ns a damned old fool!

_J. N_. (_writing_). "A damned old fool!" Anything else?

_Pot_. A blasted old cheat!

_J. N_. (_writing_). "A blasted old cheat!" (_Cheerfully_) Go on.

_Pot_. Another time he was talking in a public-house with two men whom I
understood to be members of the Fabian League. He was having words with
them, and one of them said, "Ah, but you forget the rent of ability"; and
he said, "Damn the rent of ability, I will smash their rents of
abilities."

_Mr. H_. Did you know what that meant?

_Pot_. No; not then.

_Mr. H_. But you do now?

_Pot_. Yes; for I got into conversation with one of them, who told me
that it meant the brain, the skull.

_J. N_. (_writing_). "The rent of ability is a cant phrase in use among
these people signifying the head."

_Mr. H_. Well?

_Pot_. Well, then they laughed and said, Well, as far as he is
concerned, smash it when you can catch it.

_Mr. H_. Did you gather whose head it was that they were speaking of?

_Pot_. Yes; his lordship's.

_Mr. H_. (_impressively and plaintively_). And _why_?

_Pot_. Because they said he had jugged their comrades like a damned old
smoutch!

_J. N_. _Jugged_?

_Pot_. Put them in prison, my lord.

_J. N_. (_Aside_: That Norwich affair.) Wait! I must write my self down
a smoutch--smoutch? no doubt a foreign word.

_Mr. H_. What else have you heard the prisoner say.

_Pot_. I have heard him threaten to make her Majesty the Queen take in
washing.

_J. N_. Plain washing?

_Pot_. Yes, my lord.

_J. N_. Not fancy work?

_Pot_. No, my lord.

_A Juryman_. Have you heard him suggest any means of doing all this?

_Pot_. Yes, sir; for I have attended meetings of his association in
disguise, when they were plotting means of exciting the populace.

_Mr. H_. In which he took part?

_Pot_. In which he took part.

_Mr. H_. You heard him arranging with others for a rising of the lower
orders?

_Pot_. Yes, sir; and on the occasion, when I met him in the public
house, I got into conversation with him, and he told me that his society
numbered upwards of two millions. (J. F. _grins_.)

_The Juryman_ (_anxiously_). Armed?

_Pot_. He said there were arms in readiness for them.

_Mr. H_. Did you find out where?

_Pot_. Yes; at the premises of the Federationist League, 13 Farringdon
Road.

_Mr. H_. Did you search for them there?

_Pot_. Yes.

_Mr. H_. Did you find them?

_Po