“Received your last all right.”
“Is that your handwriting?” the judge asked of the plaintiff; but young Mr. Pippitt swayed to and fro and fell in a faint in the witness-box. The judge turned to Mr. Budge.
“Do you desire,” he asked, “that this man should be sworn, and repeat his evidence on oath, so that you may cross-examine him?”
Mr. Budge looked at his inanimate client, and answered, “I do not, my lord. I shall probably have your lordship’s approval in withdrawing from the case?”
While the judge directed the jury to return a verdict for the defendant, the old man had anxiously watched the usher, who was unloosing young Mr. Pippitt’s neckcloth. When the plaintiff revived, the old man leaned over to Mr. Budge, and said, with a pleased smile, “Oh, he’ll be all right directly, won’t he? I thought I could help a bit. I have helped a bit, haven’t I?”
“You have helped him to twelve months’ hard labor,” said Mr. Budge.
But the old man did not understand what it all meant, till one day they took him to Kensal Green, and showed him a handsome tombstone. The inscription ran:
“In Memory of James Pippitt.”
The old man read and laughed.