A penholder broke, but I slowly minced a blotter before I trusted myself to explain.
“Deponent means you, Clancy.”
“Is ut me?”
“Certainly. For instance——” here I picked up the affidavit.—“This reads ‘Deponent did not erect said shelf’, and that means, you did not erect it,——”
“But Begorra, that’s just what Oi did, Sorr——”
“What!” I shrieked.
“Oi builded——”
“You built the shelf that fell?”
My voice was desperately calm but the pencil in my hands was playing a tattoo on the desk.
“Shure, Oi did, Sorr.”