pounds.
But you have not heard from my learned friend, inasmuch as it did not
come within my learned friend's province to tell you, what are the
facts and circumstances of the case. Those facts and circumstances,
gentlemen, you shall hear detailed by me, and proved by the
unimpeachable female whom I will place in that box before you."

Here Mr. Serjeant Buzfuz, with a tremendous emphasis on the word
"box," smote his table with a mighty sound, and glanced at Dodson and
Fogg, who nodded admiration to the Serjeant, and indignant defiance of
the defendant.

"The plaintiff, gentlemen," continued Serjeant Buzfuz, in a soft and
melancholy voice, "the plaintiff is a widow; yes, gentlemen, a widow.
The late Mr. Bardell, after enjoying, for many years, the esteem and
confidence of his sovereign, as one of the guardians of his royal
revenues, glided almost imperceptibly from the world, to seek
elsewhere for that repose and peace which a custom house can never
afford."

At this pathetic description of the decease of Mr. Bardell, who had
been knocked on the head with a quart pot in a public-house cellar,
the learned Serjeant's voice faltered, and he proceeded with emotion,--

"Some time before his death he had stamped his likeness upon a little
boy. With this little boy, the only pledge of her departed exciseman,
Mrs. Bardell shrunk from the world, and courted the retirement and
tranquillity of Goswell Street; and here she placed in her front
parlour-window a written placard, bearing this inscription--'Apartments
furnished for a single gentleman. Inquire within.'" Here Serjeant
Buzfuz paused, while several gentlemen of the jury took a note of the
document.

"There is no date to that, is there?" inquired a juror.

"There is no date, gentlemen," replied Serjeant Buzfuz; "but I am
instructed to say that it was put in the plaintiff's parlour-window
just this time three years. I entreat the attention of the jury to
the wording of this document. 'Apartments furnished for a single
gentleman!' Mrs. Bardell's opinions of the opposite sex, gentlemen,
were derived from a long contemplation of the inestimable qualities of
her lost husband. She had no fear, she had no distrust, she had no
suspicion, all was confidence and reliance. 'Mr. Bardell,' said the
widow, 'Mr. Bardell was a man of honour, Mr. Bardell was a man of h