'For or against?'
'Against the culprit.'
'My discordant friend,' said Smyth, producing a second bottle from an unsuspected source and making it disappear mysteriously, 'means that he is prejudiced against England. Am I right, sir?'
'Not exactly,' drawled the composer. 'I don't mind England—but I think the English are awful.'
'That is a nice point,' said Lady Durwent.
'Ah,' broke in Madame Carlotti, 'but, much as I detest the English, I hate England more. Nom de Dieu! I—a daughter of the Mediterranean, where the sun ees so rarely a stranger, and the sky and the water it ees always blue. In Italy one lives because she ees alive—it ees sufficient. Here it ees always gray, gray—always g-r-ray. When the sun comes—sacramento! he sees his mistake and goes queek away. Ah, Signor Selwyn, it ees désolant that I am compelled to live here.'
A roar of unfeeling laughter greeting her familiar plaint, Madame Carlotti took a hitch in her gown and reimprisoned some of her person which had escaped from custody.
'Then,' said Johnston Smyth, 'if we are all of a mind, there is no need to have a trial. You have all seen the accusation in Mr. Selwyn's eye, you have considered the unbiassed evidence of the lovely Carlotti'——
'But jurors can't give evidence,' muttered Mr. Dunckley.
'My dear sir, I know she can't, but she did,' said Smyth triumphantly. 'Oyez, oyez—all in favour'——