"Hast seen his Majesty's newest representative, Mr. Carvel?"

"Mr. Hood is on board the bark, sir," replied my grandfather. "I take it you mean Mr. Hood."

"Ay, that I do; Mr. Zachariah Hood, come to lick stamps for his brother- colonists."

"After licking his Majesty's boots," says a wag near by, which brings a laugh from those about us. I remembered that I had heard some talk as to how Mr. Hood had sought and obtained from King George the office of Stamp Distributor for the province. Now, my grandfather, God rest him! was as doughty an old gentleman as might well be, and would not listen without protest to remarks which bordered sedition. He had little fear of things below, and none of a mob.

"My masters," he shouted, with a flourish of his stick, so stoutly that people fell back from him, "know that ye are met against the law, and endanger the peace of his Lordship's government."

"Good enough, Mr. Carvel," said Claude, who seemed to be the spokesman. "But how if we are stamped against law and his Lordship's government? How then, sir? Your honour well knows we have naught against either, and are as peaceful a mob as ever assembled."