“Order in the court!” cried the usher.
Whereupon Duffield, in his excitement, dropped a chocolate on the floor and turned pale as if expecting immediate sentence of death.
However, the worst was now over. And when it appeared that the two magistrates were bluff, good-humoured squires, who seemed to have no particular spite against anybody, and believed everything the clerk told them, the spirits of our heroes revived wonderfully, and Duffield’s bag travelled briskly in consequence.
To the relief of the “Firm,” the first case was not Tom White’s. It was that of a vagrant who was charged with the heinous crimes of begging and being unable to give an account of herself. The active and intelligent police gave their evidence beautifully, and displayed an amount of shrewdness and heroism in the taking up of this wretched outcast which made every one wonder they were allowed to waste their talents in so humble a sphere as Templeton.
The magistrates put their heads together for a few seconds, and then summoned the clerk to put his head up, too, and the result of the consultation was that the poor creature was ordered to be taken in at the Union and cared for.
Duffield’s bag was getting very light by the time this humane decision was come to. Only one round was left, and that was deferred by mutual consent when the clerk called out “Thomas White!”
Our heroes sat up in their seats and fixed their eyes on the dock.
In a moment Tom White, as rollicking as ever, but unusually sober, stood in it, and gazed round the place in a half-dazed way.
As his eyes came down to the front public bench, our heroes’ cheeks flushed and their eyes looked straight in front of them.
Duffield and Raggles, on the contrary, being the victims of no pangs of conscience, after looking hurriedly round to see that neither the magistrates, the police, nor the usher observed them, winked recognition at their old servant in distress.