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"Sure enough," said the Squire, "and so I was about to tell Lawyer Tools, that what was fun to him, was death to others. Ha! ha! ha!"

"That's a good idea, Squire, ha! ha! ha!" said both Tools and Savage.

"I know about as well as the rest of you," said the lawyer, "what taxes we can usually raise; I was only saying that more might be put on us just as well, if we were a mind to have it so."

"There's the rub!" said the Squire and Savage.

"But I think very little of the disfranchising paupers. It's making a good deal out of nothing, and exposes us to a good deal of hard talk."

"You went for it in the Legislature," said the Squire.

"Oh, yes, a man can't row against every body. I don't, however, think we really need the law, because the paupers are half of them females, and of the balance, two-thirds are too feeble to vote if they wanted to; and who would ever think of putting in their names to draw a jury from? No," said he, smoking freely, "the law is worse than nothing. Just abolish the whole, and make a simple provision to take care of the poor; that's all we want."

"I don't agree to that, by a great sight," said Savage. "Do you, Squire?"

"Can't say I exactly like it," replied he.

"Do you like, Squire Stout, to sell men and women who are as respectable as old Mr. Pepper -- ?"

"Don't call old John Pepper respectable, for heaven's sake," said Savage, interrupting.

"Oh! well just for argument say so, or Josh Hicks, or the old widow Prescott. Do you like it 'exactly' that we should have a law that effectually obliges us to sell them off as slaves, and disfranchise them? Don't we give our Southern folks a chance to talk 'Turkey' against us?"

"Well, let the Southern folks 'talk,' who cares for them? Is it any of their business? Let them mind their own laws and take care of their own slaves, and of their own white poor folks. They've got enough of it to do," said Savage.

"Yes, and so they can say to us. Now, I think that one old pious white woman, like aunt Prescott, is worth more in the scales of reason and society, than a whole plantation of negroes, though I'm dead set against slavery," said the lawyer, lighting another cigar, "as you all know."

"Why, Tools, you're about half crazy," said Savage. "You know that our poor-house laws are as humane and Christian as they can be. We are every where in the Bible told to take care of the poor: ' Blessed is he that considereth the poor, the Lord shall remember him in time of trouble.' Now our laws don't contemplate a state of involuntary servitude. They merely make a kind and regular provision to keep the poor folks comfortable."

"I know all about it," said Tools.

"Well, you don't talk as though you knew any thing about it."

"I know what I'm talking about," said the lawyer.

"Well then, talk so other people can know too, ha I ha!"

"You do know it," said Tools.

"I'll leave it to Squire Ben if you dare," said Savage.

Now Tools had rather not, and Squire Ben had rather not; but there was no escaping, and so Tools said --

"Done! Leave it to him."

"Well, Squire, how is it?" said Savage. "Does Tools talk on this matter according to law and Gospel, so that people can understand him, or is he befogging the whole subject?"

"That's not the point, Squire," said Tools. "The point is, whether I know what I'm talking about, and whether Savage understands me."

"I don't care how you put it," said Savage; "it's all one. For if I don't understand you, how can any body else?"

"We all know, Mr. Savage," began the Squire, "that Lawyer Tools is good in matters of law."

"Oh, yes, that's all clear," said Savage.

"Well, then, Tools must argue the matter as a lawyer, if he does at all; so that you and I, Savage, may not as well comprehend his lawisms as he does, and yet it be not actually incomprehensible, because he must reason from facts that are well understood by us. On the whole, while I think Tools is rather bold and free in his notions -- and Tools is no man's fool, you know, ha! ha! -- I should say he was not so far out of the way, but that yon and I could at least get hold of about half that he says with a tolerable degree of clearness."

Savage studied over this decision with his feet and legs stretched out about two feet apart, with a hand resting on each knee, leaning forward and looking straight before him, at nothing in particular, for about a minute -- the deep twist around his mouth, the lines in his forehead and cheeks, indicating some confusion of ideas. But at length, coming to himself, he exclaimed --

"All right, I verily believe. Squire, though I don't get hold of the whole case as well as I want to. But if I do get at it, you make Tools out, or if not Tools, you make yourself out a regular NORTHERN DOUGHFACES -- ha! ha! ha! -- by thunder! Is that it. Squire, eh?"

At this hit on the part of Savage, the Squire burst into a regular red-in-the-face, hearty old New England justice laugh; and Tools, leaning clear back in his chair, with his face looking up to the ceiling, roared and laughed till the tears ran off his face like water, stamping with his feet, and clapping and rubbing his hands in the very highest kind of lawyer glee and satisfaction.