they discovered that there were internal injuries: the spine was wrong, and there was concussion of the brain, and so on.”
“If ever I ’eerd tell o’ sich a thing in my borned days.”
“No, but it’s true. Well, he was laid up a long time under medical treatment, and it was months before he could get about, and then he brings his action: but before it came on he prosecutes his servant for stealing some trumpery thing or other—a very pretty girl she was too—and the trial came on at Quarter Sessions.”
“Where Squoire Stooky sits.”
“I never laughed so in all my life; there was the railway company with the red light, and there was Fireaway, the counsel for the girl, and then in hobbled the prosecutor, with a great white bandage round his head. He was so feeble through the injuries he had received that he could hardly walk. ‘Now then,’ says the counsel, ‘is he sworn?’ ‘Yes,’ says the crier.
“‘He must be sworn on the Koran,’ says Fireaway; ‘he’s a Mommadon.’
“‘Where’s the Jorum?’ says the crier. ‘Must be swore on the Jorum.’
“O dear, dear, you should ha’ heard ’em laugh—it was more like a theayter than a court. It was not only roars, but continnerus roars for several minutes. And all the time the larfter was going on there was this man throwin’ out his arms over the witness-box at the counsel like a madman; and the more he raved the more they laughed. He was changed from a hobblin’ invalid, as the counsel said, into a hathletic pugilist.”
“I ’ope she got off.”
“Got off with flying colours—we’re magnanimous said the jury, ‘not guilty.’”