Page:"The Mummy" Volume 3.djvu/151

 friends placed themselves at the bar, and the judge and jury prepared to hear and decide with all due decorum. The signal to begin was given, and the brief for the crown being put into the English department of the counsel appointed to conduct the prosecution, the clerk began to wind away, and in a few minutes the counsel burst forth in the following impassioned strain of eloquence:—

"My Lord, and Gentlemen of the Jury,

"It is with feelings of the most unfeigned regret that I now rise to address you. Sensible—oh! how deeply sensible, of my insufficiency! and of the much greater competency of any one of my learned brethren at the bar; how willingly would I resign the task to any one of those eloquent gentlemen, feeling so indisputably convinced as I do, of their eminent talents and of their merit; and of their great, oh! how much greater fitness for an undertaking of this magnitude than myself!"

"Ach! Es ist aus mit uns! wir sind verlohren!" cried Hans; "if thou art so unfit for the task, I wonder why the deuce they employed thee!"