"Do you think I wouldn't have done it? If I had had half a chance, do you think I wouldn't have welted him?"
"Well, but do you mean to say now this was the parson?"
"Teddy Rouse, I tell you!—old Teddy Rouse! Did you ever hear of such a game?"
"And do you mean to say, then, that he was the ghost after all?"
"Why, to be sure he was."
"The animal!"
"Wouldn't we have served him out that night if we had known it! I'll just tell you what I'd have done: I'd have caught him by the scruff of his blessed neck, and when you and Snorkings had fixed his legs, I'd have dragged him to the horse-pond and given him a cooler."
"Well, but I say, what did they do with him?"
"Do with him! Why, like a parcel of fools, they let him go! I only wish I had been there! He wouldn't have been let off so easy, I'll warrant. But isn't it sickening now, when you come to look at it? Isn't it disgusting that we should be compelled to support these vampires? These are the locusts that prey upon our vitals!—these are the vultures that finger elevenpence-halfpenny out of every shilling the poor man earns!—The fact is, Pokey, between you and me, we must have a rattling revolution. It must be a rattler, come when it may. Bobby Peel ought to blush for upholding this downright system of dead robbery. As Johnny Russell told him to his teeth the other night, 'I'll tell you what it is,' said Johnny, 'if you don't knock this fructifying swindle in the head, you may look out for pepper!' And he'll have it! It was just the case in Constantinople, under Peter the Great; it was just the case in China, when the Turkish ambassadors signed the Magna Charta; it was just the case during the Peninsular war, when William the Conqueror upset the lot, and sent Russia off with a flea in her ear; it has been the case, mind you, all over the world, and, mark my words, it will be the case here. Are we to be plundered of our substance, to support a mob of locusts like old Teddy Rouse? Are we to be ground to the earth, and taxed to the tune here of eighteen hundred millions a-year, that such men as Ted Rouse may grow fat? Not a bit of it! No, my boy, we shall have a rattler! But I must be off. It's quite clear that Ted has put his foot in it this time. I thought it wouldn't be long before he was caught on the hip. Well, God bless you—I'll work him! I'll stick to him, my boy! But I say, only think though of Ted in his shirt! Ha!ha!ha! It's the capitalest go that ever occurred! Ha! ha! ha! Well! ta-ta! Ha! ha! I shall see you to-night. Poor Teddy Rouse! Ha! ha! ha!
Thus he left Pokey, and thus he went round, fructifying as he proceeded so freely, that the thing assumed a shape of vast local importance; and although Obadiah was pretty well known, he established his falsehoods on the basis of truth with so much ingenuity, that all his associates felt quite convinced that "Ted" had been actually playing the ghost.
Of this the reverend gentleman was, however, unconscious. He went to bed at twelve, and Jones went to bed too, and when they rose about
