“Be careful what you’re saying of,” begged the carpenter, fiercely. “Don’t you go aspersing my character, if you please. I’m setting ’ere now to represent the for and—”
“Now, now, my dear sir,” said the coroner, “don’t quarrel with the witness.” He smiled cheerfully at the other members of the jury and almost winked. “That’s my prerogative, you know.” He turned to the trembling lady at the end of the table. “Now, Mrs. Rastin, you live in Pimlico Walk, and you are, I believe, a widow?” Mrs. Rastin bowed severely, and then looked at the carpenter as who should say, What do you make of that, my fine fellow? The coroner went on. “And you knew the deceased?”
“Intimate, sir!”
“Was she a woman with—er, inebriate tendencies?”
“Pardon, sir?”
“I say was she a woman who had a weakness for alcohol?”
The sergeant interpreted, “Did she booze?”
“She liked her glass now and again, sir,” said Mrs. Rastin, carefully.
“That is rather vague,” remarked the coroner. “What does ’now and again’ mean?”
“Well, sir,” said Mrs. Rastin, tying the ribbons of her rusty bonnet into a desperate knot, “what I mean to say is whenever she had the chance.”