The Tables Turned | Page 7

witness says, my lord.
_J. N_. Well, doesn't that mean the same thing? I tell you I've got it down accurately.
_J. F_. (who has been looking from one to the other with an amused _smile, now says as if he were thinking aloud_:) Well, I am damned! what a set of fools!
_J. N_. What is that you said, sir? Have you no sense of decency, sir? Are you pleading, or are you not pleading? I have a great mind to have you removed.
_J. F_. (_laughing_). Oh, by all means remove me! I didn't ask to be here. Only look here, I could set you right in three minutes if you only let me.
_J. N_. Do you want to ask the witness anything? If not, sir, hold your tongue, sir. No, sir; don't speak, sir. I can see that you are meditating bullying me; let me advise you, sir, not to try it.
_Mr. H_. (to POT.) Was that the only occasion on which you heard him speaking?
Pot. No; I have heard him speaking in Hyde Park and saying much the same thing, and calling Mr. Justice Nupkins a damned old fool!
_J. N_. (_writing_). "A damned old fool!" Anything else?
Pot. A blasted old cheat!
_J. N_. (_writing_). "A blasted old cheat!" (_Cheerfully_) Go on.
Pot. Another time he was talking in a public-house with two men whom I understood to be members of the Fabian League. He was having words with them, and one of them said, "Ah, but you forget the rent of ability"; and he said, "Damn the rent of ability, I will smash their rents of abilities."
_Mr. H_. Did you know what that meant?
Pot. No; not then.
_Mr. H_. But you do now?
Pot. Yes; for I got into conversation with one of them, who told me that it meant the brain, the skull.
_J. N_. (_writing_). "The rent of ability is a cant phrase in use among these people signifying the head."
_Mr. H_. Well?
Pot. Well, then they laughed and said, Well, as far as he is concerned, smash it when you can catch it.
_Mr. H_. Did you gather whose head it was that they were speaking of?
Pot. Yes; his lordship's.
_Mr. H_. (_impressively and plaintively_). And _why_?
Pot. Because they said he had jugged their comrades like a damned old smoutch!
_J. N_. _Jugged_?
Pot. Put them in prison, my lord.
_J. N_. (_Aside_: That Norwich affair.) Wait! I must write my self down a smoutch--smoutch? no doubt a foreign word.
_Mr. H_. What else have you heard the prisoner say.
Pot. I have heard him threaten to make her Majesty the Queen take in washing.
_J. N_. Plain washing?
Pot. Yes, my lord.
_J. N_. Not fancy work?
Pot. No, my lord.
A Juryman. Have you heard him suggest any means of doing all this?
Pot. Yes, sir; for I have attended meetings of his association in disguise, when they were plotting means of exciting the populace.
_Mr. H_. In which he took part?
Pot. In which he took part.
_Mr. H_. You heard him arranging with others for a rising of the lower orders?
Pot. Yes, sir; and on the occasion, when I met him in the public house, I got into conversation with him, and he told me that his society numbered upwards of two millions. (J. F. grins.)
The Juryman (_anxiously_). Armed?
Pot. He said there were arms in readiness for them.
_Mr. H_. Did you find out where?
Pot. Yes; at the premises of the Federationist League, 13 Farringdon Road.
_Mr. H_. Did you search for them there?
Pot. Yes.
_Mr. H_. Did you find them?
Pot. No; we found nothing but printing-stock and some very shabby furniture, and the office-boy, and three compositors.
_Mr. H_. Did you arrest them?
Pot. No; we thought it better not to do so.
_Mr. H_. Did they oppose your search?
Pot. No.
_Mr. H_. What did they do?
Pot. Well, they took grinders at me and said, "Sold!"
_Mr. H_. Meaning, doubtless, that they had had an inkling of your search and had sold the arms?
Pot. So we gathered.
_J. N_. (_writing_). "They did not find the arms because they had been sold."
_Mr. H_. Well, Constable, that will do.
_J. N_. Prisoner, do you wish to ask the Constable any questions?
_J. F_. Well, I don't know. I strongly suspect that you have made up your mind which way the jury shall make up their minds, so it isn't much use. However, I will ask him three questions. Constable Potlegoff, at how many do you estimate the dense crowd at Beadon Road, when I obstructed?
Pot. Upwards of a thousand.
_J. F_. H'm; a good meeting! How many were present at that meeting of the Socialist League where we were plotting to make the Queen take in washing?
Pot. Upwards of two hundred.
_J. F_. Lastly, when I told you in the public-house that we were two millions strong, were you drunk or sober?
Pot. Sober.
_J. F_. H'm! It's a matter of opinion perhaps as to when a man is drunk. Was