saying: "Didn't he talk through his hat, that little blighter!"
Conscious, too, of the commercial traveller, still on his left--always on
his left!--mopping his brow, and muttering: "Phew! It's hot in there
to-day!" while an effluvium, as of an inside accustomed to whisky came
from him. Then the man with the underlip and the three plastered wisps
of hair said:

"Don't know why we withdrew, Mr. Foreman!"

Mr. Bosengate looked round to where, at the head of the table, Gentleman
Fox sat, in defensive gentility and the little white piping to his
waistcoat saying blandly:

"I shall be happy to take the sense of the jury."

There was a short silence, then the chemist murmured:

"I should say he must have what they call claustrophobia."

"Clauster fiddlesticks! The feller's a shirker, that's all. Missed his
wife--pretty excuse! Indecent, I call it!"

The speaker was the little wire-haired man; and emotion, deep and angry,
stirred in Mr. Bosengate. That ill-bred little cur! He gripped the edge
of the table with both hands.

"I think it's d-----d natural!" he muttered. But almost before the
words had left his lips he felt dismay. What had he said--he, nearly a
colonel of volunteers--endorsing such a want of patriotism! And hearing
the commercial traveller murmuring: "'Ear, 'ear!" he reddened violently.

The wire-headed man said roughly:

"There's too many of these blighted shirkers, and too much pampering of
them."

The turmoil in Mr. Bosengate increased; he remarked in an icy voice:

"I agree to no verdict that'll send the man back to prison."

At this a real tremor seemed to go round the table, as if they all saw
themselves sitting there through lunch time. Then the large grey-haired
man given to winking, said:

"Oh! Come, sir--after what the judge said! Come, sir! What do you say,
Mr. Foreman?"

Gentleman Fox--as who should say 'This is excellent value, but I don't
wish to press it on you!'--answered:

"We are only concerned with the facts. Did he or did he not try to
shorten his life?"

"Of course he did--said so himself," Mr. Bosengate heard the wire-haired
man snap out, and from the following murmur of assent he alone abstained.
Guilty! Well--yes! There was no way out of admitting that, but his
feelings revolted against handing "that poor little beggar" over to the
tender mercy of his country's law. His whole soul rose in arms against
agreeing with that ill-bred little cur, and th