"Found, A Purse.--Owner may have it by giving description and paying the cost of this advertisement.--Apply to 25, Bangley Gardens, S.W."
"It's too vague," objected the constable.
"I purposely made it as vague as I could, thinking that if I left all the details to be filled in I should render it certain that it could only be claimed by the actual owner, and, to make sure it should be claimed by him, I had it inserted in all the morning papers."
The constable smiled the smile of superiority.
"If you had let me know what you had done I'd have sent my men down in time to protect you. A vague advertisement like that appearing in all the papers is bound to attract the attention of half the riffraff of London, who are always ready for a little game of trying it on, not to speak of the hundreds, perhaps thousands, who are losing their purses every day."
"I have discovered that fact--a day after the affair."
"You ought to have taken it at once to a police-station. Everyone ought to take the things they find. It would save them a lot of bother."
"That, also, I perceive too late. I was under a different impression at first. I know better now. Perhaps you will allow me to repair my error and confide it to your keeping at this, the eleventh hour. Then I shall have pleasure in referring all further applicants to you."
As he placed the purse in the inside pocket of his tunic the sergeant grinned.
"Don't think you'll get rid of them by giving it to me now, because you won't. Look at the street. There's a pretty sight for you."
It was a pretty sight--of a kind. The usually deserted Bangley Gardens was filled with a clamorous crowd. It distinctly comprised all sorts and conditions of men--and women. Two or three policemen, standing at the foot of my steps, were doing their best to keep the people back. It seemed incredible that all this bother could be about a purse. If ever I found another I would know the reason why.
"I shall have to leave some of my men to keep the people circulating, and to save you from annoyance. I shouldn't be surprised if you have them worrying you for several days to come. If you take my advice you'll put an advertisement in to-morrow's papers, to say that you have handed the purse to us."
I did put an advertisement in the next day's papers, though it was not couched in the terms which he suggested. For the joke was that scarcely had the sergeant turned his back when I took up, half absent-mindedly, a telegram from the heap which was constantly arriving, and found it contained this message--a tolerably voluminous one:
"To 25, Bangley Gardens.
"Referring to advertisement of purse found in to-day'sTimes, Lady Hester Hammersmith, of Hammersmith House, Grosvenor Square, on Thursday afternoon, between three and four, dropped, probably outside Cane and Wilson's, green silk network purse, secured by two gold rings--emerald in one, sapphire in the other. At one end of the purse were four ten and one five-pound notes; at the other, about nine pounds in gold and silver. As Lady Hester Hammersmith values the purse apart from its intrinsic value, and is greatly troubled at its loss, if this is the purse found, please wire at once. Reply paid."
I rushed to the door.
"Saunders, where is the boy who brought this message? Run after that sergeant of police and bring him back again--this is the purse I found."
It was. And so it came about that the second advertisement which I inserted was not worded as the sergeant had suggested, but was to the effect that no further applications need be made to anyone, because the purse which was found had been restored to its rightful owner.
"Once I were a waiter. Never again. It was like this here--
"At that time I was fresh from the country--ah! I was fresh--and I was in a situation along with old Bob Perkins, what kep' a greengrocer's shop in the 'Ampstead Road. One day Mr. Perkins says to me:
"'Brocklebank,' he says, 'would you like to do a little job of waiting?' I knew as he went out acting as waiter at private parties and such like, so I says:
"'I don't mind,' I says; 'not that I knows anything about it, if that don't make no odds.
"'Lor', no! that don't make no odds,' he says. 'It's only the cloak-room you'll have to look after, and you'll get 'alf-a-crown and your grub for doin' it.'
"'Cloak-room?' I says. 'What's that?' 'Why,' he says, 'where the gents puts their 'ats and coats and umbrellas.' 'I'm on,' I says. 'I shouldn't be surprised if I was able to keep a heye upon a humbrella; I should think that was about my style.' But I were wrong, as I'm a-goin' to tell yer.
"In the evening I went up with Mr. Perkins to a house in the Camden Road. I had on a old dress suit of Perkins's, which wasn't no sort of fit, seeing as how he was fifty-two in the waist and I was twenty-five. Mrs. Perkins, she'd what she called 'caught the trousers up' in the back, and she said as no one would see me it would be all right, which I hoped it would be. It didn't feel all right, I tell you that.
"When me and Mr. Perkins got up to the house they put me straight away into a little band-box of a cupboard sort of place, where there was some shelves and some 'ooks and some pieces of paper, with numbers on--the same number on two pieces of paper--and a box of pins. The servant girl as shows me in says--a saucy piece of goods she was!--'There you are! and I hope you're more 'andy than you looks, because if you mixes of the things there'll be excitement.' Mr. Perkins, he'd told me what I'd have to do as we was coming along, so I wipes my 'ot 'and upon his breeches, and I 'opes for the best.
"Presently the people begins a-coming to the party. A young gent, he comes up to me, and he 'ands me his overcoat, and a billycock 'at, and a silk scarf, and a umbrella, and a pair of india-rubber shoes, and I was floored at once; because Mr. Perkins had told me that I was to pin one number to whatever a gent gave me, and I was to give him the same number, so that he might know it by that number when he came again. So when this young gent gave me all that lot of articles I began pinning one number to his 'at--it was a 'ard 'at and not easy to drive a pin in--and another to his overcoat, and another to his umbrella, and another to his shoes, and another to his scarf--as I'd understood Mr. Perkins to tell me. But this here young gent, he wouldn't have it. He wanted me to pin one number to the lot of them; and as I was a-arguing with him, and tryin' to understand how he made out as I could do that, seeing as how the pins was little ones, and the numbers not large ones neither, a lot of other gents came up, and this here young gent he got quite red in the face, and he snatched a number out of my hand and he walked off, and he left me staring.
"Well I got on pretty well, considerin', so long as the people didn't come too fast. But I tell you, if you're not used to pins, they're more difficult to manage than you might think. You never know where you're driving of them. I know that, what with the 'eat and the 'aste, some being all of a flurry, I drove more of them into my 'ands than I quite liked. And I soon saw that that there box of pins wouldn't never last me long, seein' as how I bent three out of every two, so as I couldn't use 'em--not to speak of others I dropped and couldn't stop to find.
