old up your head, fellow?
Can't you look as I do?" The witness, with much simplicity, at once
answered, "I can't, you squint." On re-examination, Serjeant Cockle for
the plaintiff, seeing gleams of the witness's recovery from his
confusion, asked him to describe the position of the waggon and the
donkey. After much pressing, at last he said, "Well, my lord judge, I'll
tell you as how it happened." Turning to Cockle, he said, "You'll
suppose ye are the wall."--"Aye, aye, just so, go on. I am the wall,
very good."--"Yes, sir, you are the wall." Then changing his position a
little, he said, "I am the waggon."--"Yes, very good; now proceed, you
are the waggon," said the judge. The witness then looked to the judge,
and hesitating at first, but with a low bow and a look of sudden
despair, said, "And your lordship's the ass!"

Serjeant Cockle, who had a rough, blustering manner, once got from a
witness more than he gave. In a trial of a right of fishery, he asked
the witness: "Dost thou love fish?"--"Aye," replied the witness, with a
grin, "but I donna like cockle sauce with it." The learned serjeant was
not pleased with the roar of laughter which followed the remark.

* * * * *

Mr. H. L. Adam in _The Story of Crime_ says he remembers a very amusing
incident in one of our police courts. A prisoner had engaged a solicitor
to defend him, and while the latter was speaking on his behalf he
suddenly broke in with, "Why, he dunno wot the devil he's talking
abaht!" Thereupon the magistrate informed him that if he was
dissatisfied with his advocate's capabilities, he could, if he chose,
defend himself. This he elected to do, and in the end was acquitted, the
magistrate remarking that had the case been left to counsel he would
unquestionably have been convicted.

In cross-examining a witness, says Judge Parry in _What the Judge Saw_,
who had described the effects of an accident, was confronted by counsel
with his statement, and asked, "But hadn't you told the doctor that
your thigh was numb and had no feeling?"--"What's the good o' telling
him anything," replied the witness. "That's where doctor made a mistake.
I told 'im I was numb i' front, and what does he do but go and stick a
pin into my back-side. 'E's no doctor."

From the same source is the following story. Another man was testifying
to an accident that had occurred to him at the works where he was
employed. It was sought to prove that his t