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 "Why, you don't seem to think as all the rest of the world does with regard to him?"

"I knows what I knows."

"Ah! by the bye, you have some cock-and-a-bull story about him, I fancy, but you never could explain yourself; it is merely for the love of seeming wise that you invented it; eh. Goody?"

The old woman shook her head, and crossing her hands on her knee, replied with peculiar emphasis, but in a very low and whispered voice, "I could hang him!"

"Pooh!"

"Tell you I could!"

"Well, let's have the story then!"

"No, no! I have not told it to ne'er a one yet; and I won't for nothing. What will you give me? make it worth my while!"

"Tell us all, honestly, fairly, and fully, and you shall have five golden guineas. There, Goody."

Roused by this promise, the Dame looked up