You ask me if I will take the judgeship.

I would not--no, I would rather cut my hand off," and the lawyer spoke with great bitterness, "forsake my present career, despite all the obstacles that now encumber it, did I think that this miserable body would suffer me for two years longer to pursue it." "You shock me!" said Mauleverer, a little affected, but nevertheless applying the cayenne to his cucumber with his usual unerring nicety of tact,--"you shock me; but you are considerably better than you were." "It is not," continued Brandon, who was rather speaking to himself than to his friend,--"it is not that I am unable to conquer the pain and to master the recreant nerves; but I feel myself growing weaker and weaker beneath the continual exertion of my remaining powers, and I shall die before I have gained half my objects, if I do not leave the labours which are literally tearing me to pieces." "But," said Lord Mauleverer, who was the idlest of men, "the judgeship is not an easy sinecure." "No; but there is less demand on the mind in that station than in my present one;" and Brandon paused before he continued.

"Candidly, Mauleverer, you do not think they will deceive me,--you do not think they mean to leave me to this political death without writing 'Resurgam' over the hatchment ?" "They dare not!" said Mauleverer, quaffing his fourth glass of madeira.
"Well, I have decided on my change of life," said the lawyer, with a slight sigh.
"So have I on my change of opinion," chimed in the earl.

"I will tell you what opinions seem to me like." "What ?" said Brandon, abstractedly.
"Trees!" answered Mauleverer, quaintly.

"If they can be made serviceable by standing, don't part with a stick; but when they are of that growth that sells well, or whenever they shut out a fine prospect, cut them down, and pack them off by all manner of means!--And now for the second course." "I wonder," said the earl, when our political worthies were again alone, "whether there ever existed a minister who cared three straws for the people; many care for their party, but as for the country--" "It is all fiddlestick!" added the lawyer, with more significance than grace.
"Right; it is all fiddlestick, as you tersely express it.