"Hear, hear!" Mr. Longsett rapped with his knuckles on the table.
"I'd never have come," declared old Parkes, "if I'd a known I was going to be kep' all day without my dinner. When a man gets to my years he wants his victuals regular. I didn't have hardly no breakfast, and I ain't had nothing since."
"I tell you what it is," cried Slater; "I want my dinner, and I've got my business to attend to--this is the busiest day of the week for me. So far as I can see it doesn't make much difference how we bring it in. You say that if you bring him in guilty you're going to get him off: then why shouldn't you bring him in not guilty right away? If you bring him in guilty I can't help thinking that he ought to be punished--he won't care nothing for your bringing him in guilty if he isn't; while, if you bring him in not guilty, he'll thank his stars for the narrow squeak he'll think he's had, and it'll be a lesson to him as long as he lives."
"There is," allowed Mr. Plummer, "a good deal in what Mr. Slater says."
"There is one thing against it," murmured Mr. Moss. His voice was rather squeaky, and, as if conscious of the fact, he generally produced it as softly as he could.
"What's that?"
"The evidence. We are supposed to be influenced by the evidence, and by that only."
"It struck me that the evidence was all one-sided."
"Precisely--on the side of the prosecution. Since the case was practically undefended the presumption is that the prisoner had no defence to offer."
"But, as practical men," persisted Mr. Plummer, "does it not occur to you that there is a good deal in what Mr. Slater says? If we find the lad not guilty we shall teach him a lesson, and, at the same time, not be placing on his character an ineffaceable slur. We might, for instance, state in open court, through the mouth of our worthy foreman, that we are willing to give the prisoner the benefit of the doubt."