“It med be.”
“Med be; but wasn’t it? You know it was, or, don’t you?”
Bumpkin seemed spiked, so silent; seemed on fire, so red.
“Well, we know it was so. Now, my lord, I call your lordship’s attention to this remarkable fact; here in the depositions he calls himself Pumpkin.”
His lordship looks carefully at the depositions and says that certainly is so.
Mr. Newboy rises and says he understands that it may be a mistake of the clerk’s.
Judge: “How can you say that, Mr. Newboy, when it’s in his affidavit?”
(Clerk of Arraigns whispers to his lordship.) “I mean in his depositions, as I am told they are called in this Court; these are read over to him by the clerk, and he is asked if they are correct.” Shakes his head.
(So they began to try the prisoner, not so much on the merits of the case as on the merits of the magistrate’s clerk.)
“You certainly said your name was Pumpkin,” said the Judge, “and what is more you swore to it.”