The great case of Dunning versus Dixon came on at last.

 

On that day Captain Dunning was in a fever; Glynn Proctor was in a fever; Tim Rokens was in a fever; the Misses Dunning were in two separate fevers—everybody, in fact, on the Dunning side of the case was in a fever of nervous anxiety and mental confusion. As witnesses in the case, they had been precognosced to such an extent by the lawyers that their intellects were almost overturned. On being told that he was to be precognosced. Tim Rokens said stoutly, “He’d like to see the man as ’ud do it”; under the impression that that was the legal term for being kicked, or otherwise maltreated; and on being informed that the word signified merely an examination as to the extent of his knowledge of the facts of the case, he said quietly, “Fire away!” Before they had done firing away, the gallant harpooner was so confused that he began to regard the whole case as already hopeless.

 

The other men were much in the same condition; but in a private meeting held among themselves the day before the trial, Rokens made the following speech, which comforted them not a little.

 

“Messmates and shipmates,” said Tim, “I’ll tell ye wot it is. I’m no lawyer—that’s a fact—but I’m a man; an’ wot’s a man?—it ain’t a bundle o’ flesh an’ bones on two legs, with a turnip a-top o’t, is it?”

 

“Be no manes,” murmured Briant, with an approving nod.

 

“Cer’nly not,” remarked Dick Barnes. “I second that motion.”

 

“Good,” continued Rokens. “Then, bein’ a man, I’ve got brains enough to see that, if we don’t want to contredick one another, we must stick to the truth.”

 

“You don’t suppose I’d go fur to tell lies, do you?” said Tarquin quickly.

 

“In coorse not. But what I mean to say is, that we must stick to what we knows to be the truth, and not be goin’ for to guess at it, or think that we knows it, and then swear to it as if we wos certain sure.”

 

“Hear! hear!” from the assembled company.

 

“In fact,” observed Glynn, “let what we say be absolutely true, and say just as little as we can. That’s how to manage a good case.”

 

“An’, be all manes,” added Briant, “don’t let any of ye try for to improve matters be volunteerin’ yer opinion. Volunteerin’ opinions is stuff. Volunteerin’ is altogether a bad look-out. I know’d a feller, I did—a strappin’ young feller he was, too, more betoken—as volunteered himself to death, he did. To be sure, his wos a case o’ volunteerin’ into the Louth Militia, and he wos shot, he wos, in a pop’lar riot, as the noosepapers said—a scrimmage, I calls it—so don’t let any o’ us be goin’ for to volunteer opinions w’en nobody axes ’em—no, nor wants ’em.”

分享到：