"But, as I was a-sayin', I got on somehow, and I daresay I should have got on, somehow, to the end, if it hadn't been that I was fresh from the country. Of course, I didn't know what gentlefolk wear, and one 'at was like another 'at to me--and that was where I was deceived. One gent fair took me aback. He came in with a 'igh top-'at on his 'ead, and when he took it off he put one end against his chest and he gave it a sort of a shove, and he squashed it as flat as my 'and. I tell you, I stared. I thought he'd been having a drop to drink, and had busted his brand new 'at for a sort of a joke. But he seemed to be sober enough, so far as I could see, and he didn't seem to mind what he'd done to his 'at, not a little bit. Presently another gent came alone, and he done the same to his top-'at. Then another, and another--in fact, a whole crowd of them. And there was me, a-perspiring like one o'clock, with Perkins's breeches a-coming undone where his old woman had caught 'em up at the back, a-standing in the middle of a lot of squashed 'igh 'ats, what was lying all over the place. So I began to see that there was more in the nature of a 'igh 'at than I'd supposed.
"Bless you! there wasn't nearly room for all the things that these gents kept a-handing me, and unless I took to standin' on 'em, I didn't see what I was to do. So when there came a sort of a lull like I looks round to see how I could make a bit of room. 'Alf them gents hadn't squashed in their 'igh 'ats, like the other gents 'ad done, and I sees at once as how they were takin' up more than their fair share of space. So I makes up my mind to squash 'em for 'em, and I sets about a-doin' it. I takes up a 'igh 'at what a old gent had just a-give me--a beautiful shiny one it was--and I sets it against my stomach and I starts a-'eavin'. I'd no idea it'd be so 'ard. Them other gents had seemed to squash theirs easy, but this 'ere one took some shovin'. And, when it did go, it went all lop-sided like. I had to sit on it before it'd lie down flat.
"I had my 'and full, I tell you, squashin' all them 'igh 'ats. There was forty of 'em, if there was one. Fair 'ard work I found it. I supposed there was some knack about the thing as I 'adn't yet caught. And when I'd finished the lot I took a squint at 'em. If you'll believe me, a shiver went up and down my back. Somehow I didn't like the way as they was lookin'. There was a crumpled sort of look about 'em which didn't seem like as it ought to be. I was a-perspirin' all over. Perkins's breeches had come undone behind, and was 'anging about me anyhow; my collar had come unpinned at the back of my shirt; the bow that Mrs. Perkins had give me for a necktie had worked loose in front. A lot of them articles hadn't got no numbers on, and most of them as had I felt certain as I'd given to the wrong parties; and, altogether, I began to wish as how I hadn't come.
"Presently the old gent as had given me the 'igh 'at as I had started squashin' came up to the door. He was a tall old gent, very fierce-lookin', with a long white moustache--a regular toff. As he'd been the last to come, and it seemed as how he was goin' to be the first to go, it looked as if he had soon had enough of the party. 'Give me my 'at,' he says.
"I knew which was his 'at, though it 'adn't got no number. I had good reason to. So I routed it out from under a 'eap of others. He looks at it, and then he looks at me.
"'That's not my 'at,' he says.
"'Excuse me, sir,' I says, 'it is your 'at--leastways, it's the one as you gave to me.'
"He looks at the 'at again, and then again he looks at me, and all of a sudden he went quite red in the face.
"'Mine was a new 'at!'
"'Yes, sir,' I says; 'so I thought, sir, when you gave it me. It didn't look as though it 'adn't never been worn. If you try this 'at on, sir, you will find, sir, as it's yours.'
"Then he takes the 'at out of my 'and, lookin' at me once more, searchin' like, and he turns it round and round, and he squints inside of it.
"'As I'm alive,' he says, 'I do believe it's mine!'
"I says,' I'm sure, sir, as how it is. I noticed it most particular.'
"'But, good 'evins!' he says, 'whatever 'ave you been a-doing to it?'
"'I've only been a-squashin' of it, sir,' I says.
"'Only been a-squashin' of it!' he says, and he gives a kind of gasp. 'Are you drunk, man?'
"'No, sir,' I says, 'and that I'm not. I haven't had so much as 'alf a pint since I've been inside this 'ouse!' Which I 'adn't, and my throat was gettin' regular parched.
"He did flare out!
"'Then if you're not drunk, man,' he says, 'what the devil do you mean by tellin' me that you've only been a-squashin' of a brand new 'at?' He gives another squint inside of it. ''Ang me if it doesn't look as if he'd been a-sitting down upon the thing!'
"'I had to,' I says, 'to make it stay down flat.'
"I thought he would have had a fit.
"'My God!' he says,' what sort of a place is it that I've got into?' Then he uses language what I'd always been taught was most unbecomin' to anyone what called 'imself a gentleman. 'You damned scoundrel, you!' he says. 'If you was my servant I'd have you sent to gaol for this! I might have expected that something would come of ever entering such a dog-'ole of a 'ouse! Take the 'at, you 'ound, and be damned to you!'
"And if he didn't throw his own 'at into my face with such violence as not only to break the skin right off my nose, where it 'appened to 'it me, but as to make me feel for the moment as if I had gone silly. When I come to myself, as it were, if he hadn't gone right into the street, for all I knew, and left his 'at behind him. As I was thinkin' what I ought to do--for I ain't accustomed to havin' 'igh 'ats chucked in my face as if they were brickbats, not even at a party--three other gents came 'astening up--young ones, they was.
"''Ats, waiter!' they says. 'We're in a 'urry'--which I could see they was.
"'What is your numbers, gentlemen?' I says.
"'You never give us none,' says they.
"'In that case, gentlemen,' I says, 'I shall have to ask you for to be so good as to choose your own 'ats.'
"So I takes up in both my 'ands a 'eap of squashed 'igh 'ats and I 'olds 'em out to 'em. You should have seen their faces! First they looks at me, and then they looks at each other. Then one of them gives a sort of grin.
"'Ain't you made some sort of mistake?' he says.
"'As 'ow?' I says.
"'Ours was 'igh 'ats,' he says.
"'Well, and ain't these 'igh 'ats?' I says.
"Then again they looks at me, and again they looks at each other; and another one, he speaks--a short, puffy young fellow he was, with curly 'air.
"'They looks to me as if they was low 'ats,' he says; 'uncommon low--I never saw none look lower.'
"All three laughs. What at was more than I could say. I didn't know what to make of 'em. There was they a-starin' at me, and there was I a-starin' at them, with both my arms 'eaped up with them there 'ats. Then the third one, he has a go--a stylish-lookin' chap. He was very 'an'some, like you sees in the barbers' shops.
"'Waiter,' he says, 'are you a-'avin' a game with us?'
"'A game, sir?' I says. 'Beggin' your pardon, sir, I'm not 'avin' no game with no one. Do I look as if I was?'
"Which I didn't feel it, I can tell you that.
"'Well,' he says, 'I asks you for my 'at, and you offers me my choice of them leavings from a rag-and-bone shop; so, if you ain't a-'avin' a game with me, I don't know what you are a-'avin'.'
