d!"

"You're a fool!" cried the justice, starting back as he spoke.

"I am not. I have seen and tasted it, and I have brought some of it with
me. The doctor himself admitted that the county authorities had sent a
large trunk of poison hither, and were going to make us drink it. The
box was in my hand. I lifted it down from the carriage. Divine
Providence so ordered that it fell from my hands, and a whitish powder
poured out of it. The whole box was full of that powder. The doctor was
horribly frightened, and swore at me like anything for my clumsiness. I
_saw_ him, I tell you, he grew quite yellow. I merely asked whether this
medicine might not be for the cattle, but he savagely snatched it from
my hand, and said he would make our heads ache with it."

"Is that true?" asked a terrified boor on the other side of the table.

"As true as I'm alive. The doctor immediately ordered the domestics to
sweep the spilt powder away lest one of the animals should taste it and
perish instantly; but I managed to scrape together a little of it
first, and here it is in the corner of my handkerchief."

And the Leather-bell undid his handkerchief and poured the powder out
upon the table.

The boors, with the fearful inquisitiveness of professed connoisseurs,
carefully regarded the strange awe-inspiring powder from every side--so
this was the murderous instrument of extirpation.

Some of them had heard, somewhere or other, that it was usual to make
preliminary experiments with such poisons on the brute-beasts. One of
them accordingly smeared a piece of bread with the powder, and offered
it to a large shepherd's dog extended at his ease beneath the table. The
dog sniffed at the morsel but would not touch it.

"Poison! poison!" cried those who stood around full of horror.

"Didn't I say so!" cried the Leather-bell, with a radiant face; but his
joyful triumph was very speedily embittered, for when he least expected
such a distinction, he became sensible that the long hazel cudgel of the
village justice was unmercifully belabouring his back and shoulders.

"You good-for-nothing, lying wind-bag you, how dare you calumniate your
own landlord? You hound of the whole village, you! that barks at every
man behind his back, and licks his hand when he faces you. You dare to
come hither with such idle stories at a time when there's already far
too much discord among the people! You good-for-nothing vagabond! What!
I suppose you want the peasa