sly gave me,
scarcely to save my life."

"No!" exclaimed the stranger, with a good deal of surprise. "And pray,
why not, may I ask?"

"Simply," said Fenton, "because I have taken a fancy for it beyond its
value. I shall retain it as pocket-money. Like the Vicar of Wakefield's
daughters, I shall always keep it about me; and then, like them also, I
will never want money."

"That is a strange whim," observed the other, "and rather an
unaccountable one, besides."

"Not in the slightest degree," replied Fenton, "if you knew as much as
I do; but, at all events, just imagine that I am both capricious and
eccentric; so don't be surprised at anything I say or do."

"Neither shall I," replied "the anonymous" "However, to come to other
matters, pray what kind of a town is this of Ballytrain?"

"It is by no means a bad town," replied Fenton, "as towns and times
go. It has a market-house, a gaol, a church, as you have seen--a
Roman Catholic chapel, and a place of worship for the Presbyterian and
Methodist. It has, besides, that characteristic locality, either
of English legislation or Irish crimes--or, perhaps, of both--a
gallows-green. It has a public pump, that has been permitted to run dry,
and public stocks for limbs like those of your humble servant, that are
permitted to stand (the stocks I mean) as a libel upon the inoffensive
morals of the town."

"How are commercial matters in it?"

"Tolerable. Our shopkeepers are all very fair as shopkeepers. But,
talking of that, perhaps you are not aware of a singular custom which
even I--for I am not a native of this place--have seen in it?"

"What may it have been." asked the stranger.

"Why, it was this: Of a fair or market-day," he proceeded, "there lived
a certain shopkeeper here, who is some time dead--and I mention this to
show you how the laws were respected in this country; this shopkeeper,
sir, of a fair or market-day had a post that ran from his counter to
the ceiling; to this post was attached a single handcuff, and it always
happened that, when any person was caught in the act of committing a
theft in his shop, one arm of the offender was stretched up to this
handcuff, into which the wrist was locked; and, as the handcuff was
movable, so that it might be raised up or down, according to the height
of the culprit, it was generally fastened so that the latter was forced
to stand upon the top of his toes so long as was agreeable to the
shopkeeper of whom I speak."