there. You’ve been seen hanging about the place, and you’ve been heard more than once in a wrangle with him, and it’s possible—I don’t say it’s certainly so, mind you, but it’s possible—that he may have been heard to call you a threatening, murdering, dangerous fellow.”
The trooper gasps as if he would admit it all if he could speak.
“Now, George,” continues Mr. Bucket, putting his hat upon the table with an air of business rather in the upholstery way than otherwise, “my wish is, as it has been all the evening, to make things pleasant. I tell you plainly there’s a reward out, of a hundred guineas, offered by Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet. You and me have always been pleasant together; but I have got a duty to discharge; and if that hundred guineas is to be made, it may as well be made by me as any other man. On all of which accounts, I should hope it was clear to you that I must have you, and that I’m damned if I don’t have you. Am I to call in any assistance, or is the trick done?”
Mr. George has recovered himself and stands up like a soldier. “Come,” he says; “I am ready.”
“George,” continues Mr. Bucket, “wait a bit!” With his upholsterer manner, as if the trooper were a window to be fitted up, he takes from his pocket a pair of handcuffs. “This is a serious charge, George, and such is my duty.”
The trooper flushes angrily and hesitates a moment, but holds out his two hands, clasped together, and says, “There! Put them on!”
Mr. Bucket adjusts them in a moment. “How do you find them? Are they comfortable? If not, say so, for I wish to make things as pleasant as is consistent with my duty, and I’ve got another pair in my pocket.” This remark he offers like a most respectable tradesman anxious to execute an order neatly and to the perfect satisfaction of his customer. “They’ll do