"If your Honor will look at that," Mr. Stubbs says, smiling,—"most on em's bin up afore. All hard cases, they is."
"If yeer Onher plases, might a woman o' my standin' say a woord in her own difince? Sure its only a woord, Judge, an beein a dacent gintleman ye'd not refuse me the likes."
"Silence, there!" ejaculates Mr. Seargent Stubbs; "you must keep quiet in court."
"Faith its not the likes o' you'd keep me aisy, Mr. Stubbs. Do yee see that now?" returns the woman, menacingly. She is a turbulent daughter of the Emerald Isle, full five feet nine inches, of broad bare feet, with a very black eye, and much in want of raiment.
"The most corrigible case what comes to this court," says Mr. Stubbs, bowing knowingly to the judge. "Rather likes a prison, yer Honor. Bin up nine times a month. A dear customer to the state."
The Judge, looking grave, and casting his eye learnedly over the pages of a ponderous statute book, inquires of Mr. Seargent Stubbs what the charge is.
"Disturbed the hole neighborhood. A fight atween the Donahues, yer Honor."
"Dorn't believe a woord of it, yeer Onher. Sure, din't Donahue black the eye o' me, and sphil the whisky too? Bad luck to Donahue, says I. You don't say that to me, says he. I'd say it to the divil, says I. Take that! says Donahue." Here Mrs. Donahue points to her eye, and brings down even the dignity of the court.
"In order to preserve peace between you and Donahue," says his Honor, good naturedly, "I shall fine you ten dollars, or twenty days."
"Let it go at twenty days," replies Mrs. Donahue, complimenting his Honor's high character, "fir a divil o' ten dollars have I." And Mrs. Donahue resigns herself to the tender mercies of Mr. Seargent Stubbs, who removes her out of court.