Witness: Not so far as I am aware. His financial position was exceptionally favorable.
Coroner: There had been no quarrel with Miss Brent?
Witness: I have the best authority for saying that no shadow of difference had ever come between them.
Coroner: Was the deceased left-handed?
Witness: Certainly not. He was not even ambidextrous.
A Juryman: Isn't Shoppinhour one of the infidel writers, published by the Freethought Publication Society?
Witness: I do not know who publishes his books.
The Juryman (a small grocer and big raw-boned Scotchman, rejoicing in the name of Sandy Sanderson and the dignities of deaconry and membership of the committee of the Bow Conservative Association): No equeevocation, sir. Is he not a secularist, who has lectured at the Hall of Science?
Witness: No, he is a foreign writer—(Mr. Sanderson was heard to thank Heaven for this small mercy)—who believes that life is not worth living.
The Juryman: Were you not shocked to find the friend of a meenister reading such impure leeterature?