egard to the child--would he not tell the jury that she almost
certainly rolled on to the child while it slept--that sort of rather
painful stuff. Doctor chap rather jibbed a bit at being rushed, but
humpback kept him to it devilish cleverly and the verdict was as good as
given. The doc. was just going out of the box when Humpo called him
back. 'One moment more, Doctor, if you please. Can you tell me, if you
please, approximately the age of the child--approximately, but as near
as you possibly can, Doctor?'

"The doctor said about five months--four to five months.

"'Five months,' says Humpo, mouthing it. 'Five months.' He turned
deliberately round and looked directly at Sabre, sitting sort of huddled
up on the front bench. 'Five months. We may take it, then, the child was
born in December last. In December last.' Still with his back to the
witness and staring at Sabre, you understand, and the jury all staring
with him and people standing up in the court to see what the devil he
was looking at. 'We may take that, may we, Doctor?' He was watching
Sabre with a sort of half smile. The doctor said he might take it. The
chap snapped up his face with a jerk and turned round. 'Thank you,
Doctor. That will do.' And he sat down. If ever I saw a chap playing a
fish and suddenly strike and hook it, I saw it then, when he smiled
towards Sabre and then snapped up his face and plumped down. And the
jury saw it. He'd got 'em fixed from that moment. Fixed. Oh, he was
clever--clever, my word!

"That ended that. The coroner rumbled out a bit of a summary,
practically told the jury what to say, reminded them, if they had any
lingering doubts, that the quality of mercy was not strained--him
showing before the morning was out that he knew about as much about
mercy as I know about Arabic--and the jury without leaving the box
brought in that the child had died of suffocation due to misadventure.

"The court drew a long breath; you could hear it. Everybody settled
himself down nice and comfortably. The curtain-raiser was over, and very
nice too; now for the drama.

"They got it."

II

"Look here, get the hang of the thing. Get a bearing on some of these
people. There was the coroner getting off his preamble--flavouring it
with plenty of 'distressings' and 'painfuls' and 'father of the deceased
well known to and respected by many of us-es.' Great big pudding of a
chap, the coroner. Sat there impassive like a flabby old Buddha. Face
l