ider is--how did he obtain access to
this house, and were you in any way a party to his obtaining access?
You are the charwoman employed at the house?

MRS. JONES. Yes, your Worship, and of course if I had let him into
the house it would have been very wrong of me; and I have never done
such a thing in any of the houses where I have been employed.

MAGISTRATE. Well--so you say. Now let us hear what story the male
prisoner makes of it.

JONES. [Who leans with his arms on the dock behind, speaks in a
slow, sullen voice.] Wot I say is wot my wife says. I 've never
been 'ad up in a police court before, an' I can prove I took it when
in liquor. I told her, and she can tell you the same, that I was
goin' to throw the thing into the water sooner then 'ave it on my
mind.

MAGISTRATE. But how did you get into the HOUSE?

JONES. I was passin'. I was goin' 'ome from the "Goat and Bells."

MAGISTRATE. The "Goat and Bells,"--what is that? A public-house?

JONES. Yes, at the corner. It was Bank 'oliday, an' I'd 'ad a drop
to drink. I see this young Mr. BARTHWICK tryin' to find the keyhole
on the wrong side of the door.

MAGISTRATE. Well?

JONES. [Slowly and with many pauses.] Well---I 'elped 'im to find
it--drunk as a lord 'e was. He goes on, an' comes back again, and
says, I 've got nothin' for you, 'e says, but come in an' 'ave a
drink. So I went in just as you might 'ave done yourself. We 'ad a
drink o' whisky just as you might have 'ad, 'nd young Mr. BARTHWICK
says to me, "Take a drink 'nd a smoke. Take anything you like, 'e
says." And then he went to sleep on the sofa. I 'ad some more
whisky--an' I 'ad a smoke--and I 'ad some more whisky--an' I carn't
tell yer what 'appened after that.

MAGISTRATE. Do you mean to say that you were so drunk that you can
remember nothing?

JACK. [Softly to his father.] I say, that's exactly what----

BARTHWICK. TSSh!

JONES. That's what I do mean.

MAGISTRATE. And yet you say you stole the box?

JONES. I never stole the box. I took it.

MAGISTRATE. [Hissing with protruded neck.] You did not steal it--
you took it. Did it belong to you--what is that but stealing?

JONES. I took it.

MAGISTRATE. You took it--you took it away from their house and you
took it to your house----

JONES. [Sullenly breaking in.] I ain't got a house.

MAGISTRATE. Very well, let us hear what this young man Mr.--Mr.
BARTHWICK has to say to your story.