"Don't you think you might have been mistaken, sir?" came the next query; for Oliver Jupp's word, a young and little man, bore less weight than Colonel West's, who counted five-and-fifty years, and stood six feet two in his stockings.
"I was not mistaken. It was the red light."
Colonel West was recalled. What else could they do in the dilemma? He stood forward, and Oliver Jupp hid his head amid the ignoble crowd close behind.
With an apology for the apparent doubt, the same question was put to him. Did he think he could have been mistaken in supposing the light was the green.
"Not a bit of it," the colonel answered, with good-humoured equanimity. The lights exhibited that night were the same that always were exhibited--green. The light he saw swayed about was the green.
"Well," exclaimed the coroner, "there's hard swearing somewhere."
And hard swearing there certainly appeared to be. As a spectator audibly remarked, "one could not find an end out of it." The coroner got impatient.
"It is impossible at the present stage to come to any satisfactory conclusion, gentlemen of the jury," he observed; "and I think we had better adjourn the inquiry, when other witnesses may be forthcoming."
Adjourned it was accordingly for a fortnight.
"But for Colonel West they'd have had it all against me," remarked Cooper, who was feeling himself wronged.