"'Come, waiter!' says the one as had spoken first; 'didn't we tell you as 'ow we was in a 'urry? Let us 'ave our 'ats. Don't keep on playing the fool with us!'
"'You must excuse me, gentlemen,' I says, speaking a trifle warmish--because, as you'll understand, I was beginning to feel a little badgered like; 'if anyone's a-playin' the fool it seems to me--asking of your leave--as it's you as is playin' the fool with me!'
"'Us as is playin' the fool with you?' they says, all together, as it might be.
"'Eggsactly,' I says. 'That is what I says,' I says, 'and that is what I means,' I says. 'First, you asks me for to give you your 'ats; and then, when I offers you some 'ats for you to take what is your own, you starts a-larfin'. If, as you says, you're in a 'urry, perhaps you'll step inside and cast your eyes around, and point out which is your 'ats. You can take which ones you please for all I care; I'm sure you're very welcome.'
"With that they stepped in. When they was in, and I was in, there wasn't much room left for anything but breathin', and 'ardly room enough for that.
"'Where is the 'igh 'ats?' says the stylish-lookin' feller.
"'Where is your eyes?' I says. 'Ain't they all over the place? Why, you're a-steppin' on one now!'
"You should have seen the 'op he gave!
"'These 'ats,' he says, 'from what I can see of 'em--which isn't much--looks to me as if they had all been squashed.'
"'Of course they has!' I says. ''Ow do you suppose I was a-goin' to find room for them if they wasn't? This ain't the Halbit 'All, and yet it ain't the Crystal Pallis!'
"Then they looks at each other again; and, from the way in which they done it, I felt as 'ow there was something which wasn't altogether what it ought to be. So I goes on--
"'If them 'ats hasn't been squashed eggsactly as they ought to have been squashed, that ain't my fault,' I says. 'You ought to have squashed them for yourselves, as the other gents done. I don't know nothing about the squashin' of 'igh 'ats, and I never laid myself out as knowin' nothing. I just put them against my chest and I gives 'em a shove, and then I sits on 'em to make 'em lay down flat. That's all I done!'
"While I was speakin' I could see them there young gents' mouths was gettin' wider and wider open, and when I stopped they burst out larfin' fit to split. What there was to larf at was more than I could see. All I knew was, that I wished I 'adn't never come. They staggered out into the 'all, and the curly-'eaded one, he cries out:
"'Oh, Sheepshanks, do come 'ere!' Then a cove comes up, as I found out afterwards was the bloke as was a-givin' the party. 'Oh, Sheepshanks!' says this young feller; 'if he ain't squashed them just eggsactly as they ought to have been squashed, don't you blame him. He never laid himself out as knowin' nothing about the squashin' of 'igh 'ats, but he's done his best--he's sat down upon them to make them lie down flat! Oh, Lord! Someone put a piece of ice down my back, afore I die!'
"This 'ere curly-'eaded young feller kep' on larfin' so I thought he would have bust. Mr. Sheepshanks, he comes up to me, lookin' a bit pinky. 'What's the matter? What's the meanin' of this?' he says.
"'Oh!' says the curly-'eaded young feller, still a-bustin' of 'isself a-larfin'; 'nothing! That waiter of yours has only been a-squashin' the 'igh 'ats--every man-jack of 'em. For goodness sake ask him about them--don't ask me! My gracious! why don't someone bring that piece of ice?'
"Mr. Sheepshanks, he came into the little band-box of a room, looking pinkier and pinkier. He looks at some 'ats which I was a-'oldin' in my 'ands.
"'What have you been a-doin' to those 'ats?' he says.
"'I've only been a-squashin' 'em,' I says; 'that's all!'
"'You've only been a-squashin' 'em?' he says--and he gives a kind of gasp, like as if he was taken short of breath upon a sudden. And he looks about the room.
"'What 'ats are these?' he says.
"'They is the 'ats,' I says, 'what was given to me by the gents as is at the party.'
"He gives another sort of gasp, and there came something into his face what I didn't altogether like the look of.
"'Who's been a-destroyin' of 'em?' he says.
"'No one ain't been a-destroyin' of 'em,' I says. 'I've only been a-sittin' on 'em to make 'em lie down flat.'
"'Oh!' he says, short and sharp like. 'Is that all you have been a-doin'? And what sort of a drunken idiot may you be, pray?'
"'I'm not drunk,' I says, 'seein' as 'ow I haven't even seen the sight of liquor since I've been inside this blessed 'ouse. And, as for idiot, I ain't so much of a idiot, perhaps, as you are'; for I didn't care who he was, nor yet what he was. I'd had about enough of being bully-ragged.
"'May I venture to ask who brought you here?' he says.
"'No one brought me 'ere,' I says, 'seein' as 'ow I came along of Mr. Perkins, to oblige him; and now I wish I hadn't, and so I tell you straight.'
"'I also,' he says,' am inclined to wish you hadn't.'
"Very hard and stern he was. I didn't like the look of him, nor yet the sound of him. 'Send Perkins to me,' he says. Presently Mr. Perkins, he comes 'urryin' up.
"'Perkins,' says Mr. Sheepshanks, 'what scoundrel is this you have brought into my 'ouse?'
"'It's only a young man from the country, sir,' says Perkins, 'as I brought with me to 'elp in the cloak-room. I do 'ope he has been doin' of nothing wrong?'
"And he gives me a glare out of his eye, like as if I had been doin' anything to him.
"'I don't know if you're a-thinkin',' says this 'ere Mr. Sheepshanks, a-puffin' and a-pantin', as it seemed to me, with rage, 'that I asked my friends to my 'ouse to have their 'ats destroyed; because your young man, as you says is from the country--and I 'opes to goodness as 'ow he'll soon go back to it!--has done for every one of 'em.'
"'I denies it!' I says. 'I tells you again, as I tells you afore, that I've only been a-squashin' of 'em and a-sittin' on 'em to make 'em lie down flat!'
"When I says that, the way Mr. Perkins goes on at me was what I never had expected. He abused me scandalous. He took me by the neck, and he 'ustled me into the 'all. And there was all the people what was at the party a-crowdin' on the stairs. If you'll believe me, before I 'ardly knew what 'ad 'appened, I found myself a-standin'...!'
"Yes, that were the first time ever I acted as a waiter--likewise, it was the very last.
"When I goes round to put the 'orse ready for market, his missus, she meets me at the door. She gives me the money that was due to me, and she says as 'ow she didn't think as 'ow I had better stay for to have a talk with Perkins, because as 'ow he might be violent. So I didn't. And I've never set eyes on him from that day to this.
