 childer of light.«
    »To the point, if you please, and let me hear what it is.«
    »Ye'se hear, sir; if I cannot get it off, there's eleven be-hint can help
me. It is a grand purpose, and (changing his voice from a half-sneer to a whine)
it's the Looard's own purpose, and that's better.«
    »Do you want a subscription to a new Ranter's chapel, Mr. Barraclough?
Unless your errand be something of that sort, I cannot see what you have to do
with it.«
    »I hadn't that duty on my mind, sir; but as Providence has led ye to mention
the subject, I'll make it i' my way to tak' ony trifle ye may have to spare, the
smallest contribution will be acceptable.«
    With that he doffed his hat, and held it out as a begging-box; a brazen grin
at the same time crossing his countenance.
    »If I gave you sixpence, you would drink it.«
    Barraclough uplifted the palms of his hands and the whites of his eyes,
evincing in the gesture a mere burlesque of hypocrisy.
    »You seem a fine fellow,« said Moore, quite coolly and drily; »you don't
care for showing me that you are a double-dyed hypocrite, that your trade is
fraud: you expect indeed to make me laugh at the cleverness with which you play
your coarsely farcical part, while at the same time you think you are deceiving
the men behind you.«
    Moses' countenance lowered; he saw he had gone too far: he was going to
answer, when the second leader, impatient of being hitherto kept in the
background, stepped forward. This man did not look like a traitor, though he had
an exceedingly self-confident and conceited air.
    »Mr. Moore,« commenced he, speaking also in his throat and nose, and
enunciating each word very slowly, as if with a view to giving his audience time
to appreciate fully the uncommon elegance of the phraseology; »it might,
perhaps, justly be said that reason rather than peace is our purpose. We come,
in the first place, to request you to hear reason, and should you refuse, it is
my duty to warn you, in very decided terms, that measures will be had resort to
(he meant recourse), which will probably terminate in - in bringing you to a
sense of the unwisdom, of the
