you don't trick him out of his pig; and,
'you are not selling coals,' meaning that when you do sell coals you do
trick people. Do you see?--that you cheat them, in fact rob them."

Snooks thought Mr. Locust the most wonderful man he had ever come across.
This was quite a new way of putting it.

"But ur didn't say as much," he said, wondering whether that made any
difference.

"Perfectly immaterial in law," said Mr. Locust: "it isn't what a man
says, it's what he _means_: you put that in by an innuendo--"

"A what, sir? begging pardon--"

"It's what we lawyers call an innuendo: that is to say, making out that a
man says so and so when he doesn't."

"I zee," said the artful Snooks, quick at apprehending every point.
"Then if he called a chap a devilish honest man and the innu--what d'ye
call it, meant he were a thief, you got him?"

"Well," said Mr. Locust, smiling, "that is going rather far, Mr. Snooks,
but I see you understand what I mean."

"I thinks so, sir. I thinks I has your meanin."

"It's a very gross slander," observed Mr. Locust, "and especially upon a
tradesman in your position. I suppose now you have lived in the
neighbourhood a considerable time?"

"All my life, sir."

"Ah! just so, just so--now let me see; and, if I remember rightly, you
have a vote for the County."

"I ave, sir, and allus votes blue, and that's moore."

"Then you're on our side. I'm very glad indeed to hear that; a vote's a
vote, you know, now-a-days."

Any one would have thought, to hear Mr. Locust, that votes were scarce
commodities, whereas we know that they are among the most plentiful
articles of commerce as well as the cheapest.

"And you have, I think, a family, Mr. Snooks."

"Four on em, sir."

"Ah! how very nice, how laudable to make a little provision for them: as
I often say, if a man can only leave his children a few hundreds apiece,
it's something."

The solicitor watched his client's face as he uttered this profound
truism, and the face being as open and genuine as was Snooks' character,
it said plainly enough "Yes, I have a few hundreds."

"Well then," continued Mr. Locust, "having been in business all these
years, and being, as times go, tolerably successful, being a careful man,
and having got together by honest industry a nice little independency--"

Here the learned gentleman paused, and here, unfortunately, Snooks' open
and candid heart revealed itself through his open and candid countenanc