Frivolities, Especially Addressed to Those Who Are Tired of Being Serious. Marsh Richard
Timmins turned to Mr. Hisgard. He winked.
"Have a game at crib, Bob? I knew Jacob would be here, so I came provided!"
He produced a cribbage-board. Once more the foreman interposed.
"Keep to the business we have in hand, please, gentlemen."
"Oh, they can have their game, I don't mind. Perhaps I came as well provided as anyone else."
As he replied Jacob took from his pocket a brown paper parcel of considerable dimensions. Tom Elliott, who was sitting by him, instantly snatching it, passed it on to Mr. Hisgard.
"Have a sandwich, Mr. Hisgard?"
"No, thank you. But perhaps Mr. Timmins will?"
He passed the packet to Mr. Timmins. That gentleman made a feint of opening it. Mr. Longsett, rising from his chair, reached for his property across the table.
"None of that; give it back to me." Mr. Timmins tossed the packet to the other end of the table.
"Now, Timmins, what do you mean by that? Do you want me to wipe you across the head?"
Mr. Timmins addressed Mr. Grice. "Now, Mr. Foreman, won't you offer the jury a sandwich each? It is about our dinner-time."
Mr. Grice eyed the packet in front of him as if he were more than half disposed to act on the suggestion.
"I really don't think, Mr. Longsett, that you ought to eat sandwiches out of a pure spirit of contradiction."
"Never mind what you think; you give me back my property, or I'll give the whole lot of you in custody." The parcel was restored to him. He brandished it aloft. "There you are, you see, a lot of grown men go and steal another man's property, and you treat it as a joke. A mere lad goes and looks at a truss of mouldy hay, and you want to ruin him for life. And you call that justice! You ain't going to get me to take a hand in no such justice, so I tell you straight!"
"It went a little farther than 'looks,' didn't it, Mr. Longsett? 'Looks' won't carry even mouldy hay three miles across country."
"And 'looks' won't carry my property from where I'm sitting down to where you are! If Jim Bailey's a thief, so's Tom Elliott-there's no getting over that. Why ain't we sitting on him instead of on that there young 'un?"
"See here, Jacob." Mr. Timmins stretched out towards him his open palm. "Here's a sporting offer for you: if you'll bring Jim Bailey in guilty, I'll bring in Tom Elliott!"
"I won't bring in neither; the one's no more a thief than the other."
"Nice for you, Tom, eh?"
"Oh, I don't mind. I know Jacob. It's not the first time a member of your family's been in trouble, is it, Jacob?"
"By-! if you say that again I'll knock the life right out of you!"
The foreman rapped upon the table.
"Order, gentlemen, order! Keep to the business in hand, if you please."
Mr. Longsett confronted him, towering over Elliott, with clenched fists and flashing eyes.
"Keep him in order then-don't keep on at me! You make him keep a civil tongue in his head, or I will." He glared round the board. "I don't care for the whole damned lot of you. I'm as good as any one of you-perhaps better! I'm here to do my duty according to my conscience and conviction, and I'm going to do it, and I say not guilty, and if we stop here till Christmas you won't make me say no different!"
This announcement was followed by an interval of silence; then Captain Rudd attempted to voice the sense of the meeting.
"In that case, Mr. Foreman, we may as well intimate to the court that we are unable to agree."
"What'll be the consequence of that?"
"The prisoner'll have to stand another trial, when, should none of his relations happen to be upon the jury, there will be no hesitation about bringing in a verdict of guilty-in which case the young scamp will get his deserts."
Stretching his body across the table, Jacob shook his clenched fist in the speaker's face.
"Look here, Captain Rudd, you may be a captain, but you're no blooming gentleman, or you wouldn't talk like that. Captain or no captain, the next time you say anything about Jim Bailey being a relation of mine I'll crack you in the mouth!" Straightening himself, Jacob shook his fist at the eleven. "And I say the same to every one of you. It's no affair of yours what Jim Bailey is to me-so just you mind it."
The captain curled, at the same time, his lip and his moustache, his bearing conveying the scorn which he doubtless felt.
"If you suppose, sir, that I shall allow you to play the common bully with impunity, you are mistaken. You forget yourself, my man!"
"Oh, no! I don't forget myself-it's you who forgot yourself. And as for playing the common bully, it's you began it. You're trying to bully me when you taunt me with Jim Bailey being my relation; you think if you keep it on long enough you'll frighten me into acting against my sense of duty."
The foreman intervened sharply: "Order! Mr. Longsett, your language is improper and irregular; if you are not careful I shall have to report it to the court."
"It's no more improper and irregular than theirs is. We're here to say guilty or not guilty, not to pry into each other's private affairs. If they don't make no personal remarks, I shan't."
"Listen to reason, Mr. Longsett. Do I understand, Mr. Plummer, that you will acquiesce in a verdict of guilty if we prefer a recommendation to the court that the case shall be treated under the First Offenders Act?"
"You are at liberty to so understand, Mr. Grice."
"And you, Mr. Longsett? If we are unable to agree the prisoner will have to go back to prison, and, on his again standing his trial, I have no hesitation in saying that he will be found guilty, when he will be likely to receive much less lenient treatment than now, when we are ready and willing to recommend him to mercy."
"We're going to agree."
"That's good hearing. You agree to a verdict of guilty, coupled with a recommendation to mercy?"
"I don't do nothing of the kind."
"Then what do you agree to?"
"I agree to a verdict of not guilty-that's what I agree to."
"Then, in that case, we're likely to disagree. You can hardly expect eleven men to go against the weight of evidence for the sake of agreeing with you."
"There's no hurry that I knows on. We'll wait a bit. I have heard of juries being locked up for eight-and-forty hours. I daresay before that time some of you'll have changed your minds. Seems to me that there's three or four already that can change their minds as easy as winking." He began, with a certain amount of ostentation, to untie the string which bound his brown paper parcel. "I'm getting peckish. If you don't mind, Mr. Foreman, we'll talk things over while I'm eating."
The unfolding of the paper revealed the fact that it contained a comfortable number of succulent-looking sandwiches. The eleven eyed them-and their owner-sourly. Carefully taking the top one of the heap between his finger and his thumb Mr. Longsett took a bite at it. Seldom has the process of attacking a sandwich had a more attentive audience.
"I say, Jacob," observed Mr. Timmins, "aren't you going to give me one?"
"What, give you the food from between my own lips! Not if I know it. We may be here till this time to-morrow. I've got to think of myself, Mr. Timmins."
"I'm not going to stop here till this time to-morrow, Jacob Longsett!"
As he spoke old Parkes banged his fist upon the table.
"All right, George Parkes, nobody asked you to, so far as I know. Seems to me you're uncommon keen to send the lad to gaol."
"I don't wish the lad no harm."
"Seems to me as how you do."
"I say I don't!"
Mr. Parkes punctuated each of his remarks with a bang upon the board.
"Then why don't you do what you've sworn to do, and bring him