"It was some time before I quite understood what it was had made the gents what was at that there party so excited. One day, comin' along a street near the Strand, I sees in a shop window a 'igh 'at what was a-shuttin' of itself up and a-openin' of itself out without, so far as I could see, no one a-doin' nothing to it. Some sort of machinery, I expect as 'ow it was. So I stops and I takes a look at it. There was a boy a-lookin' at it too. So I says to him--
"'What kind of a 'at do you call that?' I says.
"'It's a hopera 'at, ain't it?' he says. 'Who do you think as you're a-gettin' at?'
"I wasn't a-gettin' at no one, and it was like that there boy's impudence to suppose as 'ow I was.
"'Oh! a hopera 'at, is it?' I says. 'You don't 'appen to know if that's the same as a 'igh 'at, do you?'
"'A 'igh 'at!' he says. 'Go on! Ax your grandmother! P'r'aps your mother 'ardly knows you're out! Go and prig the parish pump and pop it with a peeler!'
"And that there boy, he 'ooks it. And it was well for him he did. If I had a-got my 'ands on him he'd have known it. But, from the way in which that 'at was a-goin' on in that there window, and from what that there boy says, I took it that there was two kinds of 'igh 'ats--the hopera kind and the other kind. And, in supposin' that the other kind could be squashed in, like the hopera kind, was just where I had made my error."
It was in the country, at the last Quarter Sessions, a case of theft. James Bailey, in the employ of Samuel Nichols, a fishmonger, was charged with stealing certain trusses of hay and bushels of corn. The jury had retired to consider their verdict.
"Of course," observed the foreman, who had seated himself at the head of the table, "we've only come out here as a matter of form. There's no doubt that the young scamp did it."
William Baker, leaning towards him, shading his hand with his mouth, whispered, with the evident intention of addressing him in strictest confidence, "I say guilty!"
Some of the jurymen were standing about the room talking to one another audibly on subjects which had not the slightest connection with the case they were supposed to be considering.
"What I want," said Slater, the butcher of Offley, to old George Parkes of Wormald's Farm, "is a calf--a nice one--just about prime."
With his heavy hand old Parkes nursed his stubbly chin.
"Ah!" he reflected. "I haven't got nothing, not just now, I haven't. Might have in about a month."
Slater shook his head. "Must have it Friday."
"Ah!" Mr. Parkes paused. "I haven't got nothing." Paused again. "I might have, though."
A. B. Timmins, secretary of the local branch of the Primrose League, was calling across the room to Mr. Hisgard, a well-known amateur vocalist, with a view of retaining his services for an approaching "smoker." The foreman looked about him. He raised his voice, rapped on the table.
"Gentlemen, please--business!" Somebody laughed, as if the foreman had been guilty of a joke--so he improved on it. "Business first, pleasure afterwards." The laugher held his peace--the joke fell flat. The jury seated themselves--not with any air of over-anxious haste. The foreman continued--he was one of the most flourishing auctioneers in that division of the county--and now spoke with that half persuasive, half authoritative manner with which many of them were familiar in the rostrum. "We must remember, gentlemen, that the court is waiting. So, with your permission, we will come to the point at once. Those who are of opinion that the prisoner is guilty will please hold up their hands." Seven hands went up. "Those who are of the contrary opinion." One hand was raised--Jacob Longsett's. Mr. Grice, the foreman, eyed the three gentlemen who had made no sign on either occasion. He addressed himself to one of them, "Well, Mr. Tyler, which is it to be?"
"The fact is, Mr. Grice," said Mr. Tyler, "that I've had a bad earache--it was the draught which must have given it me. I think I didn't quite catch all that was being said now and again; but I'm willing to say what the other gentlemen do!"
"You mean that you'll vote with the majority?"
"That's just what I do mean, Mr. Grice."
"I ain't going to say nothing," declared George Parkes, who had also refrained from expressing an opinion. "I don't know no good about young Bailey, nor yet about Sam Nichols neither. Sam Nichols, he's owed me nigh on four pound these three years and more."
"I don't think," observed the foreman, "that we ought to allow personal considerations to enter into the case. It's our duty to speak to the evidence, and to that only."
"I don't care nothing about no evidence. The one's as big a thief as t'other."
Old George clenched his toothless jaws and blinked.
"What'll he get if we bring him in guilty?" asked Mr. Plummer, the third abstainer.
The foreman shook his head. "That oughtn't to influence our decision."
Mr. Plummer differed, and said so.
"It'll influence mine. James Bailey is not yet eighteen. To send him to prison will do him more harm than good. If his case is to come under the First Offenders Act, we shall know where we are."
"We might make a recommendation to that effect," suggested Captain Rudd.
"Excuse me," interposed Mr. Moss, "but I doubt if I could agree to our doing that. I'm afraid that Master Bailey deserves some punishment. This is not the first time he has done this sort of thing. He was dismissed from his last two places for dishonesty."
Again the foreman shook his head.
"That didn't come out in the evidence. You know, gentlemen, what we have to do is to dismiss from our minds any knowledge of the parties which we may have outside the case, and confine our attention to the sworn testimony."
Mr. Moss smiled, declining to be pooh-poohed.
"That's all very well in theory, Mr. Grice, but in practice it won't do. Nichols, with his fish-cart, has done a daily round in this country of some twenty miles or so for the last twelve or fourteen years. I doubt if there is a person in this room who has not some knowledge of him. As for Bailey, his mother lives within a hundred yards of my house; I have known him ever since he was born. I am acquainted, too, with his last two employers, and with the circumstances under which he left them."
"I know nothing of either of the parties," said Captain Rudd.
"You are a new-comer. I doubt, as I say, if any other person present can say the same."
If any other person could, he didn't. There was a pause--broken by the foreman.
"Let us understand our position. Eight of us say guilty--Mr. Tyler goes with the majority; two of us have not yet made up our minds; and Mr. Longsett is the only one who says not guilty. May I inquire, Mr. Longsett, on what grounds you favour an acquittal?"
"You've no right to ask me anything of the kind. This is not the first jury I've served on. Although you're foreman, you're only like the rest of us. What you've got to do is to ask me if I say guilty or not guilty. I say not guilty.
"I believe, Mr. Longsett," insinuated Mr. Moss, "that Bailey is a relation of yours?"
"That's no business of yours."
"Then are we to understand, Mr. Longsett"--the foreman spoke with almost ominous suavity--"that you have arrived at a point at which you are impervious to argument?"
"I say not guilty."
"Even though it may be demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt that the prisoner is guilty?"
"It's no good talking to me, Mr. Grice. I say not guilty."
The foreman, stretching out his hands in front of him, looked round the table with an air which was eloquent with deprecation. Old Parkes banged his fist upon the board.
"And I say guilty, and I hope they'll give him seven years--the thieving varmint!"
