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64 "but I believe, in general, it is vice versâ; for we live by the rogues, and it is only the fools we are able to hang up. You ask me if I will take the judgeship. I would not—no, I would rather cut my hand off,—(and the lawyer spoke with great bitterness,)—forsake my present career, despite of all the obstacles that now encumber it; did I think that this miserable body would suffer me, for two years longer, to pursue it."

"You shock me!" said Mauleverer, a little affected, but nevertheless applying the cayenne to his cucumber with his usual unerring nicety of tact; "you shock me, but you are considerably better than you were."

"It is not!" continued Brandon, who was rather speaking to himself than to his friend—"it is not that I am unable to conquer the pain, and to master the recreant nerves; but I feel myself growing weaker and weaker beneath the continual exertion of my remaining powers, and I shall die before I have gained half my objects, if I do not leave the labours which are literally tearing me to pieces."

"But," said Lord Mauleverer, who was the