In the meantime the two Commissioners retired to partake of their chops and sherry: the learned counsel likewise withdrew to their private room, where they also refreshed themselves;—the attorneys stole away for a quarter of an hour:—and the audience took little portable dinners of saveloys and biscuits from their pocket-handkerchiefs, so that the compartment of the Court allotted to spectators suddenly appeared to have been transformed into a slap-bang shop on an inferior scale.
The fifteen minutes’ grace having expired, Commissioners, counsel, and lawyers returned to their places—the audience wiped their mouths—and the Clerk of the Court called forth the name of “Francis Curtis!”
CHAPTER CXIX.
THE EXAMINATION OF MR. FRANK CURTIS.
Captain O’Blunderbuss surveyed his friend with a degree of admiration amounting almost to envy, as the latter leapt nimbly into the box; but when the two Commissioners inflicted upon the Insolvent the simultaneous long stare which seemed to form a portion of the judicial proceedings, the gallant officer fixed upon those learned functionaries a look of the most ferocious menace,—muttering at the same time something about the “punching of heads.” As for Mr. Frank Curtis, he returned the stare of the Commissioners in so deliberately impudent and yet good-humoured a manner that it was quite evident the physiognomical discrimination of the bench was at least for once completely set at naught. In plain terms, the Commissioners did not know what the deuce to make of the young gentleman.
“I appear for the Insolvent, sir,” said one of the learned counsel, Mr. Cadgerbreef by name.
“And I attend for an opposing creditor, sir,” observed Mr. Bulliwell.
The Clerk of the Court handed up the schedule to the Commissioners, who occupied some minutes in looking over it, the document being somewhat a lengthy one.
“I see you have got upwards of a hundred and fifty creditors, Insolvent,” said Mr. Commissioner Sneesby, fixing his eyes severely upon the youthful candidate for the process of white-washing.
“Be Jasus! and my frind’s a jintleman—every inch of him!” cried Captain O’Blunderbuss: “and no jintleman could think of petitioning the Court with less than a hunthred and fifty creditors.”
The whole Court was struck with dismay—the bench being perfectly aghast—at this interruption; while the captain stood as dauntless and menacing as if he seriously contemplated the challenging of Commissioners, learned counsel, lawyers, and all. Even the usher was so astounded by his conduct that he forgot to bawl out his usual noisy cry for silence.