Whitworth. Nor I neither.
The Judge. Let me see the papers. 'Tis Thomas Leicester sure enough.
Whitworth. And you mean to swear that Griffith Gaunt answered an advertisement inviting Thomas Leicester?
Mercy. I do. Thomas Leicester was the name he went by in our part.
Whitworth. What? what? You are jesting.
Mercy. Is this a place or a time for jesting? I say he called himself Thomas Leicester.
Here the business was interrupted again by a multitudinous murmur of excited voices. Everybody was whispering astonishment to his neighbor. And the whisper of a great crowd has the effect of a loud murmur.
Whitworth. Oh, he called himself Thomas Leicester, did he? Then what makes you say he is Griffith Gaunt?
Mercy. Well, sir, the pedlar, whose real name was Thomas Leicester, came to our house one day, and saw his picture, and knew it; and said something to a neighbor that raised my suspicions. When he came home, I took this shirt out of a drawer; 'twas the shirt he wore when he first came to us. 'Tis marked "G. G." (The shirt was examined). Said I, "For God's sake speak the truth: what does G. G. stand for?" Then he told me his real name was Griffith Gaunt, and he had a wife in Cumberland. "Go back to her," said I, "and ask her to forgive you." Then he rode north, and I never saw him again till last Wednesday.
Whitworth (satirically). You seem to have been mighty intimate with this Thomas Leicester, whom you now call Griffith Gaunt. May I ask what was, or is, the nature of your connection with him?