ster would not hear of it. He was now located at Oatlands, and felt
sure that he would have no trouble there. Moreover, said he, it would
always be possible for me to run down now and again of an evening, dine
with him, and attend to such little matters as might require my help.

So, on the Monday morning when the sessions opened, I duly repaired to
town; and on the journey up, I saw in the 'Daily Chronicle' the
announcement of M. Zola's recent presence at the Grosvenor Hotel. This
gave me quite a shock. So the Press was on the right track at last!
Starting from the Grosvenor Hotel, might not the reporters trace the
master to Wimbledon, and thence to his present retreat? I had no time for
hesitation. My instructions, moreover, were imperative. For the benefit
of M. Zola personally, and for the benefit of the whole Dreyfus cause, I
had orders to deny everything. So I drove to the Press Association
offices, sent up a contradiction of the 'Daily Chronicle's' statement,
and then hurried up Ludgate Hill to the Court, where my name was soon
afterwards called.

I found myself on the second or third jury got together, and that day I
was not empanelled. But on the morrow I was required to do duty; and
between then and the latter part of the week I sat upon four or five
cases--all crimes of violence, and one described in the indictment as
murder. This position was the more unpleasant for me, as I am, by strong
conviction, an adversary of capital punishment. I absolutely deny the
right of society to put any man or any woman to death, whatever be his or
her crime. My proper course then seemed to lie in the direction of a
public statement, which would have created, I suppose, some little
sensation or scandal; but happily the prosecuting counsel in his very
first words abandoned the count of murder for that of manslaughter, and I
was thereby relieved from my predicament.

The cases on which I sat, and those to which I listened while I remained
in attendance, need not be particularised. I will merely mention that
they were nearly all due to drink. Mr. Justice Lawrance, who sat upon the
bench, was visibly impressed by the circumstance, to which he more than
once alluded in his summings up. In one case he was so good as to refer
to a question, put by me from the jury box, as a proper and pertinent
one, at which I naturally felt vastly complimented. On the second or
third day, either before the proceedings began or when the Court rose f