The bayonets of the soldiers were so efficacious in counteracting the somniferous tendency of the opiate which Signor Goffoni had swallowed, that by the time he had reached the gates of the Casa di Correzione, a distance of at least five miles from the scene of his capture, the exercise had done him so much good that it had "worked off" all his drowsiness, and he was, the morning after, in the most miserable state of perfect convalescence.
Goffoni instantly began protesting his innocence; but the incredulous jailor assured him it was to no purpose, and that he might look upon himself as a dead man; for that his own confession, let alone the circumstantial evidence, was quite enough to settle his business.
The wretched Signor called himself a fool, an idiot, a jackass, a nincompoop, and a volume of other titles equally complimentary to his intellect, for ever having consented to take another man's crime upon himself—as he pledged his honour to the jailor he had done in the present instance.
The jailor, however, was a man of too great experience to place much faith in the honour of gentlemen charged with highway robbery. And so to the Signor's asseveration, he replied with a knowing wink—"Gammon! Well, I've heard many lame defences in my time, but, hang me! if that isn't the most rickety concern I ever listened to. I should like to know the judge," he continued, "that you think would swallow such indigestible stuff as that. For everyone is aware that gentlemen in your line of business an't quite such born donkeys as to take other men's sins upon their shoulders, when they've always got a pretty tidy load of their own. So if you follow my advice, my man," considerately added the jailor, "you'll plead guilty like a Christian, and then, perhaps, you may be lucky enough to get off with the galleys for life."
Goffoni, however, finding his declarations of innocence made no impression upon the officers of justice, determined at length upon seeking the advice and consolation of some counsel learned in the chicanery of the law. But the Gentleman in Black afforded him little comfort; for though he himself, he said, had no doubt of the truth of the Signor's strange statement, still, he thought that Goffoni would find it extremely difficult to make a court of justice believe that human stupidity could go to such lengths. And he was afraid that his unfortunate client must make up his mind to the worst; for that, of late, the robberies in the neighbourhood had so much increased that the authorities had resolved to make an example of the very next culprit.
Whereupon Goffoni again declared that he was a fool, an idiot, &c., for ever having consented to stand as godfather to a foot-pad, and take the transgressions of a gentleman with a passion for highway robbery, upon himself. And he tore his toupée and he thumped his cranium, as though he were trying to cudgel his brains for allowing him to—say he did it.
[Third Titter, page [150].]
THE DESECRATION OF THE BRIGHT POKER.
