ned to relieve their minds. "Pray don't be
alarmed, gentlemen: I am not going to make a speech. I suffer from
fidgets. Excuse me if I occasionally change my position." The hungry
juryman (who dined early) looked at his watch. "Half-past four," he
said. "For Heaven's sake cut it short." He was the fattest person
present; and he suggested a subject to the inattentive juryman who drew
pictures on his blotting-paper. Deeply interested in the progress of the
likeness, his neighbors on either side looked over his shoulders. The
little drowsy man woke with a start, and begged pardon of everybody.
The fretful invalid said to himself, "Damned fools, all of them!" The
patient foreman, biding his time, stated the case.

"The prisoner waiting our verdict, gentlemen, is the Honorable Roderick
Westerfield, younger brother of the present Lord Le Basque. He is
charged with willfully casting away the British bark _John Jerniman_,
under his command, for the purpose of fraudulently obtaining a share
of the insurance money; and further of possessing himself of certain
Brazilian diamonds, which formed part of the cargo. In plain words,
here is a gentleman born in the higher ranks of life accused of being a
thief. Before we attempt to arrive at a decision, we shall only be doing
him justice if we try to form some general estimate of his character,
based on the evidence--and we may fairly begin by inquiring into his
relations with the noble family to which he belongs. The evidence, so
far, is not altogether creditable to him. Being at the time an officer
of the Royal Navy, he appears to have outraged the feelings of his
family by marrying a barmaid at a public-house."

The drowsy juryman, happening to be awake at that moment, surprised the
foreman by interposing a statement. "Talking of barmaids," he said, "I
know a curate's daughter. She's in distressed circumstances, poor thing;
and she's a barmaid somewhere in the north of England. Curiously
enough, the name of the town has escaped my memory. If we had a map of
England--" There he was interrupted, cruelly interrupted, by one of his
brethren.

"And by what right," cried the greedy juryman, speaking under the
exasperating influence of hunger--"by what right does Mr. Westerfield's
family dare to suppose that a barmaid may not be a perfectly virtuous
woman?"

Hearing this, the restless gentleman (in the act of changing his
position) was suddenly inspired with interest in the proceedings.