III.
I may say here that the features of the performance followed one another rapidly, as at a variety theatre, without any disagreeable waits or the drop of a curtain. If I had anything to complain of it was the swiftness of their succession. I was not yet habituated to this, when I found the scene occupied by the two principal actors in a laughable little interlude of Habitual Drunkenness. A powerfully built, middle-aged Irishman, with evidences of coal-heaving thick upon his hands and ground into his face to the roots of his hair, was standing at one end of that long table, and listening to the tale of the policeman who, finding him quarrelsomely and noisily drunk, and not being able to prevail with him to go home, had arrested him. When he finished, the judge said to the defendant, who had stood rolling his eyes—conspicuous from the black around them—upon the spectators, as if at a loss to make out what all this might be about, that he could ask any questions he liked of the plaintiff.
“I don’t want to ask him anything, sor,” replied the defendant, like one surprised at being expected to take an interest in some alien affair.
“Have you ever seen the defendant drunk before?” asked the judge.
“Yes, your honor; I’ve seen him drunk half a dozen times, and I’ve taken him home to keep him out of harm’s way. He’s an industrious man when he isn’t in drink.”
“Is he usually disorderly when drunk?”
“Well, he and his wife generally fight when he gets home,” the policeman suggested.
The judge desisted, and the defendant’s counsel rose, and signified his intention to cross-question the plaintiff: the counsel was that attorney of African race whom I have mentioned.
“Now, we don’t deny that the defendant was drunk at the time of his arrest; but the question is whether he is an habitual drunkard. How many times have you seen him drunk the past month?”