“Come now, describe him to me. Was he short or tall?”
“Stumpy, sir; almost as much so as your honour.”
“Humph! What kind of nose had he?”
“Snubby, as I should say, just like your own, sir, only not cocked up quite so much.”
“Humph! His eyes?”
“Well now, he has a kind of cast in them, sir, a sort of a squint very much like your honour’s eyes.”
“Psha! You may go down.”
In or about 1768 John Dunning was retained in a case of murder. The story told is this:—
Edward Gould, of Pridhamsleigh, died in 1736, and as he was the last of the elder branch of the family, he left all his lands in Staverton, Ashburton, Holne, Widdecombe-on-the-Moor, and Chudleigh to William Drake Gould, of Lew Trenchard, the representative of the next branch, who was then a minor. This William Drake Gould died in 1766, and all his estates devolved on his only son Edward, born in 1740. Edward was a spendthrift and a gambler. One evening he had been playing late and deep, and had lost every guinea he had about him. Then he rode off, put a black mask over his face, and waylaid the man who had won the money of him, and on his appearance, challenged him to deliver. The gentleman recognized him and incautiously exclaimed, “Oh! Edward Gould, I did not think this of you!”