'Hsssh! Sir!' But through the body of the court had passed a murmur, of challenge, as it were, from one aisle to the other.
The witness, a square man with a red face, grey hair, whiskers, and moustache, and lively excitable dark eyes, watering with anxiety, spoke in a fast soft voice:
'Tuesday afternoon, your Worships, it might be about four o'clock, I was passin' up the village, an' I saw the rector at his gate, with a loaf in 'is 'and.'
'Show us how.'
The witness held his black hat to his side, with the rounded top outwards.
'Was the loaf clean or dirty?'
Sweetening his little eyes, the witness answered:
'I should say 'twas clean.'
'Lie!'