Page:"The Mummy" Volume 3.djvu/165

 sly corner, where it lies, poor thing! quite concealed, and almost crushed to death by the ponderous weight of metaphors heaped upon it. Gentlemen, my client drew his sword in the Royal Garden. This is the plain statement of the fact, when stripped of the load of ornaments with which my learned friend has encumbered it. My client, a stranger to the English laws and customs, chanced to be walking in the public garden belonging to a Royal palace. He there met a nobleman of the court; from causes irrelevant to the question before us, high words took place between them. My client was grossly insulted in a manner impossible to be borne by a man calling himself a gentleman, or making the least pretensions to honour. He drew his sword to defend himself. Can any thing be more simple? And yet for this, all created nature is thrown into confusion, and Neptune and Pluto called shivering from their beds. Gentlemen, my learned friend's brain was teeming with a monstrous conception, and longing to be delivered; he dragged it into the speech with which we have just been favoured. Not satisfied with piercing us