particular duck case was known long after as "Codd's Puzzle."

"First," says Codd, "my client bought the duck and paid for it."

He was not the man to be afraid of being asked where.

"Second," says Codd, "my client found it; thirdly, it had been given
to him; fourthly, it flew into his garden; fifthly, he was asleep, and
some one put it into his pocket." And so the untiring and ingenious
Codd proceeded making his case unnaturally good.

But the strange thing was that, instead of sweeping him away with a
touch of ridicule, the young advocate argued the several defences one
after the other with great dialectical skill, so that the jury became
puzzled; and if the defence had not been so extraordinarily good,
there would have been an acquittal forthwith.

There had been such a bewildering torrent of arguments that presently
Codd's head began to swim, and he shrugged his shoulders, meaning
thereby that it was the most puzzling case _he_ had ever had anything
to do with.

At last it became a question whether, amidst these conflicting
accounts, there ever was any duck at all. Codd had not thought of that
till some junior suggested it, and then he was asked by the Marquis
of Salisbury, our chairman, whether there was any particular line of
defence he wished to suggest.

"No," says Codd, "not in particular; my client wished to make a clean
breast of it, and put them all before the jury; and I should be much
obliged if those gentlemen will adopt any one of them."[A]

The jury acquitted the prisoner, not because they chose any particular
defence, but because they did not know which to choose, and so gave
the prisoner the benefit of the doubt.

The client was happy, and Codd famous.

[Footnote A: Sixty years after this event, in the reply in the great
Tichborne case, Mr. Hawkins, Q.C., quoted this very defence as an
illustration of the absurdity of the suggestion that one of several
_Ospreys_ picked up Sir Roger Tichborne--as will hereafter appear.]

CHAPTER XII.

GRAHAM, THE POLITE JUDGE.

Just before my time the punishment of death was inflicted for almost
every offence of stealing which would now be thought sufficiently
dealt with by a sentence of a week's imprisonment. The struggle to
turn King's evidence was great, and it was almost a competitive
examination to ascertain who knew most about the crime; and he, being
generally the worst of the gang, was accepted accordingly.

I remember when I was a ch