,--I confess, I say,
that I, poor innocent, was puzzled to conjecture what sudden interest in
the county newspaper could cause Uncle Jack to prick up his ears like a
warhorse at the sound of the drum and rush so incontinently across the
interval between Squire Rollick and himself. But the mind of that deep
and truly knowing man was not to be plumbed by a chit of my age. You
could not fish for the shy salmon in that pool with a crooked pin and
a bobbin, as you would for minnows; or, to indulge in a more worthy
illustration, you could not say of him, as Saint Gregory saith of the
streams of Jordan, "A lamb could wade easily through that ford."

"Not a county newspaper to advocate the rights of--" here my uncle
stopped, as if at a loss, and whispered in my ear; "What are his
politics?" "Don't know," answered I. Uncle Jack intuitively took down
from his memory the phrase most readily at hand, and added, with a nasal
intonation, "the rights of our distressed fellow-creatures!"

My father scratched his eyebrow with his fore-finger, as he was apt to
do when doubtful; the rest of the company--a silent set-looked up.

"Fellow-creatures!" said Mr. Rollick,--"fellow-fiddlesticks!"

Uncle Jack was clearly in the wrong box. He drew out of it
cautiously,--"I mean," said he, "our respectable fellow-creatures;" and
then suddenly it occurred to him that a "County Mercury" would naturally
represent the agricultural interest, and that if Mr. Rollick said
that the "'County Mercury' ought to be hanged," he was one of those
politicians who had already begun to call the agricultural interest "a
Vampire." Flushed with that fancied discovery, Uncle Jack rushed on,
intending to bear along with the stream, thus fortunately directed,
all the "rubbish" (1) subsequently shot into Covent Garden and Hall of
Commerce.

"Yes, respectable fellow-creatures, men of capital and enterprise! For
what are these country squires compared to our wealthy merchants? What
is this agricultural interest that professes to be the prop of the
land?"

"Professes!" cried Squire Rollick,--"it is the prop of the land; and as
for those manufacturing fellows who have bought up the 'Mercury'--"

"Bought up the 'Mercury,' have they, the villains?" cried Uncle Jack,
interrupting the Squire, and now bursting into full scent. "Depend upon
it, sir, it is a part of a diabolical system of buying up,--which must
be exposed manfully. Yes, as I was saying, what is that agricultura