Everything went swimmingly with the prosecution till Mr. Lang began his cross-examination of the witnesses, he having reserved his privilege till he heard the whole case for the prosecution. Directly the cross-examination commenced, the weakness of the Government case became apparent. I need not now recall how the commissary-general, the deputy commissary-general, and their assistants were made to contradict each other, and to contradict themselves out of their own mouths. Mr. Lang, who appeared in court every day in his wig and gown, soon became a noted character in Meerut, and the night before he was to sum up the case for the defence, some officers in the Artillery mess asked him his opinion of the members of the commission. Not being a teetotaller, Mr. Lang may have been at the time somewhat under the influence of "John Exshaw," who was the ruling spirit in those days, and he replied that the whole batch, president and members, including the judge-advocate-general, were a parcel of "d--d _soors_."[33] Immediately several officers present offered to lay a bet of a thousand rupees with Mr. Lang that he was not game to tell them so to their faces in open court the following day. Lang accepted the bet, the stakes were deposited, and an umpire appointed to decide who should pocket the money. When the court re-assembled next morning, the excitement was intense. Mr. Lang opened his address by pulling the evidence for the prosecution to shreds, and warming to his work, he went at it somewhat as follows--I can only give the purport:--"Gentlemen of the commission forming this court, I now place the dead carcass of this shameful case before you in all its naked deformity, and the more we stir it up the more it stinks! The only stink in my long experience that I can compare it to is the experience gained in the saloon of the _Nile_ on my passage out to India the day after a pig was slaughtered. We had a pig's cheek at the head of the table [indicating the president of the commission]; we had a roast leg of pork on the right [pointing to another member]; we had a boiled leg, also pork, on the left [indicating a third member]"; and so on he went till he had apportioned out the whole carcass of the supposed pig amongst the members of the commission. Then, turning to the judge-advocate-general, who was a little man dressed in an elaborately frilled shirt, and his assistant, who was tall and thin, pointing to each in turn, Mr. Lang proceeded,--"And for side-dishes we had chitterlings on one side, and sausages on the other. In brief, the whole saloon smelt of nothing but pork: and so it is, gentlemen, with this case. It is the Government of India who has ordered this trial. It is for the interest of that Government that my client should be convicted; therefore every member on this commission is a servant of Government. The officers representing the prosecution are servants of Government, and every witness for the prosecution is also a servant of Government. In brief, the whole case against my client is nothing but pork, and a disgrace to the Government of India, and to the Honourable East India Company, who have sanctioned this trial, and who put every obstacle in my way to prevent my coming out to defend my client. I repeat my assertion that the case is a disgrace to the Honourable Company and the Government of India, and to every servant of that Government who has had any finger in the manufacture of this pork-pie." And so Mr. Lang continued, showing how Ajoodia Pershâd had come forward to the assistance of the State in its hour of need, by supplying carriage for the materials of the army and rations for the troops, and so forth, till the judge-advocate-general declared that he felt ashamed to be connected with the case. The result was that Ajoodia Pershâd was acquitted on all counts, and decreed to be entitled to his claims in full, and the umpire decided that Mr. Lang had won the bet of a thousand rupees.