“Oh, how shocking! how very sad!” said Mrs Stoutley, startled into animation by the suddenness of the revelation, “and how different it might have been if the youth had been trained to gentler amusements. He might have been alive now.”
“Yes,” returned the Count, “and the four women and six men might have been dead! But here come two friends who are better able to give an opinion on the point than I am.”
“What may the pint be?” asked Captain Wopper, with a genial smile, as if he were ready to tackle anything from a pint of beer to a “pint” of the compass. “Only state your case, Mrs Stoutley, an’ the Professor here, he’ll act the judge, an’ I’ll be the jury.”
“The jury is too small,” said Lewis, coming up at that moment.
“Small, young man!” repeated the Captain, with feigned surprise, as he drew himself up to his full height and squared his broad shoulders.
“Not physically, but numerically,” retorted Lewis, with a laugh—“ho! Emma, Miss Horetzki, Lawrence, Slingsby,” he called to the quartette, who sat chatting in a bay window, “you are hereby summoned to act on a jury. Come along and have yourselves impaled—I mean to say impannelled. A most important case, just going on for trial.”
“What is the nature of the case?” asked Lawrence, as they all came forward and sat down in a semicircle before Mrs Stoutley.
“It han’t got no natur—it’s unnateral altogether,” said the Captain, who had just heard it briefly stated by the Count.
“Hallo! are you appointed public prosecutor?” demanded Lewis.
“Yes, I am,” retorted the Captain, “I’ve appinted myself public persecuter, Lord Advocate, Lord High Commissioner to the Woolsack, an’ any other legal an’ illegal character ye choose to name. So you clap a stopper on yer muzzle, youngster, while I state the case. Here is Mrs Stoutley, my lords, ladies, and gentlemen, who says that climbin’, an’ gaugin’, and glaciers is foolish and useless. That’s two counts which the Count here (nothin’ personal meant) says the prisoner was guilty of. We’ll go in an’ win on the last count, for if these things ain’t useless, d’ee see, they can’t be foolish. Well, the question is, ‘Guilty or not guilty?’”