"Because you have the perliceman's hat, club, and badge? You forget," said the coroner, patronizingly, "that courts of justice doesn't know nothin' until it's proved to them. As a coroner, I shouldn't know my own grandmother, until she swore to herself."
"'Tisn't that, yer Honor; but becos yer got me onto the perlice yerself. Don't yer 'member, on 'lection day, I smashed two ticket booths of t'other can'date, in the Sixth Ward, lickt as much as a dozen men who was workin' agen ye, an' din was put into the Tumes over night--bad luck to the Tumes, I say! Well, yer Honor, ye was 'lected coroner by a small vote; an', in turn for me services, ye got me 'p'inted--"
"Ah! oh! I remember, now," said the coroner, somewhat confused. "I did not know you in the perliceman's dress. Well, Mr. O'Dougherty, did you see the prisoner on the night of the murder?"
"I did, yer Honor. It was about twelve o'clock. I was sittin' on a bar'l in front of Pat McKibbin's store, corner of Washin'ton and ---- streets. I was watchin' the bar'l, yer Honor, becos Pat McKibbin had some of 'em stole lately, ye see."
"Could yer swear to him, Mr. O'Dougherty?"
"Could I shwear to me own mother?--Hivin rest her sowl! Bedad, I shud know him a thousan' years from now. Didn't he shtop and light his siggar at me poipe? And didn't his nose touch me own?"
"Did he look pale and excited?" asked the coroner.
"No, yer Honor; his face was red as a brick, an', though it was a cowld night, he looked to be warm wid fasht walkin'."
"Did he say anythin'?"
"No; he only axed for a light."