"You'd like to make me drunk, now, wouldn't you?" said he, tossing off a large tumbler of red wine. "Don't be ridiculous, my fine fellow! who ever saw me drunk?"
"I have," smiled Mr. Kenihazy from his place at the card-table; "I've seen you as drunk as David's sow!"
"Who did?" cried Mr. Skinner.
Zatonyi, who, leaning on his elbows, watched Mr. Catspaw shuffling the cards, raised his head at the sound of the judge's shrill voice, and observed that, after all, the day's business was neatly done.
"This is my sixteenth case," added he; "and, somehow or other, we always managed to do for somebody."
"Nihil ad rem!" cried Mr. Skinner; "it's this man I want to ask."
"Nihil ad rem, indeed!" hiccoughed Zatonyi, "are not we in court-martial assembled? It is provided that the court shall sit until the sentence has been executed."
"Fiddlesticks! it's nothing ad rem, I tell you! I want to ask Kenihazy!"
"Oh, fiddlesticks! eh?" cried the assessor, striking the table with his fist, "when I say—eh, what did I want to say? yes, that's it, that's no fiddlesticks! Consider, domine spectabilis, to whom you're speaking, and where you are; I say, sir, lie prostrate in the face of the sanctity of the place; for, sir, this is a court-martial!"
Mr. Skinner became more and more impatient.