go long!" said Troffater. "I hope you'll lick the rascal.
He's guilty's a dog. But don't ax _me_, now, what _I_ know! I
wouldn't go afore Fabens for a fat turkey, I wouldn't. And then agin,
why should I want to hurt Sculpin, or lay a straw in his way? Mebby
he'll dew better, sense the trap liked to ketch 'im; and I'm sure I
don't want to expose him."

"But tell me what you know, if you stay away from court," said Bogle.
"Tell me, and relieve my mind."

"Go long, I say, and don't ax me agin, for I don't know nothin'--that
I'd like to tell in court."

"I shall suppeeny you!" cried Bogle, departing in a huff.

"Don't ye dew it, Bogle! O, don't ye dew it for all the world, Bogle!
I shall hev a caniption fit if ye dew!" shouted Troffater after him.

The next day Bogle came before the justice with evidence against
Sculpin, which Fabens regretted to believe was but too well founded;
and he issued a warrant, and a week from that day the action was
brought to trial.

The crowd of spectators was large, and the interest felt by all, at
least, curious and wakeful. Squire Fabens took his magisterial seat
with an air of unaffected gravity, glanced around the assembly with a
mild, intelligent eye, and presented before them a noble form and
reverend mien, which inspired the virtuous, with new admiration for
goodness, and filled the vicious with secret remorse and apparent shame
for the evil of their doings.

Cicero Bray, Esq., appeared as counsel for the plaintiff, and C. Fox
Faddle, Esq., was counsel for the prisoner.

Lawyer Bray was a mountainous man, about thirty-five years old; and he
had impudence ingrained with his brawny meat and muscles, and his
tongue, let loose, would run like a mill-stream. His head rose a
little above his ears, and was huge of girth in a horizontal measure.
His hair was a sort of wolf's gray, was clipped all over within an inch
of his head, and stood up like the bristles on a wild boar's back. His
brows were bushy, and jutted, roof-like, over his deeply-sunken eyes;
his nose was bluff as a bull-dog's; his cheek-bones were rough and
high; his eyes were wide-set; his mouth was cut square across almost
from ear to ear; his chin was square and massy; he had an Adam's apple
as large as a gilly-flower ripening on his throat; his hands were large
and bony, and his voice "grated harsh thunder," as Milton said of the
gates of hell.

Lawyer Bray was prompt and saucy in court, and often won his c