"From Portsmouth, your honour—and they belongs to the wife o' me."
The magistrate doubted the correctness of this statement—it was not likely that the wife of such a man could have such a wardrobe.
"Sure enough it's the truth, every bit of it, your honour," replied Jemmy Sullivan.
"How came this hole in your hat?" asked his worship.
"Is it the hole your honour's axing about?—'Faith, then, the mice made it, to get at the bread and the cheese, your honour—bad luck to 'em!"
"What! do you carry your bread and cheese in your hat?"
"No, 'faith, your honour, not a bit of it any time, barrin that time the mice stole it all; and then, your honour, it was not in it, that's the hat, at that same time, but on the shelf, your honour, and I'd none of it left for me breakfast at all. Gad's blood, says I to meself, but ye shan't do that to me again, says I, for I'll put it under me hat all the night; and so I did, your honour; but bad luck to them, the craturs, they bored the hole clane through the side of it, which your honour's axing about."
"Are you sure it was not on your head when the ball was fired at it?" asked his worship, without seeming to have listened to his bread and cheese adventure.
"Was it on me head, your honour! Faith if it was, meself wouldn't be here spaking to you about the mice," replied Jemmy Sullivan.
The officers, in searching his pockets, had found a number of English and Irish pawnbrokers' duplicates; and the magistrate, selecting one of them, asked,—