the old man, “I would bless you till my dying day; but have a care; I don’t know but after all the law may say that she is his lawful purchase.  I asked six pounds for her, and he gave me six pounds.”  “Six flints, you mean,” said I, “no, no, the law is not quite so bad as that either; I know something about her, and am sure that she will never sanction such a quibble.  At all events, I’ll ride after the fellow.”  Thereupon turning my horse round, I put him to his very best trot; I rode nearly a mile without obtaining a glimpse of the fellow, and was becoming apprehensive that he had escaped me by turning down some by-path, two or three of which I had passed.  Suddenly, however, on the road making a slight turning, I perceived him right before me, moving at a tolerably swift pace, having by this time probably overcome the resistance of the animal.  Putting my horse to a full gallop, I shouted at the top of my voice, “Get off that donkey, you rascal, and give her up to me, or I’ll ride you down.”  The fellow hearing the thunder of the horse’s hoofs behind him, drew up on one side of the road.  “What do you want?” said he, as I stopped my charger, now almost covered with sweat and foam close beside him.  “Do you want to rob me?” “To rob you?” said I.  “No! but to take from you that ass, of which you have just robbed its owner.”  “I have robbed no man,” said the fellow; “I just now purchased it fairly of its master, and the law will give it to me; he asked six pounds for it, and I gave him six pounds.”  “Six stones, you mean, you rascal,” said I; “get down, or my horse shall be upon you in a moment;” then with a motion of my reins, I caused the horse to rear, pressing his sides with my heels as if I intended to make him leap.  “Stop,” said the man, “I’ll get down, and then try if I can’t serve you out.”  He then got down, and confronted me with his cudgel; he was a horrible-looking fellow, and seemed prepared for anything.  Scarcely, however, had he dismounted, when the donkey jerked the bridle out of his hand, and probably in revenge for the usage she had received, gave him a pair of tremendous kicks on the hip with her hinder legs, which overturned him, and then scampered down the road the way she had come.  “Pretty treatment this,” said the fellow, getting up without his cudgel, and holding his hand to his side, “I wish I may not be lamed for life.”  “And if you be,” said I, “it will merely serve you right, you rascal, for trying to cheat a poor old man out of his property by quibbling at words.”  “Rascal!” said the fellow, “you lie, I am no rascal; and as for quibbling with words—­suppose I did!  What then?  All the first people does it!  The newspapers does it! the gentlefolks that calls themselves the guides of the popular mind does it!