g; "if you please,
stop one moment. I wish to ask if we are justified in rushing through
questions of life and death in this manner. What do we know of this
woman, for instance--her history, her distress, her state of mind?"

"Sit down!" cried some. "Oh, shut it!" cried others. All looked at him
with the amused curiosity of people in a tramcar looking at a talkative
child. The usher bustled across the room, and said in a loud and
reassuring whisper: "All them things has got nothing to do with you,
sir. Those is questions for the Judge and Petty Jury upstairs. The
magistrates have sat on all these cases already and committed them for
trial; so all you've got to do is to find a True Bill, and you can't go
wrong."

"If we can't go wrong, there's no merit in going right," protested Mr.
Clarkson.

"Next case. Page fourteen, number seventy-two," shouted the usher again,
and as the witness was a Jew, his hat was sent for. "There's a lot of
history behind that hat," said Mr. Clarkson, wishing to propitiate
public opinion.

"Wish that was all there was behind it," said the juror on his left. The
Jew finished his evidence and went away. The foreman glanced round, and
the usher had already got as far as "Signify," when a venerable juror,
prompted by Mr. Clarkson's example, interposed.

"I should like to ask that witness one further question," he said in a
fine Scottish accent, and after considerable shouting, the Jew was
recalled.

"I should like to ask you, my man," said the venerable juror, "how you
spell your name?" The name was spelt, the juror carefully inscribed it
on a blank space opposite the charge, sighed with relief, and looked
round. "Signify, gentlemen, signify!" cried the usher. "Two, four, six,
eight, ten, twelve. True Bill, True Bill! Next case. Page six, number
eleven."

Number eleven was a genuine murder case, and sensation pervaded the room
when the murdered man's wife was brought in, weeping. She sobbed out the
oath, and the foreman, wishing to be kind, said, encouragingly, "State
briefly what you know of this case."

She sobbed out her story, and was led away. The foreman glanced round
the tables.

"I think we ought to hear the doctor," said the red-faced man. The
doctor was called and described a deep incised wound, severing certain
anatomical details.

"I think we ought to hear the constable," said the red-faced man, and
there was a murmur of agreement. A policeman came in, carrying a brown
pa