"Of course," observed Ridgwell to the Writer, "we shall know now who has won the game."
The Writer agreed.
"Will the old gentleman in the red robe call out the forfeits then?"
"Rather," replied the Writer, "and I fancy, myself, the heaviest forfeit will be the one which includes bringing Lal into Court; it must have really cost a very considerable sum. Hullo, they are all coming back," broke off the Writer, "all the Jury, looking as if they have lost their way, which I believe, myself, they have, during the entire case. There, they are summoning his Lordship. Now for it."
Upon his Lordship resuming his seat, the foreman of the Jury delivered himself thus, upon behalf of himself and his other eleven brethren.
"The Jury had all tasted and partaken of the Crème-de-Menthe" (bottle produced and the contents seen to be very considerably diminished), "and they found that the Right Worshipful the Lord Mayor of London could not have been suffering from any form of intoxication in the ordinary acceptance of the word, but that the Lord Mayor might have been temporarily intoxicated with a sense of his own greatness. That the noble Statue of the British Lion was regarded by the Lord Mayor merely as a symbol of the whole British Empire, and was emblematical of his own power under that Empire. Consequently no blame whatever could be attached to him.
"They further found that Mr. Learnéd Bore had forthwith unquestionably uttered a libel against the Lord Mayor which might have been a gross libel, had it not been merely a stupid assertion published in a newspaper, and not therefore to be taken seriously.
"They found that Mr. Learnéd Bore's evidence was flippant, and left much to be desired; they wished accordingly to severely censure that gentleman.
"Damages, therefore, in the case, although slight, would be given to his Worship the Lord Mayor, together with all costs of the action.
"With regard to the Writer and Poet, they, the Jury, wished to severely condemn all the works he had written, or partly written, since he had produced, or partly composed, one wholly seditious ballad, attempting to make fun of the Laws of England, whereupon they expressed an earnest hope that all his works might in future be banned."