Page:Peak and Prairie (1894).pdf/146

 about the lips as he answered the questions of the court. There was something peculiarly incongruous in the jovial, happy-go-lucky name to which this man answered.

"Mr. Rumpety," the judge asked, "have you provided yourself with legal advice?"

"No, your honor," the man replied, with a strong north-country brogue. "No, sorr! I've got no use for the laryers."

"You are prepared, then, to argue your own case?"

"I lave me case in the hands of me fahmily. Their testimony will clear me from the false accusations of me innimies. If thim as"

"That will do, Mr. Rumpety."

"If thim as are"

"Mr. Rumpety, that will do."

The judge invariably spoke in a low tone of voice, but it was not often that he had to repeat himself; the voice of authority has a way of making itself heard.

Rumpety locked his lips again and took his seat. The jury was called, Ed Rankin's name among the first.

Rankin had not heard a word about the Rumpety case, yet the nature of it was as clear to him as daylight. This brute was up for cruelty to those four shivering creatures on the