Poor Bumpkin! Never was there a more friendless position than that of Ignorance in the witness-box.
“Just attend!” repeated Mr. Nimble; this was a favourite expression of his.
“Ow many who?” asked Bumpkin. (Roars of laughter.)
“Naames! why I s’pose I got two, like moast people.”
“Wait a bit, we shall see. Now, sir, will you swear you have never gone by the name of Pumpkin?”
Loud laughter, in which the learned judge tried not to join.
“My lord, would you kindly let me see the depositions. Now look here, sir, is that your signature?”
“No; but you can make a cross, I suppose.”
“Ay, I can make a cross, or zummut in imitation as well as any man.”
“Now then, sir; when you were before the Lord Mayor, I ask you, upon your oath, did you not give the name of Pumpkin?”
“Was this read over to you, and were you asked if it was correct?”
“Med be; but wasn’t it? You know it was, or, don’t you?”
Bumpkin seemed spiked, so silent; seemed on fire, so red.
“Well, we know it was so. Now, my lord, I call your lordship’s attention to this remarkable fact; here in the depositions he calls himself Pumpkin.”
His lordship looks carefully at the depositions and says that certainly is so.
Mr. Newboy rises and says he understands that it may be a mistake of the clerk’s.
Judge: “How can you say that, Mr. Newboy, when it’s in his affidavit?”
(Clerk of Arraigns whispers to his lordship.) “I mean in his depositions, as I am told they are called in this Court; these are read over to him by the clerk, and he is asked if they are correct.” Shakes his head.
(So they began to try the prisoner, not so much on the merits of the case as on the merits of the magistrate’s clerk.)
“You certainly said your name was Pumpkin,” said the Judge, “and what is more you swore to it.”
(“They’ve got the round square at work,” muttered a voice in the gallery.)
Mr. Nimble: “Now just attend; have you ever gone so far as to say that this case did not refer to you because your name was not Bumpkin?”
The witness hesitates, then says “he b’leeves not.”
“Let those two gentlemen, Mr. Crackcrib and Mr. Centrebit, step forward.”
There was a bustle in Court, and then, with grinning faces, up stepped the two men who had visited Mr. Bumpkin at the “Goose” some days before.