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Chapter LXXIII
The magic reel, which, rolling on before, has led the chronicler thus
far, now slackens in its pace, and stops. It lies before the goal; the
pursuit is at an end.
It remains but to dismiss the leaders of the little crowd who have
borne us company upon the road, and so to close the journey.
Foremost among them, smooth Sampson Brass and Sally, arm in arm,
claim our polite attention.
Mr Sampson, then, being detained, as already has been shown, by the
justice upon whom he called, and being so strongly pressed to
protract his stay that he could by no means refuse, remained under
his protection for a considerable time, during which the great
attention of his entertainer kept him so extremely close, that he was
quite lost to society, and never even went abroad for exercise saving
into a small paved yard. So well, indeed, was his modest and retiring
temper understood by those with whom he had to deal, and so jealous
were they of his absence, that they required a kind of friendly bond to
be entered into by two substantial housekeepers, in the sum of fifteen
hundred pounds a-piece, before they would suffer him to quit their
hospitable roof - doubting, it appeared, that he would return, if once
let loose, on any other terms. Mr Brass, struck with the humour of
this jest, and carrying out its spirit to the utmost, sought from his
wide connection a pair of friends whose joint possessions fell some
halfpence short of fifteen pence, and proffered them as bail - for that
was the merry word agreed upon both sides. These gentlemen being
rejected after twenty-four hours' pleasantry, Mr Brass consented to
remain, and did remain, until a club of choice spirits called a Grand
jury (who were in the joke) summoned him to a trial before twelve
other wags for perjury and fraud, who in their turn found him guilty
with a most facetious joy, - nay, the very populace entered into the
whim, and when Mr Brass was moving in a hackney-coach towards
the building where these wags assembled, saluted him with rotten
eggs and carcases of kittens, and feigned to wish to tear him into
shreds, which greatly increased the comicality of the thing, and made
him relish it the more, no doubt.
To work this sportive vein still further, Mr Brass, by his counsel,
moved in arrest of judgment that he had been led to criminate
himself, by assurances of safety and promises of pardon, and claimed
the leniency which the law extends to such confiding natures as are
thus deluded. After solemn argument, this point (with others of a
technical nature, whose humorous extravagance it would be difficult
to exaggerate) was referred to the judges for their decision, Sampson
being meantime removed to his former quarters. Finally, some of the
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