g effrontery
that he has this day done, and claim redress where he himself is the
offender, it does create a feeling in my mind divided between disgust
and amazement"--(bang).
Here Jorrock's cauldron boiled over, and rising from his seat with an
outstretched shoulder-of-mutton fist, he bawled out, "D--n you, sir,
what do you mean?"
The court was thrown into amazement, and even Bumptious quailed before
the fist of the mighty Jorrocks. "I claim the protection of the court,"
he exclaimed. Mr. Tomkins interposed, and said he should certainly order
Mr. Jorrocks into custody if he repeated his conduct, adding that it was
"most disrespectful to the justices of our lord the king."
Bumptious paused a little to gather breath and a fresh volume of venom
wherewith to annihilate Jorrocks, and catching his eye, he transfixed
him like a rattlesnake, and again resumed.
"How stands the case?" said he. "This cockney grocer--for after all
he is nothing else--who I dare say scarcely knows a hawk from a
hand-saw--leaves his figs and raisins, and sets out on a marauding
excursion into the county of Surrey, and regardless of property--of
boundaries--of laws--of liberties--of life itself--strides over every
man's land, letting drive at whatever comes in his way! The hare he shot
on this occasion was a pet hare!--For three successive summers had
Miss Cheatum watched and fed it with all the interest and anxiety of a
parent. I leave it to you, gentlemen, who have daughters of your own,
with pets also, to picture to yourselves the agony of her mind in
finding that her favourite had found its way down the throat of that
great guzzling, gormandising, cockney cormorant; and then, forsooth,
because he is fined for the outrageous trespass, he comes here as the
injured party, and instructs his counsel to indulge in Billingsgate
abuse that would disgrace the mouth of an Old Bailey practitioner! I
regret that instead of the insignificant fine imposed upon him, the law
did not empower the worthy magistrate to send him to the treadmill,
there to recreate himself for six or eight months, as a warning to the
whole fraternity of lawless vagabonds." Here he nodded his head at
Jorrocks as much as to say, "I'll trounce you, my boy!" He then produced
maps and plans of the different estates, and a model of the shed, to
show how it had all happened, and after going through the case in such a
strain as would induce one to believe it was a trial for murder or
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