"You may proceed, Mister District Attorney!" he announced, and little Pepperill, the youngest of the D.A.'s staff, just out of the law school, begoggled and with his hair plastered evenly down on either side of his small round head, rose with serious mien, and with a high piping voice opened the prosecution.
It was, he told them, a most unusual and hence most important case. The defendant Appleboy had maliciously procured a savage dog of the most vicious sort and loosed it upon the innocent complainant as he was on his way to work, with the result that the latter had nearly been torn to shreds. It was a horrible, dastardly, incredible, fiendish crime, he would expect them to do their full duty in the premises, and they should hear Mr. Tunnygate's story from his own lips.
Mr. Tunnygate limped with difficulty to the stand, and having been sworn gingerly sat down—partially. Then turning his broadside to the gaping jury he recounted his woes with indignant gasps.
"Have you the trousers which you wore upon that occasion?" inquired Pepperill.
Mr. Tunnygate bowed solemnly and lifted from the floor a paper parcel which he untied and from which he drew what remained of that now historic garment.
"These are they," he announced dramatically.
"I offer them in evidence," exclaimed Pepperill, "and I ask the jury to examine them with great care."
They did so.
Tutt waited until the trousers had been passed from hand to hand and returned to their owner; then, rotund, chipper and birdlike as ever, began his cross-examination much like a woodpecker attacking a stout stump. The witness had been an old friend of Mr. Appleboy's, had he not? Tunnygate admitted it, and Tutt pecked him again. Never had done him any wrong, had he? Nothing in particular. Well, any wrong? Tunnygate hesitated. Why, yes, Appleboy had tried to fence in the public beach that belonged to everybody. Well, did that do the witness any harm? The witness declared that it did; compelled him to go round when he had a right to go across. Oh! Tutt put his head on one side and glanced at the jury. How many feet? About twenty feet. Then Tutt pecked a little harder.
"Didn't you tear a hole in the hedge and stamp down the grass when by taking a few extra steps you could have reached the beach without difficulty?"