"Arrived at a state of sudden conviction--eh, George?"
This was Mr. Timmins, who was middle-aged and jaunty.
"Some people are easily convinced," growled Mr. Longsett.
"You're not one of that sort, are you, Jacob?"
This again was Mr. Timmins.
"You won't convince me."
Nor, judging from the expression of Jacob's visage, did there seem to be much probability of their being able to do anything of the kind. There was another interval of silence--broken this time by Captain Rudd.
"Then because this gentleman chooses to differ from us, without condescending to give us his reason for so doing, are we to stultify ourselves, and is justice to be baulked? Is that the situation, Mr. Foreman?"
"Excuse me, Captain Rudd, but Mr. Longsett is not alone. I also say not guilty. The observation of Mr. Parkes, expressing a hope that the prisoner will get seven years, shows to me that a spirit of malignancy is in the air, and to that spirit I am unable to subscribe."
The speaker was Mr. Plummer. The others looked at him. The foreman spoke.
"Pardon me, Mr. Plummer, but why do you say not guilty?"
"Because I decline to be a participator in the condemnation of this mere youth to a ruthless term of penal servitude."
"But, my dear sir, he won't get penal servitude--Mr. Parkes was only joking. He'll get, at the outside, three months."
"That would be too much. It would be sufficient punishment for one of his years--my views on the subject of juvenile delinquency I have never disguised--that he should be requested to come up for judgment when called upon."
"But, my dear sir, if the magistrates leave us a free hand to do our duty, why can't we leave them a free hand to do theirs? The issue we have to decide upon is a very simple one; the responsibility of acting on that decision will be theirs."
Mr. Plummer settled his spectacles on his nose and was silent. Captain Rudd addressed him.
"I suppose you will not deny, sir, that all the evidence goes to prove the prisoner's guilt?"
"There are degrees in guilt."
"Possibly--but you admit that there is guilt, even though it may only be in the positive degree?"
Again Mr. Plummer was still. Mr. Slater called to Mr. Longsett across the table:
"You're a sportsman, Jacob, and I'm a sportsman. I tell you what I'll do. I'll toss you, guilty or not guilty. I can't stop messing about here all day--I've got my beasts to dress."
Mr. Longsett was obviously tempted; the offer appealed to the most susceptible part of him. Still, he shook his head.
"No," he grunted, as if the necessity of announcing such a refusal pained him. "I shan't."
Mr. Plummer was scandalised.
"Such a proposal is disgraceful--it ought not to be allowed to be made. Making of justice a mockery!"
Mr. Slater declined to be snubbed--at least by Mr. Plummer.
"Seems to me as if you don't quite know where you are. First you want to preach to the magistrates, then you want to preach to the jury; perhaps you think you're at the corner of High Street?"
There were those who smiled. The reference was to Mr. Plummer's fondness for open-air expositions of "the Word." Mr. Grice drummed with his fingers on the table.
"Come, gentlemen, come! we're wasting time. As business men we ought to know its value. Now, Mr. Longsett, I've too much faith in your integrity not to know that you're open to conviction. Tell us, where do you think the evidence for the prosecution is not sufficiently strong?" Mr. Longsett did not justify the foreman's faith by answering. "Be frank, on what point are you not satisfied?"
After more than momentary hesitation Mr. Longsett replied, without, however, raising his eyes.
"It's no use talking to me, Mr. Grice, so that's all about it. I say not guilty!"
Mr. Moss explained.
"The plain fact is, Mr. Foreman, Mr. Longsett is a relation of the prisoner; he ought not to have been on this jury at all."
This time Mr. Longsett did raise his eyes--and his voice too.
"I've as much right to be on the jury as you have--perhaps more. Who do you think you are? I pay my way--and I pay my servants too! They don't have to county-court me before they can get their wages. Only the other day I was on a jury when they were county-courting you. So it isn't the first jury I've been on, you see."
Mr. Moss did not seem pleased. The allusion was to a difference which that gentleman had had with one of his servants, and which had been settled in the county court. Again the foreman drummed upon the board.
"Order, gentlemen, order!"
Mr. Timmins turned to Mr. Hisgard. He winked.
"Have a game at crib, Bob? I knew Jacob would be here, so I came provided!"
He produced a cribbage-board. Once more the foreman interposed.
"Keep to the business we have in hand, please, gentlemen."
"Oh, they can have their game, I don't mind. Perhaps I came as well provided as anyone else."
As he replied Jacob took from his pocket a brown paper parcel of considerable dimensions. Tom Elliott, who was sitting by him, instantly snatching it, passed it on to Mr. Hisgard.
"Have a sandwich, Mr. Hisgard?"
"No, thank you. But perhaps Mr. Timmins will?"
He passed the packet to Mr. Timmins. That gentleman made a feint of opening it. Mr. Longsett, rising from his chair, reached for his property across the table.
"None of that; give it back to me." Mr. Timmins tossed the packet to the other end of the table.
"Now, Timmins, what do you mean by that? Do you want me to wipe you across the head?"
Mr. Timmins addressed Mr. Grice. "Now, Mr. Foreman, won't you offer the jury a sandwich each? It is about our dinner-time."
Mr. Grice eyed the packet in front of him as if he were more than half disposed to act on the suggestion.
"I really don't think, Mr. Longsett, that you ought to eat sandwiches out of a pure spirit of contradiction."
"Never mind what you think; you give me back my property, or I'll give the whole lot of you in custody." The parcel was restored to him. He brandished it aloft. "There you are, you see, a lot of grown men go and steal another man's property, and you treat it as a joke. A mere lad goes and looks at a truss of mouldy hay, and you want to ruin him for life. And you call that justice! You ain't going to get me to take a hand in no such justice, so I tell you straight!"
"It went a little farther than 'looks,' didn't it, Mr. Longsett? 'Looks' won't carry even mouldy hay three miles across country."
"And 'looks' won't carry my property from where I'm sitting down to where you are! If Jim Bailey's a thief, so's Tom Elliott--there's no getting over that. Why ain't we sitting on him instead of on that there young 'un?"
"See here, Jacob." Mr. Timmins stretched out towards him his open palm. "Here's a sporting offer for you: if you'll bring Jim Bailey in guilty, I'll bring in Tom Elliott!"
"I won't bring in neither; the one's no more a thief than the other."
"Nice for you, Tom, eh?"
"Oh, I don't mind. I know Jacob. It's not the first time a member of your family's been in trouble, is it, Jacob?"
"By----! if you say that again I'll knock the life right out of you!"
The foreman rapped upon the table.
"Order, gentlemen, order! Keep to the business in hand, if you please."
Mr. Longsett confronted him, towering over Elliott, with clenched fists and flashing eyes.
