ng in Peter's family, for whose hairsplitting
distinctions and Jesuistical casuistries, notwithstanding his dislike to
the man himself, he had a certain admiration, founded on a secret
affinity of nature. Indeed it was wonderful to observe how, with all
Jack's hatred to Peter, real or pretended, he took after him in so many
points--insomuch that at times, their look, voice, manner, and way of
thinking, were so closely alike, that those who knew them best might
very well have mistaken them for each other. The usher having produced
the Squire's copy of the indenture, pointed out the clause by which Jack
became bound to examine and admit to the schools on North Farm any
qualified usher whom the Squire might send--as the condition on which he
was to retain his right to the tabernacle and his own mansion upon the
Farm--at the same time showing Jack's seal and signature at the bottom
of the deed. Jack, being called upon by the justices to show cause,
pulled out of his pocket an old memorandum-book--very greasy, musty, and
ill-flavoured--and which, from the quantity of dust and cobwebs with
which it was overlaid, had obviously been lying on the shelf for half a
century at least. This he placed in the hands of his friend Snacks the
attorney, pointing out to him a page or two which he had marked with his
thumb nail, as appropriate to the matter in hand. And there, to be sure,
was to be found, among a quantity of other nostrums, recipes, cooking
receipts, prescriptions, and omnium-gatherums of all kinds, an entry to
this effect:--"That no ushere be yntruded intoe anie schoole against ye
wille of ye schooleboys in schoole-roome assembled." Whereupon the
attorney maintained, that, as this memorandum-book of Jack's was plainly
of older date than the indenture, and had evidently been seen by the
Squire at or prior to the time of signing, as appeared from some of the
entries which it contained being incorporated in the deed, it must be
presumed, that its whole contents, though not to be found in the
indenture _per expressum_, or _totidem verbis_, were yet included
therein _implicitly_, or in a latent form, inasmuch as they were not
_per expressum_ excluded therefrom;--this being, as you will recollect,
precisely the argument which Jack had borrowed from Peter, when the
latter construed their father's will in the question as to the
lawfulness of their wearing shoulder-knots; and very much of the same
kind with that celebrated thesis whic