Noah assented.
“I do not care what the course of instruction was in the school,” protested Mr. Caunter. “To the point, if you please, and remember, address yourself to the Bench. There was some sort of affray between you and Flood. The constables separated you. What led to this?”
“I believe there was some tittery bit of a thing. I titched Noah, and Noah titched me, and my hat falled off. You see, your worship, I’d pomatumed my hair this morning, and so my hat didn’t sit easy. My head was all slithery like, and a little titch, and away went my hat.”
“Here is the hat, your worship,” said a constable, producing and placing on the table a battered and trampled piece of headgear.
“Is that your hat, John Pooke?”
“I reckon it may ha’ been. But her’s got terrible knocked about. It wor a mussy that I hadn’t on my new hat I got at Exeter--that would ha’ been a pity. I bought she for sister’s Sue’s wedding. Sister Sue be a-going to be married after Easter, your worship.”
“I don’t want to hear about sister Sue. So Noah Flood knocked your hat off, and that occasioned”--
“I beg your pardon, sir, I never said that. I said my head was that slithery wi’ pomatum the hat falled off, and then folks trod on it.”
“Come, this is trifling with the Bench, and with the majesty of the law. The people may have trampled on your hat, but not on your head, which is cut about and battered almost as much as the hat.”
“No, sir, I don’t fancy nobody trod on my head.”