"You must excuse me, Captain Rudd," said Mr. Timmins, "but why can't you strain a point as well as the rest of us? Why shouldn't we, as a body of practical men, take a merciful view of the position and give the boy another chance? He is only a boy after all."
"We are not automata though we are jurymen, and surely we may, without shame, allow ourselves to be actuated by the dictates of our common humanity."
Thus Mr. Plummer. Mr. Slater agreed with him in a fashion of his own.
"Let the boy go and have done with it--I daresay we can trust Jacob to give him a good sound towelling."
"He's had that already."
There was a grimness in Mr. Longsett's tone which caused more than one of his hearers to smile.
"I'll be bound his mother's crying her eyes out for him at home."
This was Tom Elliott. Mr. Plummer joined his hands as if in supplication.
"Poor woman!" he murmured.
"It comes hard upon the mothers," said Mr. Hisgard.