"Him knows best," answered Stirn, retreating mechanically for safety's
sake behind the parson, and pointing to Dr. Riccabocca. Hitherto, though
both the squire and parson had indeed recognized the Italian, they had
merely supposed him to be seated on the bank. It never entered into
their heads that so respectable and dignified a man could by any
possibility be an inmate, compelled or voluntary, of the parish stocks.
No, not even though, as I before said, the squire had seen, just under
his nose, a very long pair of soles inserted in the apertures, that sight
had only confused and bewildered him, unaccompanied, as it ought to have
been, with the trunk and face of Lenny Fairfield. Those soles seemed to
him optical delusions, phantoms of the overheated brain; but now,
catching hold of Stirn, while the parson in equal astonishment caught
hold of him, the squire faltered out, "Well, this beats cock-fighting!
The man's as mad as a March hare, and has taken Dr. Rickeybockey for
Little Lenny!"

"Perhaps," said the doctor, breaking silence with a bland smile, and
attempting an inclination of the head as courteous as his position would
permit,--"perhaps, if it be quite the same to you, before you proceed to
explanations, you will just help me out of the stocks."

The parson, despite his perplexity and anger, could not repress a smile,
as he approached his learned friend, and bent down for the purpose of
extricating him.

"Lord love your reverence, you'd better not!" cried Mr. Stirn. "Don't be
tempted,--he only wants to get you into is claws. I would not go a near
him for all the--"

The speech was interrupted by Dr. Riccabocca himself, who now, thanks to