"I demand a suspended sentence."
"Granted," accorded the clerk, lying on the swing again, face down, so that his voice was muffled. "Now then! You insist the responsibility wasn't yours?"
"What's the use of going into that?"
The clerk sat up and adjusted his hat from the Napoleonic tilt it had assumed when he was prone to the proper fore-and-aft position. "The defendant is instructed that evasion is paramount to tutti-frutti. Answer the question or be incontemptible."
"It wasn't my idea," said the Governor sullenly.
"You consented, however."
"I 'consented'? Was she some chattel who needed dispensation from me?"
The clerk shook his finger.
"I actually tried to persuade her not to do it."