"Keep him in order then--don't keep on at me! You make him keep a civil tongue in his head, or I will." He glared round the board. "I don't care for the whole damned lot of you. I'm as good as any one of you--perhaps better! I'm here to do my duty according to my conscience and conviction, and I'm going to do it, and I say not guilty, and if we stop here till Christmas you won't make me say no different!"
This announcement was followed by an interval of silence; then Captain Rudd attempted to voice the sense of the meeting.
"In that case, Mr. Foreman, we may as well intimate to the court that we are unable to agree."
"What'll be the consequence of that?"
"The prisoner'll have to stand another trial, when, should none of his relations happen to be upon the jury, there will be no hesitation about bringing in a verdict of guilty--in which case the young scamp will get his deserts."
Stretching his body across the table, Jacob shook his clenched fist in the speaker's face.
"Look here, Captain Rudd, you may be a captain, but you're no blooming gentleman, or you wouldn't talk like that. Captain or no captain, the next time you say anything about Jim Bailey being a relation of mine I'll crack you in the mouth!" Straightening himself, Jacob shook his fist at the eleven. "And I say the same to every one of you. It's no affair of yours what Jim Bailey is to me--so just you mind it."
The captain curled, at the same time, his lip and his moustache, his bearing conveying the scorn which he doubtless felt.
"If you suppose, sir, that I shall allow you to play the common bully with impunity, you are mistaken. You forget yourself, my man!"
"Oh, no! I don't forget myself--it's you who forgot yourself. And as for playing the common bully, it's you began it. You're trying to bully me when you taunt me with Jim Bailey being my relation; you think if you keep it on long enough you'll frighten me into acting against my sense of duty."
The foreman intervened sharply: "Order! Mr. Longsett, your language is improper and irregular; if you are not careful I shall have to report it to the court."
"It's no more improper and irregular than theirs is. We're here to say guilty or not guilty, not to pry into each other's private affairs. If they don't make no personal remarks, I shan't."
"Listen to reason, Mr. Longsett. Do I understand, Mr. Plummer, that you will acquiesce in a verdict of guilty if we prefer a recommendation to the court that the case shall be treated under the First Offenders Act?"
"You are at liberty to so understand, Mr. Grice."
"And you, Mr. Longsett? If we are unable to agree the prisoner will have to go back to prison, and, on his again standing his trial, I have no hesitation in saying that he will be found guilty, when he will be likely to receive much less lenient treatment than now, when we are ready and willing to recommend him to mercy."
"We're going to agree."
"That's good hearing. You agree to a verdict of guilty, coupled with a recommendation to mercy?"
"I don't do nothing of the kind."
"Then what do you agree to?"
"I agree to a verdict of not guilty--that's what I agree to."
"Then, in that case, we're likely to disagree. You can hardly expect eleven men to go against the weight of evidence for the sake of agreeing with you."
"There's no hurry that I knows on. We'll wait a bit. I have heard of juries being locked up for eight-and-forty hours. I daresay before that time some of you'll have changed your minds. Seems to me that there's three or four already that can change their minds as easy as winking." He began, with a certain amount of ostentation, to untie the string which bound his brown paper parcel. "I'm getting peckish. If you don't mind, Mr. Foreman, we'll talk things over while I'm eating."
The unfolding of the paper revealed the fact that it contained a comfortable number of succulent-looking sandwiches. The eleven eyed them--and their owner--sourly. Carefully taking the top one of the heap between his finger and his thumb Mr. Longsett took a bite at it. Seldom has the process of attacking a sandwich had a more attentive audience.
"I say, Jacob," observed Mr. Timmins, "aren't you going to give me one?"
"What, give you the food from between my own lips! Not if I know it. We may be here till this time to-morrow. I've got to think of myself, Mr. Timmins."
"I'm not going to stop here till this time to-morrow, Jacob Longsett!"
As he spoke old Parkes banged his fist upon the table.
"All right, George Parkes, nobody asked you to, so far as I know. Seems to me you're uncommon keen to send the lad to gaol."
"I don't wish the lad no harm."
"Seems to me as how you do."
"I say I don't!"
Mr. Parkes punctuated each of his remarks with a bang upon the board.
"Then why don't you do what you've sworn to do, and bring him in not guilty along of me?"
"I don't care what I brings him in. It don't make no odds to me. It ain't none of my affair. I've got my own business to 'tend to, and when a man's got to my years he don't care to meddle in no one else's. I'm willing to bring him in not guilty along of you, Jacob Longsett."
"That's more like it. If there was more like you and me, George Parkes, we'd soon be outside of this."
Captain Rudd, who had listened to this short dialogue without evincing any signs of approbation, once more endeavoured to urge the foreman to action.
"Don't you think, Mr. Foreman, that the time has arrived for you to communicate the fact of our disagreement to the court?"
Mr. Longsett made haste to differ.
"Excuse me, Mr. Foreman, but, if Captain Rudd will allow me, I don't think it has. We haven't been here hardly any time. There's no hurry, so long as we're doing our duty. I daresay we'll all agree yet before we've finished. All we want is a little patience."
"And something to eat," said Mr. Timmins.
"Then do you mean to say," exclaimed Mr. Longsett, as he commenced upon another sandwich, "that you'd send a young lad to gaol, and blast his good name for ever, just because you're hungry?"
"May I be permitted to make a remark?" The inquiry came from Mr. Tyler. He was holding his handkerchief to his ear; his general expression was one of suffering. "Considering how little of the evidence I really heard I don't wish it to be supposed that I have any objection to a verdict of not guilty. And I may add that not only is my earache driving me nearly mad, but my health, as a whole, as some of you know, is bad, and I am easily exhausted. Had I supposed that any of this sort of thing would have taken place I should have procured a medical certificate excusing me. I appeal to gentlemen to arrive as rapidly as possible at a decision, which will enable me to obtain measures of relief."
"Hear, hear!" Mr. Longsett rapped with his knuckles on the table.
"I'd never have come," declared old Parkes, "if I'd a known I was going to be kep' all day without my dinner. When a man gets to my years he wants his victuals regular. I didn't have hardly no breakfast, and I ain't had nothing since."
"I tell you what it is," cried Slater; "I want my dinner, and I've got my business to attend to--this is the busiest day of the week for me. So far as I can see it doesn't make much difference how we bring it in. You say that if you bring him in guilty you're going to get him off: then why shouldn't you bring him in not guilty right away? If you bring him in guilty I can't help thinking that he ought to be punished--he won't care nothing for your bringing him in guilty if he isn't; while, if you bring him in not guilty, he'll thank his stars for the narrow squeak he'll think he's had, and it'll be a lesson to him as long as he lives."
