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52

For shame, man, he is bound tight enough; I will not suffer thee to lay a finger upon him: and as for the hang'd face thou talk'st of, alack a day! it goes to my heart to see him, such a goodly-looking gentleman, for such I'll be sworn he is.

Ay, no doubt! it is ever thus with thee. Thou did'st never in thy life see a thief go to the gallows without crying out, "alack a day! what a fine looking fellow it is!" Ay, and if he could but make shift to howl out half a verse of a psalm along with his father confessor, thou wert sure to knotch him down upon thy holiday tables as one of the new made saints. Ay, there be no such great saints now-a-days as those who pass, with the help of a Dominican, thro' the hangman's hands to the other world; he beats your pope and your cardinals all to nothing in smuggling a sinner cleverly in by the back door to heaven.

So much the better for thee; it is the only chance thou hast of ever getting there.—Stand off, I say (pushing Gobus away), and do not stare thus upon the prisoner! art thou not asham'd to stare in an unhappy man's face after this fashion? we don't know what hard fate may have brought him into these circumstances (to the attendants). Move on: we are losing time here.