One morning on his going into court an elderly lady dressed in deep
mourning presented him with a religious tract. He thanked her, went
to his seat, and perused the document. Then he wrote something on the
tract, carefully revised what he had written, and threw it on the
floor.
The usher was watching these proceedings, and, as soon as he could do
so unobserved, secured the paper and handed it to me.
The tract was headed, "Sinner, Repent!"
The Claimant had written on it, "Surely this must have been meant for
Orkins, not for me!"
Louie's story of picking him up in the boat must have amused him
greatly. If he was amused at the ease with which fools can be
humbugged, he must also have been astounded at the awful villainy of
those who, perfect strangers to him, had perjured themselves for the
sake of notoriety.
I did what I could to shorten the proceedings. My opening speech was
confined to six days, as compared with twenty-eight on the other side;
my reply to nine. But that reply was a labour fearful to look back
upon. The mere classification of the evidence was a momentous and
necessary task. It had to be gathered from the four quarters of the
world. It had to be sifted, winnowed, and arranged in order as
a perfect whole before the true story could be evolved from the
complications and entanglements with which it was surrounded.
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