Page:"The Mummy" Volume 1.djvu/256

242 I tell you, no incantations will be of any avail here; and so, clerk, call the witnesses—"

The first person examined was the man who had been left in charge of the balloon, and he deposed as follows:—"Why, Sir," said he, scratching his head, as though he supposed wisdom dwelt in his fingers, and that their touch might give a little to his brain, "your honour told me to call out the posse comitatus, and set a guard of constables over the gentlemen's whirligig; but I thought as how, seeing it was but a queer-looking thing, and not likely to tempt anybody to steal it, I might as well save the gentlemen from throwing their money away upon a parcel of idle fellows, and keep watch over it myself."

"And so get the reward instead of them," observed the judge.

"Why, your honour," said the fellow, grinning, "I thought they might give something that might do me some good, but that it would be nothing amongst so many."

"Very true!" remarked the judge; "Go on Gregory."

"Well," continued Gregory, "as I was