eneath the bench. His waistcoat was open, and he held his cravat in one
hand, having torn it off in the violence of his excitement.

"Who is this man?" asked the Commissioner, sternly.

"I'll tell you who I am,--Paul Kellett, of Kellett's Court, the owner of
that house and estate you and your rascally miscreants have just stolen
from me,--ay, stolen is the word; law or justice have nothing to do with
it. Your Parliament made it law, to be sure, to pamper your Manchester
upstarts who want to turn gentlemen--"

"Does any one know him?--has he no friends who will look after him?"
said the Commissioner, leaning over and addressing those beneath in a
subdued voice.

"Devil a friend in the world! It's few friends stick to the man whose
property comes here. But don't make me out mad. I 'm in my full senses,
though I had enough to turn fifty men to madness."

"I know him, my Lord; with the permission of the Court, I 'll take
charge of him," said Dunn, in a tone so low as to be audible only to a
few. Kellett, however, was one of them, and he immediately cried out,--

"Take charge of me! Ay, that he will. He took charge of my estate, too,
and he 'll do by _me_ what he did with the property,--give a bargain of
me!"

A hearty burst of laughter filled the hall at this sally; for Dunn was
one of those men whose prosperity always warrants the indulgence of
a sarcasm. The Court, however, could no longer brook the indecorous
interruption, and sternly ordered that Kellett might be removed.

"My dear Mr. Kellett, pray remember yourself; only recollect where you
are; such conduct will only expose you--"

"Expose me! do you think I've any shame left in me? Do you think, when a
man is turned out to starve on the roads, that he cares much what people
say of him?"

"This interruption is intolerable," said the Commissioner. "If he be not
speedily removed, I 'll order him into the custody of the police."

"Do, in God's name," cried Kellett, calmly. "Anything that will keep me
from laying hands on myself, or somebody else, will be a charity."

"Come with me, Kellett,--do come along with _me!_" said Dunn,
entreatingly.

"Not a step,--not an inch. It was going with _you_ brought me here.
This man, my Lord," cried he, addressing the Court with a wild
earnestness,--"this man said to me that this was the time to sell a
property,--that land was rising every day; that if we came into
the Court now, it's not twenty, nor twenty-five, but th