rward over chairs and benches,
responding in a houndish flat-and-treble voice, "_I_ reckon I'll
_doo't_! O yis, I reckon I _will_, Square Fabens."

The business of the court then proceeded, and when his evidence was
taken, Tilly Troffater mounted the stand, with an affected hesitancy,
and a genuine restlessness of his little earthen eyes; eager to indulge
his meddlesome humor, anxious for revenge upon, he little cared whom,
and yet awed to a look of shuffling shame, by the commanding mien of
the justice. Clambering to his place, he was questioned by the court.

"Well, friend Troffater, what do you know of the action pending?"

"I telled Bogle I was sorry _I_ knew anything for I didn't want to come
to court," said the witness.

"But, what do you know, Mr. Troffater, that would tend to convict the
prisoner? Tell us _that_," said the court.

"I don't want to tell," said the witness. "Let the critter go clear,
for all me. I wouldn't lay a straw afore im. Mebby that's the last o'
his thievin' capers. If 'tis, _I_ wouldn't tell what I know for all on
airth."

"You do know something, Mr. Troffater," interrupted Cicero Bray, Esq.,
obstreperously; "you know something, upon which we greatly depend to
convict the prisoner, and vindicate the majesty of law, and I insist
upon your evidence, sir."

"_Insist_, then, dew ye!" asked Troffater, gathering up into a comical
attitude; crossing and flashing his black and blue eyes, spitting
through his teeth, and ranging the stand, like a dancing bear.
"_Insist_, dew ye, eh? Wal, I spose then I must free my mind; but,
think I'd ruther not."

"Go on, go on, Mr. Troffater, and bother us no longer in this way,"
said the court.

"Wal, I spose I must, if Mr. _Cis-a-roe_ there raily _insists_. All I
know about Sculpin is, one night I went down there, and we got to
playin' cairds, and he acted green as a mess o' cowslops at fust, and
then he cheated; and--O, I can't, I can't tell the story. I wouldn't
hurt Sculpin for the world. Carry me off, and stick me in jail, if you
want to. I _won't_ tell, so there! I'll go to jail fust, and let the
pismires carry me out o' the keyhole!--But what's this, I say? Mister
_Cis-ai-roe_ Bray, Esquare, insists that I _shall_ tell. Wal, then, as
I was goin' to say, he cheated, and so, so, I cheated a little tew, and
by'n by, he got mad, and knocked me into a next-week sleep, and in that
sleep I seen a dream, and in that dream I seen him stea