And frankly embraced me,
I remarked, ‘Not tho bad, thith ol’ Earth!’”
“Oh, beautiful! beautiful!” Phœbe clapped her hands. “I could love you for that one, Jawn.”
“It is strikingly optimistic,” commented Richard. “‘Not tho bad, thith ol’ Earth!’ And it is absolutely characteristic of Jawn.”
“I can believe it!”—this from Phœbe. “He was an imp of a lad from the cradle!”
“Jawn’s the only specimen of pure lover left from the Middle Ages,” said Richard, “for he believes with Dante, Petrarch and the rest that true love dies with marriage.”
“Devil a bit!” Jawn remonstrated. “There’s often a fine spark of it left——”
“For some other fellow,” Phœbe broke in quickly. “My own thought, exactly!” he added, and joined with Phœbe in good hearty Irish laughter.
“Order!” suddenly cried the Court, pounding her tea-cup on the table. “What d’ye mean by gettin’ the Court to commit herself like that!”
After much more such give and take the Court arraigned the prisoners and charged the jury. She acknowledged that the evidence was all against them from the start, but that long acquaintance with a criminal world had made her soft; besides, they had drunk her tea and had laughed at her jokes, and no Irishman could ever hang a man he had once laughed with. So she would recommend them to the mercy of the jury.