Part 9 (1/2)
”There's no hurry that I knows on. We'll wait a bit. I have heard of juries being locked up for eight-and-forty hours. I daresay before that time some of you'll have changed your minds. Seems to me that there's three or four already that can change their minds as easy as winking.” He began, with a certain amount of ostentation, to untie the string which bound his brown paper parcel. ”I'm getting peckish. If you don't mind, Mr. Foreman, we'll talk things over while I'm eating.”
The unfolding of the paper revealed the fact that it contained a comfortable number of succulent-looking sandwiches. The eleven eyed them--and their owner--sourly. Carefully taking the top one of the heap between his finger and his thumb Mr. Longsett took a bite at it.
Seldom has the process of attacking a sandwich had a more attentive audience.
”I say, Jacob,” observed Mr. Timmins, ”aren't you going to give me one?”
”What, give you the food from between my own lips! Not if I know it.
We may be here till this time to-morrow. I've got to think of myself, Mr. Timmins.”
”I'm not going to stop here till this time to-morrow, Jacob Longsett!”
As he spoke old Parkes banged his fist upon the table.
”All right, George Parkes, n.o.body asked you to, so far as I know.
Seems to me you're uncommon keen to send the lad to gaol.”
”I don't wish the lad no harm.”
”Seems to me as how you do.”
”I say I don't!”
Mr. Parkes punctuated each of his remarks with a bang upon the board.
”Then why don't you do what you've sworn to do, and bring him in not guilty along of me?”
”I don't care what I brings him in. It don't make no odds to me. It ain't none of my affair. I've got my own business to 'tend to, and when a man's got to my years he don't care to meddle in no one else's.
I'm willing to bring him in not guilty along of you, Jacob Longsett.”
”That's more like it. If there was more like you and me, George Parkes, we'd soon be outside of this.”
Captain Rudd, who had listened to this short dialogue without evincing any signs of approbation, once more endeavoured to urge the foreman to action.
”Don't you think, Mr. Foreman, that the time has arrived for you to communicate the fact of our disagreement to the court?”
Mr. Longsett made haste to differ.
”Excuse me, Mr. Foreman, but, if Captain Rudd will allow me, I don't think it has. We haven't been here hardly any time. There's no hurry, so long as we're doing our duty. I daresay we'll all agree yet before we've finished. All we want is a little patience.”
”And something to eat,” said Mr. Timmins.
”Then do you mean to say,” exclaimed Mr. Longsett, as he commenced upon another sandwich, ”that you'd send a young lad to gaol, and blast his good name for ever, just because you're hungry?”
”May I be permitted to make a remark?” The inquiry came from Mr.
Tyler. He was holding his handkerchief to his ear; his general expression was one of suffering. ”Considering how little of the evidence I really heard I don't wish it to be supposed that I have any objection to a verdict of not guilty. And I may add that not only is my earache driving me nearly mad, but my health, as a whole, as some of you know, is bad, and I am easily exhausted. Had I supposed that any of this sort of thing would have taken place I should have procured a medical certificate excusing me. I appeal to gentlemen to arrive as rapidly as possible at a decision, which will enable me to obtain measures of relief.”
”Hear, hear!” Mr. Longsett rapped with his knuckles on the table.
”I'd never have come,” declared old Parkes, ”if I'd a known I was going to be kep' all day without my dinner. When a man gets to my years he wants his victuals regular. I didn't have hardly no breakfast, and I ain't had nothing since.”