"Yes."
"And what did you say to that?"
The sudden change in the style of the question was glossed over by the single artifice which Robert Carlton permitted himself during the conduct of his case: instead of ringing triumphant, his voice dropped as though he feared the answer. Sir Wilton fell into the trap.
"I said, 'If that's the law I'll see you keep it. Go and build your church! Where there's a law there will be a penalty; go build your church or I'll enforce it.'"
"Which did you expect to enforce—the penalty or the law?"
"I didn't mind which," declared the witness, after hesitation; and his indifference was less successfully assumed than before.
"Oh!" said Carlton; "so you didn't mind my building the church after all?"
Sir Wilton appealed wildly to the Bench.
"Am I to be browbeaten and insulted, by a convicted libertine and evil liver, without one word of protest or reproof?"
The chairman coloured with confusion and indecision.