Page:Paul Clifford Vol 2.djvu/203

Rh witness, re-aroused into anger, and, it may be, into indiscretion, said, in a low voice—

"Hax Mr. Swoppem (the pawnbroker) what I sold 'im on the 15th hof February, exactly twenty-three year'n ago?"

Brandon started back, his lips grew white, he clenched his hands with a convulsive spasm; and while all his features seemed distorted with an earnest, yet fearful intensity of expectation, he poured forth a volley of questions, so incoherent, and so irrelevant, that he was immediately called to order by his learned brother on the opposite side. Nothing farther could be extracted from the witness. The pawnbroker was re-summoned; he appeared somewhat disconcerted by an appeal to his memory so far back as twenty-three years, but after taking some time to consider, during which the agitation of the usually cold and possessed Brandon was remarkable to all the Court, he declared that he recollected no transaction whatsoever with the witness at that time. In vain were all Brandon's efforts to