Ods body! I seem to be in evil case--and all for an innocent and thoughtless pleasantry.

I am a man of family; and my wife and little ones--List to reason, good your worship: what wouldst thou of me ?" "Only that thou be blind and dumb and paralytic whilst one may count a hundred thousand--counting slowly," said Hendon, with the expression of a man who asks but a reasonable favour, and that a very little one.
"It is my destruction!" said the constable despairingly.

"Ah, be reasonable, good sir; only look at this matter, on all its sides, and see how mere a jest it is--how manifestly and how plainly it is so.

And even if one granted it were not a jest, it is a fault so small that e'en the grimmest penalty it could call forth would be but a rebuke and warning from the judge's lips." Hendon replied with a solemnity which chilled the air about him-- "This jest of thine hath a name, in law,--wot you what it is ?" "I knew it not! Peradventure I have been unwise.

I never dreamed it had a name--ah, sweet heaven, I thought it was original." "Yes, it hath a name.