“Possibly,” said the judge.
“I'm darned if it was,” said Joshua Fullalove composedly.
Instantly, all heads were turned in amazement at this audacious interruption to the soporific decorum of an English court. The transatlantic citizen received this battery of eyes with complete imperturbability.
“Si-lence!” roared the crier, awaking from a nap, with an instinct that something unusual had happened. But the shrewd old judge had caught the sincerity with which the words were uttered, and put on his spectacles to examine the speaker.
“Are you for the plaintiff or the defendant?”
“I don't know either of 'em from Adam, my lord. But I know Captain Dodd's pocket-book by the bullet-hole.”
“Indeed! You had better call this witness, Mr. Colt.”
“Your lordship must excuse me; I am quite content with my evidence,” said the wary advocate.
“Well then, I shall call him as amicus curiae; and the defendant's counsel can cross-examine him.”
Fullalove went into the box, was sworn, identified the pocket-book, and swore he had seen fourteen thousand pounds in it on two occasions. With very little prompting, he told the sea-fight, and the Indian darkie's attempt to steal the money, and pointed out Vespasian as the rival darkie who had baffled the attempt. Then he told the shipwreck to an audience now breathless—and imagine the astonished interest with which Julia and Edward listened to this stranger telling them the new strange story of their own father!—and lastly, the attempt of the two French wreckers and assassins, and how it had been baffled. And so the mythical cash was tracked to Boulogne.