"Ah!" Mr. Parkes paused. "I haven't got nothing." Paused again. "I
might have, though."
A. B. Timmins, secretary of the local branch of the Primrose League,
was calling across the room to Mr. Hisgard, a well-known amateur
vocalist, with a view of retaining his services for an approaching
"smoker." The foreman looked about him. He raised his voice, rapped on
the table.
"Gentlemen, please--business!" Somebody laughed, as if the foreman had
been guilty of a joke--so he improved on it. "Business first, pleasure
afterwards." The laugher held his peace--the joke fell flat. The jury
seated themselves--not with any air of over-anxious haste. The foreman
continued--he was one of the most flourishing auctioneers in that
division of the county--and now spoke with that half persuasive, half
authoritative manner with which many of them were familiar in the
rostrum. "We must remember, gentlemen, that the court is waiting. So,
with your permission, we will come to the point at once. Those who are
of opinion that the prisoner is guilty will please hold up their
hands." Seven hands went up. "Those who are of the contrary opinion."
One hand was raised--Jacob Longsett's. Mr. Grice, the foreman, eyed
the three gentlemen who had made no sign on either occasion. He
addressed himself to one of them, "Well, Mr. Tyler, which is it to
be?"
"The fact is, Mr. Grice," said Mr. Tyler, "that I've had a bad
earache--it was the draught which must have given it me. I think I
didn't quite catch all that was being said now and again; but I'm
willing to say what the other gentlemen do!"
"You mean that you'll vote with the majority?"
"That's just what I do mean, Mr. Grice."
"I ain't going to say nothing," declared George Parkes, who had also
refrained from expressing an opinion. "I don't know no good about
young Bailey, nor yet about Sam Nichols neither. Sam Nichols, he's
owed me nigh on four pound these three years and more."
"I don't think," observed the foreman, "that we ought to allow
personal considerations to enter into the case. It's our duty to speak
to the evidence, and to that only."
"I don't care nothing about no evidence. The one's as big a thief as
t'other."
Old George clenched his toothless jaws and blinked.
"What'll he get if we bring him in guilty?" asked Mr. Plummer, the
third abstainer.