"There is," allowed Mr. Plummer, "a good deal in what Mr. Slater says."
"There is one thing against it," murmured Mr. Moss. His voice was rather squeaky, and, as if conscious of the fact, he generally produced it as softly as he could.
"What's that?"
"The evidence. We are supposed to be influenced by the evidence, and by that only."
"It struck me that the evidence was all one-sided."
"Precisely--on the side of the prosecution. Since the case was practically undefended the presumption is that the prisoner had no defence to offer."
"But, as practical men," persisted Mr. Plummer, "does it not occur to you that there is a good deal in what Mr. Slater says? If we find the lad not guilty we shall teach him a lesson, and, at the same time, not be placing on his character an ineffaceable slur. We might, for instance, state in open court, through the mouth of our worthy foreman, that we are willing to give the prisoner the benefit of the doubt."
"But there is no doubt. Let us do justice though the heavens fall. Have you yourself any doubt that James Bailey stole Samuel Nichols's corn and hay?"
"Ah, dear sir, there is only One who can say. He has no doubt. We are not omniscient."
"That sort of talk may be all very well in a pulpit, Mr. Plummer. It is out of place in a court of law when we are dealing with ascertained facts."
Mr. Plummer raised his hands and shook his head, as if he was sorry for Mr. Moss.
"Let us show mercy, that we may be shown it," he all but whispered.
"In other words," struck in Captain Rudd, "we are to do evil in order that good may come--even to the extent of prostituting truth."
"I am afraid, in our present situation, these things are not arguable. Some of us, thank Heaven, see things through eyes of our own."
"Precisely, and it is because they don't appear to be arguable that I once more suggest to the foreman that the court be informed that we are unable to agree."
"And I again take leave to differ. Why now, there's"--Mr. Longsett pointed with his finger--"one--two--three--four--five of us as says not guilty. We're agreeing more and more every minute. I dare bet any money we'll all be like one family before we get outside this room. If the foreman ain't got no particular objection I'll have a moistener. I never could eat dry." Taking a black bottle out of an inner pocket in his overcoat he applied it to his lips. Such of the eleven as were not keenly observant ostentatiously turned their eyes another way. He took a long and hearty pull, then he smacked his lips. "Good stuff that; I always like a drop when I've been eating--helps digestion."
"This is more than human nature can stand," groaned Mr. Timmins. "Mr. Foreman, I move that the magistrates be informed that we are unable to agree, and I request that you put that motion without further delay."
"I second that motion," said Captain Rudd.
"And I say no!"
Jacob flourished his bottle. Mr. Timmins's visage, as he confronted Mr. Longsett, became slightly inflamed.
"We don't care what you say. Do you think we're going to sit here, watching you guzzling, as long as ever you please? If you want to give a proper verdict you give one which is according to the evidence--we're not going to let you play the fool with us, Jacob, my boy."
Extending the open palm of his left hand, Mr. Longsett marked time on it with the bottle which he was holding in his right.
"Excuse me, Mr. Foreman, but perhaps I know a bit of law as well as the rest of you, and I say that the law is this, that before a jury can tell the court anything it's got to agree upon what it's going to tell. And what I mean by that is this, that before any one of us--I don't care if it's the foreman, or who it is!--can tell the court that we disagree we've got to agree to disagree--and I don't agree!"
Mr. Moss put a question to the foreman.
"Is that really the case?"
The foreman smiled a wintry smile--and temporised.
"I shouldn't positively like to say."
"But I do say positively. You can ask the magistrates, if you like, and see if I'm not right. Why, if you go into court now and say that we disagree I shall say we don't! I shall say that if we only have a little more time we shall agree yet; all we want's a chance of talking it over."
The foreman, pressing his fingers together, addressed Mr. Longsett with an air that was acid.
"Then, according to you, if one member of a jury chooses to make himself objectionable his colleagues are at his mercy?"
Jacob rose from his seat in such a flame of passion that it almost seemed he was going to hurl his bottle at the foreman's head.
"Don't you call me objectionable, Mr. Grice! I won't have it! I'm no more objectionable than you are! I've got as much right to an opinion as you, and because my opinion don't happen to be the same as yours you've no right to call me names. If we all start calling each other names a nice state of things that'll be. A pretty notion of a foreman's duties you seem to have!"
Mr. Grice, who was not pugilistic, turned a trifle pale; he did not seem happy. Captain Rudd, tilting his chair backwards, and thrusting his hands into his trouser pockets, looked up at the ceiling.
"This is the sort of thing which brings the jury system into contempt."
"What's that, Captain Rudd?" Mr. Longsett, who was still upon his feet, chose his words with much deliberation, emphasising them with shakings of his fist. "You mean you're the sort, I suppose? You're quite right, you are. You've been in the army, you see, and you think we're soldiers, to come to heel whenever you tell us, and that's where you're mistaken, Captain Rudd. We're free Englishmen, and we don't choose to have you come the officer over us--and that's how you make the thing contemptible by trying."
There was silence. His colleagues seemed to be arriving at the conclusion that Jacob was a difficult man to differ with.
"It strikes me," said Mr. Timmins, when the silence was becoming painful, "that if the law is really such that we've got to stop here till our good Jacob takes it into his generous head to let us go, you and I, Mr. Hisgard, might have that little game of crib I was speaking of; it may help us forget where we are, and that we're not going to have any dinner till it's past supper time."
"Just you wait a minute. Perhaps," replied Mr. Hisgard, "I may be allowed to say a word." No one appeared to have any objection. "What I wish to remark is this. With all deference, I think Mr. Slater spoke as a practical man. I don't see that there's much difference between saying guilty and at the same time asking the magistrate to award no punishment, and, as Mr. Slater puts it, bringing it in not guilty right away."
Mr. Timmins, who had been shuffling a pack of cards, replaced them on the table.
"All right. Let's have it that way and make an end of it. Suppose we all say not guilty and caution him not to do it again--what's the odds?"
"So far as I'm concerned," observed Tom Elliott, "I'm willing to bring him in not guilty. It's my belief he's been led into it all along, and I know perhaps as much about it as anyone. There's a good deal about the affair what's been kept quiet by both sides. Perhaps I might have said a word for one."
Mr. Moss interrogated the foreman with uplifted eyebrows.
"Do you think it does make any difference?"
The foreman shrugged his shoulders. He was still. Captain Rudd spoke for him.
"It makes the difference between right and wrong--that's all."
Mr. Plummer leaned his elbows on the table; his spectacled countenance wore its most benevolent smile.
"Hearken to me, dear sir. We are all Christian men----"
"Not necessarily at this moment; at this moment we are jurymen--only jurymen."
Mr. Plummer sighed, as if in sorrow. He turned to the others, as if desiring their forgiveness for the captain.
