‘Is your master at home?’ said I, to a servant who appeared at the door.

‘His worship is at home, young man,’ said the servant, as he looked at my shoes, which bore evidence that I had come walking.  ’I beg your pardon, sir,’ he added, as he looked me in the face.

‘Ay, ay, servants,’ thought I, as I followed the man into the house, ’always look people in the face when you open the door, and do so before you look at their shoes, or you may mistake the heir of a Prime Minister for a shopkeeper’s son.’

I found his worship a jolly, red-faced gentleman, of about fifty-five; he was dressed in a green coat, white corduroy breeches, and drab gaiters, and sat on an old-fashioned leather sofa, with two small, thoroughbred, black English terriers, one on each side of him.  He had all the appearance of a genuine old English gentleman who kept good wine in his cellar.

‘Sir,’ said I, ‘I have brought you a thousand pounds’; and I said this after the servant had retired, and the two terriers had ceased the barking which is natural to all such dogs at the sight of a stranger.

And when the magistrate had received the money, and signed and returned a certain paper which I handed to him, he rubbed his hands, and looking very benignantly at me, exclaimed—­

’And now, young gentleman, that our business is over, perhaps you can tell me where the fight is to take place?’

‘I am sorry, sir,’ said I, ’that I can’t inform you, but everybody seems to be anxious about it’; and then I told him what had occurred to me on the road with the alehouse-keeper.

‘I know him,’ said his worship; ’he’s a tenant of mine, and a good fellow, somewhat too much in my debt though.  But how is this, young gentleman, you look as if you had been walking; you did not come on foot?’

‘Yes, sir, I came on foot.’

‘On foot! why it is sixteen miles.’

‘I shan’t be tired when I have walked back.’

‘You can’t ride, I suppose?’

‘Better than I can walk.’

‘Then why do you walk?’

’I have frequently to make journeys connected with my profession; sometimes I walk, sometimes I ride, just as the whim takes me.’

‘Will you take a glass of wine?’

‘Yes.’

‘That’s right; what shall it be?’

‘Madeira!’

The magistrate gave a violent slap on his knee; ‘I like your taste,’ said he, ’I am fond of a glass of Madeira myself, and can give you such a one as you will not drink every day; sit down, young gentleman, you shall have a glass of Madeira, and the best I have.’

Thereupon he got up, and, followed by his two terriers, walked slowly out of the room.

I looked round the room, and, seeing nothing which promised me much amusement, I sat down, and fell again into my former train of thought.  ‘What is truth?’ said I.

‘Here it is,’ said the magistrate, returning at the end of a quarter of an hour, followed by the servant with a tray; ’here’s the true thing, or I am no judge, far less a justice.  It has been thirty years in my cellar last Christmas.  There,’ said he to the servant, ’put it down, and leave my young friend and me to ourselves.  Now, what do you think of it?’