correct, and
that I can cross-examine to the credit of a witness."

Here the clerk of arraigns, who sat just under the learned Judge, and was
always consulted on matters of practice when there was any difficulty,
was seen whispering to his lordship: after which his lordship looked very
blank and red.

"We always consult him, my lord," said Mr. Nimble, with a smile, "in
suits at Common Law."

Everybody tried not to laugh, and everybody failed. Even the Judge,
being a very good-tempered man, laughed too, and said:

"O yes, Taylor on Evidence, Mr. Nimble."

At last the book, about the size of a London Directory, was handed up by
a tall man who was Mr. Nimble's clerk.

"Now, my lord, at page nineteen hundred and seventy-two your lordship
will find that when the credibility of a witness is attacked--"

Judge: "That will be near the end of the book."

Mr. Nimble: "No, my lord, near the beginning."

"I shall not stop you," said the learned Judge; "your question may be put
for what it is worth: but now, suppose in answer to your question she
says she is an ironer, what then?"

"That's what I am, my lordship," said the woman, with an obsequious
curtsey.

"There, now you have it," said the Judge, "she is an ironer; stop, let me
take that down, 'I am an ironer.'"

The cross-examination continued, somewhat in an angry tone no doubt, and
amid frequent interruptions; but Mr. Nimble always thumped down the
ponderous Taylor upon any objection of the learned Judge, and crushed it
as though it were a butterfly.

Next the policeman gave his evidence, and was duly cross-examined. Mr.
Nimble called no witnesses; there were none to call: but addressed the
jury in a forcible and eloquent speech, stigmatizing the charge as an
utterly preposterous one, and dealing with every fact in a
straightforward and manly manner. After he had finished, the jury would
undoubtedly have acquitted; but the learned Judge had to sum up, which in
this, as in many cases at Quarter Sessions, was no more a summing up than
counting ten on your fingers is a summing up. It was a desultory speech,
and if made by the counsel for the prosecution, would have been a most
unfair one for the Crown: totally ignoring the fact that human nature was
subject to frailties, and testimony liable to be tainted with perjury.
It made so great an impression upon me in my dream that I transcribed it
when I awoke; and this is the manner in which it dealt with the main