"Confine yourself to evidence," interrupted the judge.
"Well, sir, I was a-nursing of my leg whilst Master Omer looked into the book. I don't know what he saw there; he didn't say; and when he had done looking I locked it safe up again."
"Did you see him make an extract from it?" demanded Serjeant Wrangle.
"Yes, I saw him a-writing' something down in his pocket-book."
"Have you ever entrusted the key of the safe to strange hands?"
"I wouldn't do such a thing," angrily replied the witness. "I never gave it to nobody, and never would; there's not a soul knows where it is to be found, but me, and the rector, and the other clergyman, Mr. Prattleton, what comes often to do the duty. I couldn't say as much for the key of the church, which sometimes goes beyond my custody, for the rector allows one or two of the young college gents to go in to play the organ. By token, one on 'em—the quietest o' the pair, it were, too—flung in that very key on to our kitchen floor, and shivered our cat's beautiful chaney saucer into seven atoms, and my missis——"
"That is not evidence," again interrupted the judge.
Nothing more, apparently, that was evidence, could be got from the witness, so he was dismissed.
Call the Reverend Mr. Wilberforce.
The Reverend Mr. Wilberforce, rector of St. James the Less, minor canon and sacrist of Westerbury Cathedral, and head-master of the collegiate school, came forward, and was sworn.