Job twisted and lolloped about, as if he was looking out for some opening to bolt through; but all egress was shut up.
“Why, please your honour,” the eloquent blood mantling in his honest sunburnt cheeks; while from my heart I pitied the poor fellow, for he was absolutely broiling in his bashfulness—“He seared me onon—why, please your honour, he seared me on—with a redhot iron!”
“Why, I guessed as much, if he seared you at all; but where did he sear you? Come now,” coaxingly, “tell the court where and how he applied the actual cautery.”
Job being thus driven to his wit’s end, turned and stood at bay. “Now I will tell you, your honour, if you will but sit down for a moment, and answer me one question.”
“To be sure; why, Job, you brighten on us. There, I am down now for your question.”
“Now, sir,” quoth Rumbletithump, imitating his tormentor’s manner much more cleverly than I expected, “what part of your honour’s body touches your chair?”
“How, sir!” said the man of words—“how dare you, sir, take such a liberty, sir?” while a murmuring laugh hummed through the court.
“Now, sir, since you won’t answer me, sir,” said Job, elevated by his victory, while his hoarse voice roughened into a loud growl, “I will answer myself. I was seared, sir, where”—
“Silence!” quoth the crier at this instant drowning the mate’s voice, so that I could not catch the words he used.
“And there you have it, sir. Put me in jail, if you like, sir.”