the identity first and begin with the circumstances under
which the body was discovered."

Here the cobbler stood up and raised an excessively dirty hand.

"I rise, Mr. Chairman," said he, "to a point of order." The other
jurymen looked at him curiously and some of them, I regret to say,
grinned. "You have referred, sir," he continued, "to the body which we
have just viewed. I wish to point out that we have not viewed a body;
we have viewed a collection of bones."

"We will refer to them as the remains, if you prefer it," said the
coroner.

"I do prefer it," was the reply, and the objector sat down.

"Very well," rejoined the coroner, and he proceeded to call the
witnesses, of whom the first was a laborer who had discovered the bones
in the watercress-bed.

"Do you happen to know how long it was since the watercress-beds had
been cleaned out previously?" the coroner asked, when the witness had
told the story of the discovery.

"They was cleaned out by Mr. Tapper's orders just before he gave them
up. That will be a little better than two years ago. In May it were.
I helped to clean 'em. I worked on this very same place and there
wasn't no bones there then."

The coroner glanced at the jury. "Any questions, gentlemen," he asked.

The cobbler directed an intimidating scowl at the witness and demanded:

"Were you searching for bones when you came on these remains?"

"Me!" exclaimed the witness. "What should I be searching for bones
for?"

"Don't prevaricate," said the cobbler sternly; "answer the question:
Yes or no."

"No, of course I wasn't."

The juryman shook his enormous head dubiously as though implying that
he would let it pass this time but it mustn't happen again; and the
examination of the witnesses continued, without eliciting anything that
was new to me or giving rise to any incident, until the sergeant had
described the finding of the right arm in the Cuckoo Pits.

"Was this an accidental discovery?" the coroner asked.

"No. We had instructions from Scotland Yard to search any likely ponds
in this neighborhood."

The coroner discreetly forbore to press this matter any further, but my
friend the cobbler was evidently on the qui vive, and I anticipated a
brisk cross-examination for Mr. Badger when his turn came. The
inspector was apparently of the same opinion, for I saw him cast a
glance of the deepest malevolence at the too inquiring disciple of St.
Crispin. In fact, his turn ca