Q. And again you asked him to leave his gun with you?
A. No, I did not—not directly, at least.
Q. Please explain what you mean by “not directly”?
A. He may have understood what was in my mind. I can’t say. He just laughed, and called out that he wasn’t going to shoot himself, and wasn’t going to let me make an ass of him; and with that he marched off.
Q. And that is all?
A. All.
Q. He didn’t, by chance, in saying “I’m not going to shoot myself,” lay any particular emphasis on the last word?
A. Certainly not that I distinguished. The whole suggestion is too impossible to any one who knows my friend.
Q. Thank you, Mr. Bickerdike. That will do.
If witness had entered the box like an oppressed man, he left it like a beaten. His cheeks were flushed, his head bowed; it was observed that he purposely avoided looking his friend in the face as he passed him by on his way to the rear of the Court.