Overtop was tempted to make a fierce reply; but the legal discretion in which he was educated restrained him.
The word had gone forth. The jurors rose, yawned, and grasped their hats. The reporters jammed their notes into their pockets, and precipitately fled from the room. The policeman escorted Marcus Wilkeson and his counsel, and Tiffles and Patching, to the carriage which brought them, and which still stood in front of the house, an object of tragic interest to a large crowd of men, women, and children, who had remained about the doorway during the inquest, and could not be dispersed by the policemen.
"Which is he?" "Who's the murderer?" whispered twenty voices, as the party emerged from the stairs upon the sidewalk.
"That's him! That chap with the big hat and long hair. You could pick him out of a million," said a shrewd observer.
"What ugly eyes he's got! They're sharp enough to stab ye," added a shop girl.
"I seen some pirates hung, when I was a little gal," remarked an old woman, "and they were pooty compared to him."
The object of these and other remarks was the unhappy Patching, who had not yet got over his wrath at the coroner, and was scowling and compressing his lips very like a murderer.
The policeman and his companions, all but the spell-bound Marcus, could not help laughing at these ridiculous mistakes. But Patching turned upon the crowd, and delivered among them one withering look of scorn, which fully confirmed them in the belief that he was a murderer of the deepest dye. And when the carriage rolled away, it was followed by a volley of groans, mixed with a few pebbles, handfuls of mud, and other missiles which happened to be lying around loose.
"Here, boys, don't act that way," said the coroner, who had just made his appearance on the sidewalk. "Let the poor devil go. It's a case of murder, clear, enough; and he won't slip through my hands easy, I can tell ye, if he is rich." The coroner spoke good-naturedly, for he saw several of his political adherents among the throng.
"That's the talk!" "Good boy!" "You're the feller for us!" were some of the warm responses.