Joseph Carnaby.

“May it please your worship!  I was returning from Hampton upon Allhallowmas eve, between the hours of ten and eleven at night, in company with Master Euseby Treen; and when we came to the bottom of Mickle Meadow, we heard several men in discourse.  I plucked Euseby Treen by the doublet, and whispered in his ear, ’Euseby!  Euseby! let us slink along in the shadow of the elms and willows.’”

Euseby Treen.

“Willows and elm-trees were the words.”

William Shakspeare.

“See, your worship! what discordances!  They cannot agree in their own story.”

Sir Silas.

“The same thing, the same thing, in the main.”

William Shakspeare.

“By less differences than this estates have been lost, hearts broken, and England, our country, filled with homeless, helpless, destitute orphans.  I protest against it.”

Sir Silas.

“Protest, indeed!  He talks as if he were a member of the House of Lords.  They alone can protest.”

Sir Thomas.

“Your attorney may object, not protest, before the lord judge.

“Proceed you, Joseph Carnaby.”

Joseph Carnaby.

“In the shadow of the willows and elm-trees, then—­”

William Shakspeare.

“No hints, no conspiracies!  Keep to your own story, man, and do not borrow his.”

Sir Silas.

“I overrule the objection.  Nothing can be more futile and frivolous.”

William Shakspeare.

“So learned a magistrate as your worship will surely do me justice by hearing me attentively.  I am young; nevertheless, having more than one year written in the office of an attorney, and having heard and listened to many discourses and questions on law, I cannot but remember the heavy fine inflicted on a gentleman of this county who committed a poor man to prison for being in possession of a hare, it being proved that the hare was in his possession, and not he in the hare’s.”

Sir Silas.

“Synonymous term! synonymous term!”

Sir Thomas.

“In what term sayest thou was it?  I do not remember the case.”

Sir Silas.

“Mere quibble mere equivocation!  Jesuitical!  Jesuitical!”

William Shakspeare.

“It would be Jesuitical, Sir Silas, if it dragged the law by its perversions to the side of oppression and cruelty.  The order of Jesuits, I fear, is as numerous as its tenets are lax and comprehensive.  I am sorry to see their frocks flounced with English serge.”

Sir Silas.

“I don’t understand thee, viper!”

Sir Thomas.