'Very well,' said I to the
constable and to the porter; 'you will be pleased to remember this, gentlemen, another time.' The porter said, 'Yes, madam'; and the
constable began not to like it, and would have persuaded the mercer to dismiss him, and let me go, since, as he said, he owned I was not the person.
Macey now started an objection to his proposing himself as a deputy-constable; for that oracular old gentleman, claiming to know the law, stated, as a fact delivered to him by his father, that no doctor could be a
constable.
But here the
constable interposed with the constitutional principle 'words be blowed;' observing that words were but spoon-meat for babes and sucklings, and that oaths were the food for strong men.
Then the
constable said again, "Whither goest thou, holy friar, upon this hot summer's day?"
"I've seen your kind before," the
constable retorted.
"He won't move on," says the
constable calmly, with a slight professional hitch of his neck involving its better settlement in his stiff stock, "although he has been repeatedly cautioned, and therefore I am obliged to take him into custody.
The
constable looked as wise as he could, and took up his staff of office: which had been recling indolently in the chimney-corner.
The
constable, who, I make no doubt, would have surrendered his prisoner had Tom demanded her, very readily consented to this request.
He then added the manner in which the
constable had been received; and stated, distinctly, that Natty had pointed the rifle at Kirby, and threatened his life if he attempted to execute his duty.
The
constable was disappointed, and also perplexed.
The
constable hailed her quietly in a bass undertone 'Ferndale there!' A feeble and dismal sound, something in the nature of a buzzing groan, answered from behind the bulwarks.
Holmes laughed and threw his card across the table to the
constable. "Don't get arresting me for the murder," he said.