to be put in possession of
the facts. At the next term, you will perhaps be better prepared--"

"I pray you, my lord, to remember that this is a case which will not
admit of three months' delay."

"We can decide the principle a year hence, as well as to-day; and we
have now sat longer in banco," looking at his watch, "than is either
usual, agreeable, or expedient."

"But, my lords, the proof is at hand. Here is a witness to establish
that the cauda of Noah Poke, the defendant of record, has actually been
separated from his body--"

"Nay--nay--my brother Downright, a barrister of your experience must
know that the twelve can only take evidence on affidavit. If you had an
affidavit prepared, we might possibly find time to hear it, before we
adjourn; as it is, the affair must lie over to another sitting."

I was now in a cold sweat, for I could distinctly scent the peculiar
odor of the burning tail; the ashes of which being fairly thrown into
Noah's face, there remained no further obstacle to the process of
decapitation--the sentence, it will be remembered, having kept his
countenance on his shoulders expressly for that object. My brother
Downright, however, was not a lawyer to be defeated by so simple a
stumbling-block. Seizing a paper that was already written over in a good
legal hand, which happened to be lying before him, he read it, without
pause or hesitation, in the following manner:

"Regina versus Noah Poke."

"Kingdom of Leaphigh, Season of Nuts, {Personally this fourth day of
the Moon.} appeared before me, Meditation, Lord Chief-Justice of the
Court of King's Bench, John Goldencalf, baronet, of the Kingdom of Great
Britain, who, being duly sworn, doth depose and say, viz., that he, the
said deponent, was present at, and did witness, the decaudization of the
defendant in this suit, and that the tail of the said Noah Poke, or No. 1,
sea-water-color, hath been truly and physically separated from his body.

"--And further this deponent sayeth not. Signature, etc."

Having read, in the most fluent manner, the foregoing affidavit, which
existed only in his own brain, my brother Downright desired the court to
take my deposition to its truth.

"John Goldencalf, baronet," said the chief-justice, "you have heard what
has just been read; do you swear to its truth?"

"I do."

Here the affidavit was signed by both my lord chief-justice and myself,
and it was duly put on file. I afterwards learned that the paper