"This gentleman--I trust he will pardon me for saying so--puts a curb upon his natural generosity. His is what we may, perhaps, term the military mind--precise, and, if we may say so, just a little--the merest atom--hard. For my part I think, Mr. Foreman, we might, as Christian men, conscientiously return a negative finding, intimating at the same time that, owing to the prisoner's tender years, we are not unwilling to give him the benefit of the doubt."
The captain dissented.
"What sort of mind do you call yours, sir? Were we to return such a verdict, we should make of ourselves the laughing-stock of England."
The foreman shook his head.
"I hardly think England will interest itself in our proceedings to that extent. Similar verdicts in similar cases are, I imagine, more common than you may suppose. I am not advocating such a course, but I believe it would be logically possible for us to inform the magistrates that, while some of us entertain strong opinions on the subject of the prisoner's guilt, being desirous to arrive at a state of agreement, and also bearing in mind the youth of the accused, we are willing to acquiesce in a verdict of acquittal."
"I agree to that," cried Mr. Longsett. "That's fair enough. Now, is it all settled?"
"I'm not."
The speaker was the captain. All eyes were turned on him.
The foreman spoke.
"Don't you think, captain, you--might swallow a gnat?"
"I don't wish to set myself up as a superior person, but, under the circumstances, I'm afraid I can't."
"Quite so. Now we know where we are." Mr. Longsett composed himself in his chair; planting his hands against his sides he stuck out his elbows; he screwed up his mouth. "It just shows you how one man can play skittles with eleven others."
The captain was silently contemptuous.
"I really doubt if it matters." It was Mr. Moss who said it; he whispered an addition into the captain's ear: "If the young scamp isn't hung to-day he'll be hung to-morrow."
The captain ignored the whisper; his reply was uttered with sufficient clearness.
"Perhaps, sir, your sense of duty is not a high one."
The eleven eyed each other, and the table, and vacancy; a spirit of depression seemed to be settling down upon them all. Old Parkes, with elongated visage, addressed a melancholy inquiry to no one in particular. "What's us sitting here for?"
Jacob responded--"That's what I should like to know, George. Perhaps it's because a gentleman's made up his mind to ruin a poor young lad for life."
The captain took up the gauntlet.
"I presume it is useless for me to point out to you that your statement is as incorrect as it is unjustified. I have heard a good deal about the absurdities of the jury system. I may tell you, sir, that you have presented me with an object-lesson which will last me the rest of my life. It occurs to me as just possible that the sooner the system is reformed the better."
"Ah! I daresay it would. Then gentlemen like you would be able to grind poor lads under your feet whenever it suited you. Oh, dear, no! You think yourself somebody, don't you, captain?"
Captain Rudd looked as if he would if he could; in his eyes there gleamed something very like a foreshadowing of assault and battery. The foreman made a little movement with his hands, which, possibly, was intended to be a counsel of peace. Anyhow, the captain allowed the last word to be Jacob's. Mr. Tyler, his handkerchief still pressed to his ear, appealed to the captain in a tone of voice which was almost tearful.
"As man to man, sir, let me beseech you to take pity on the dreadful situation we are in."
"To what situation do you allude, sir?"
"I am alluding, sir, to the dreadful pain which I am enduring in my left ear; you can have no conception of its severity. Besides which I have a sadly weakly constitution generally--as is well known to more than one gentleman who is now present. I have suffered for the last twenty years from chronic lumbago, together with a functional derangement of the liver, which, directly any irregularity occurs in my hours or habits, invariably reduces me to a state of collapse. I assure you that if this enforced confinement and prolonged abstention from my natural food endures much longer, in my present state of health the consequences may be highly serious."
"I don't follow your reasoning, sir. Because you are physically unfitted to serve upon a jury, and culpably omitted to inform the court of the fact, you wish me not to do my duty, you having already failed to do yours?"
"I wish you," sighed Mr. Tyler, "to be humane."
"This is the first jury ever I was on," groaned Mr. Parkes, shaking his ancient head as if it had been hung on wires, "and I'll take care that it's the last. Such things didn't ought to be--not when a man's got to my years, they didn't. Who's young Jim Bailey, I'd like to know, that we should go losing our dinners acause of him? Hit him over the head and ha' done with it--that's what I say."
"You must excuse me, Captain Rudd," said Mr. Timmins, "but why can't you strain a point as well as the rest of us? Why shouldn't we, as a body of practical men, take a merciful view of the position and give the boy another chance? He is only a boy after all."
"We are not automata though we are jurymen, and surely we may, without shame, allow ourselves to be actuated by the dictates of our common humanity."
Thus Mr. Plummer. Mr. Slater agreed with him in a fashion of his own.
"Let the boy go and have done with it--I daresay we can trust Jacob to give him a good sound towelling."
"He's had that already."
There was a grimness in Mr. Longsett's tone which caused more than one of his hearers to smile.
"I'll be bound his mother's crying her eyes out for him at home."
This was Tom Elliott. Mr. Plummer joined his hands as if in supplication.
"Poor woman!" he murmured.
"It comes hard upon the mothers," said Mr. Hisgard.
"And Jim Bailey's mother is as honest and hard-working a woman as ever lived--that I know as a fact. And she's seen a lot of trouble!"
As he made this announcement Mr. Timmins shuffled his pack of cards, as if the action relieved his mind. For some moments everyone was still. Suddenly Mr. Tyler, who had been looking a picture of misery, broke into audible lamentations.
"Oh dear! oh dear! I'm very ill! Won't anyone take pity on a man in agony?"
So intense was his sympathy with his own affairs that the tears trickled down his cheeks. Mr. Timmins endeavoured to encourage him.
"Come, Mr. Tyler, come! Bear up! It'll soon be over now!"
"If anything serious comes of the cruel suffering which is being inflicted on me I shall look to you gentlemen for compensation. I'm a poor man; it's always a hard struggle, with my poor health, to make two ends meet. I can't afford to pay doctors' bills which have been incurred by the actions of others!"
"That's pleasant hearing--what do you think, Mr. Hisgard?--if we've got to contribute to this gentleman's doctors' bills! Come, Mr. Tyler, don't talk like that, or soon we shall all of us be ill. I know I shall!"
There was a further pause. Then Mr. Moss delivered himself.
"I'm bound to admit that what Mr. Timmins has said of the prisoner's mother I know to be correct of my own knowledge. Mrs. Bailey has been a widow for many years; she has brought up a large family with the labour of her own hands; she has had many difficulties to contend with, and is deserving of considerable sympathy. There is that to be said. Come, Captain Rudd, for once in a way let us be illogical. If you will agree to a verdict of not guilty I will."