“Then we’ll try to assist your memory. Do you know the prisoner at the bar?”
The witness looked at Scarlett with a grin. Then he turned, and confronted the lawyer. “I know him,” he said. “He was boss of the gentlemen diggers.”
“Did you know the deceased, Isaac Zahn, with whose murder the prisoner is charged?”
“I did—he bought gold of me.”
“Did you ever know the two men, John Scarlett and Isaac Zahn, to quarrel?”
“I did.”
“Please be so good as to describe to the jury the nature of the quarrel.”
“I was standin’ in the bar of The Lucky Digger, havin’ a pint with a friend,” said the long, thin witness, “when I heard the prisoner exchangin’ words with Zahn.”
“Ah! a very important matter,” said the counsel for the Crown. “What was the subject of their conversation?”
“Seemed to me they were both sparkin’ up to the bar-maid,” said the digger, “an’ consequently there was bad blood between ’em, specially on the part of Scarlett.”