Page:Henry Northcote (IA henrynorthcote00snairich).pdf/134

 mind you, sir, I respec's you, because I heard Gladstone on Blackheath."

"I assume," said Northcote, "that although you admired Gladstone's oratory, you did not allow it to influence your judgment?"

"That's 'is pig-headedness, sir," said Z9. "That's just like a Tory; great horators can talk till all's blue, and then they can't get daylight into a Tory. 'The law is the law,' says he; an' if it come to, he'd hang his own fayther."

"I take it, policeman, that you try to keep an open mind, a mind accessible to new impressions?"

"That is so, sir," said Z9. "I say with you, sir, that although the law is the law, human natur' is human natur'. And although Bill 'Arper is just a common p'liceman with on'y one stripe, an' not a lawyer like you, sir, nor a beak, nor a judge, 'e never goes into court and a-takes off 'is 'elmet but what 'e feels 'igh-minded."

"Then, policeman, regarding you in the light of a juryman, it is most probable that you would want mercy to be extended to the prisoner, in spite of the law, if you happened to be in your present frame of mind?"

"Yes, sir, I should in my present frame o' mind."

"More shame to you, Bill," said X012; "you are a nice bloke to be a copper, an' no mistake."

"Close it, 'Orrice," said Z9, with a restrained enthusiasm; "you bloomin' Tories are so thick'eaded you don't know nothing."

"Well, gentlemen," interposed the advocate, brushing the water from his brief, "as I observe you to be on the brink of an altercation, I will