o put to you," he said to Mr. Ratler. "Of course there
was a quarrel. We all know that." But he did ask a question or two of
Mr. Bouncer. "You write books, I think, Mr. Bouncer?"

"I do," said Mr. Bouncer, with dignity. Now there was no peculiarity
in a witness to which Mr. Chaffanbrass was so much opposed as an
assumption of dignity.

"What sort of books, Mr. Bouncer?"

"I write novels," said Mr. Bouncer, feeling that Mr. Chaffanbrass
must have been ignorant indeed of the polite literature of the day to
make such a question necessary.

"You mean fiction."

"Well, yes; fiction,--if you like that word better."

"I don't like either, particularly. You have to find plots, haven't
you?"

Mr. Bouncer paused a moment. "Yes; yes," he said. "In writing a novel
it is necessary to construct a plot."

"Where do you get 'em from?"

"Where do I get 'em from?"

"Yes,--where do you find them? You take them from the French
mostly;--don't you?" Mr. Bouncer became very red. "Isn't that the way
our English writers get their plots?"

"Sometimes,--perhaps."

"Your's ain't French then?"

"Well;--no;--that is--I won't undertake to say that--that--"

"You won't undertake to say that they're not French."

"Is this relevant to the case before us, Mr. Chaffanbrass?" asked the
judge.

"Quite so, my lud. We have a highly-distinguished novelist before us,
my lud, who, as I have reason to believe, is intimately acquainted
with the French system of the construction of plots. It is a business
which the French carry to perfection. The plot of a novel should, I
imagine, be constructed in accordance with human nature?"

"Certainly," said Mr. Bouncer.

"You have murders in novels?"

"Sometimes," said Mr. Bouncer, who had himself done many murders in
his time.

"Did you ever know a French novelist have a premeditated murder
committed by a man who could not possibly have conceived the murder
ten minutes before he committed it;--with whom the cause of the
murder anteceded the murder no more than ten minutes?" Mr. Bouncer
stood thinking for a while. "We will give you your time, because an
answer to the question from you will be important testimony."

"I don't think I do," said Mr. Bouncer, who in his confusion had been
quite unable to think of the plot of a single novel.

"And if there were such a French plot that would not be the plot that
you would borrow?"

"Certainly not," said Mr. Bouncer.

"Did you ever read poetry, Mr.