“You would not swear he did not keep it?”
“I don’t know.”
“But you wouldn’t swear he didn’t?”
“I couldn’t, because if I don’t know—”
“If you don’t know you couldn’t swear he didn’t do it. Come, tell the jury, Yes, or No, Mr Simple; it is an important question.”
Simson looked up and down. Half a dozen friends were winking at him suggestively from different parts of the court, and he couldn’t make out their meaning. At length he perceived Munger nodding his head, and as Munger had lent him a crib to Ovid the day before, he decided to refer to him.
“Yes,” he said.
“I thought so,” said Felgate. “Why could you not say that before, Mr Simple?”
And Simson descended from his perch amid laughter and jeers, not quite sure whether he had not committed a crime beside which the offence of the prisoner at the bar was a trifle.
“Call William Tomkins,” said Barnworth.