e firearms, and thought he heard the
bullets whistling past his ears, but could not swear to it. At this stage
the defendants' lawyer, who had been harrowing the witnesses with many
questions and heaping ridicule upon their devoted heads, called for the
prisoners' arms to be produced, and the sight of the toy pistols with
their mutton-boned barrels provoked yells of laughter in the court, which
were presently echoed in the streets.

But it was not till brawny Mrs. Cox took her stand in the witness-box
that the absurdity of the Meroury's story and the charge was exposed
fully to a delighted audience. Mrs. Cox marched into the box in an
aggressive way, saluted the book with an emphatic and explosive kiss, and
then stood erect, square-shouldered and defiant, giving the court and all
concerned to understand by her attitude that it must not be imagined any
advantage could be taken of her. She told her story in a bluff dogmatic
way. She was bailed up by the miscreants and scared out of her seven
senses. They demanded her money or her life, and she believed that it was
their intention to leave her 'welterin' in her gore'; and having said as
much she squared round upon the lawyer, arms akimbo and head thrown back,
inviting him to come on to his inevitable destruction.

'Come, come, madam,' said the barrister, 'you must not tell us you
imagined for a moment you were ever in any serious danger from these
terrible fellows.'

'Mustn't! mustn't!' cried Mrs. Cox. 'An', indeed, why not, sir? Who're
you to tell me I musn't?'

Mrs. Cox stopped deliberately and carefully rolled up both sleeves of her
dress. Then, unhampered and in customary trim, she smote the cedar in
front of her and cried:

'Mustn't, indeed!

'No offence, ma'am,' said the small lawyer in a conciliatory tone; 'no
offence in the world. Please explain what you did when attacked by the
prisoners.'

'What' d I do? First I said a prayer for me soul.'

'And then?'

'And then I grabbed one o' the young imps, an'

I--,

Here Mrs. Cox's actions implied that she had a struggling bushranger in
her grip. She drew him over her knee, and then, for the education and
edification of the court, went through the task of enthusiastically
spanking a purely imaginary small boy.

The pantomime was most convincing, and provoked roars of laughter that
completely drowned the shrill pipe of the policeman fiercely demanding
order; when the noise had subsided Gable, flushed with ex