He was like a conjurer
who asks you to name a card, and as surely as you do so you draw it
from the pack.
This particular duck case was known long after as "Codd's Puzzle."
"First," says Codd, "my client bought the duck and paid for it."
He was not the man to be afraid of being asked where.
"Second," says Codd, "my client found it; thirdly, it had been given
to him; fourthly, it flew into his garden; fifthly, he was asleep, and
some one put it into his pocket." And so the untiring and ingenious
Codd proceeded making his case unnaturally good.
But the strange thing was that, instead of sweeping him away with a
touch of ridicule, the young advocate argued the several defences one
after the other with great dialectical skill, so that the jury became
puzzled; and if the defence had not been so extraordinarily good,
there would have been an acquittal forthwith.
There had been such a bewildering torrent of arguments that presently
Codd's head began to swim, and he shrugged his shoulders, meaning
thereby that it was the most puzzling case _he_ had ever had anything
to do with.
At last it became a question whether, amidst these conflicting
accounts, there ever was any duck at all. Codd had not thought of that
till some junior suggested it, and then he was asked by the Marquis
of Salisbury, our chairman, whether there was any particular line of
defence he wished to suggest.
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