when a clock struck and the performance ended for the day. The principal
actors doffed their costumes, and snatched up the evening papers to make
sure that the descriptive reporters had been as eulogistic of them as
usual. The judge, who subscribed to a press-cutting agency, was glad to
find, the next morning, that none of his jokes had been omitted by any
of the nineteen chief London dailies. And the Strand and Piccadilly were
quick with Witt _v_. Parfitts--on evening posters and in the strident
mouths of newsboys. The telegraph wires vibrated to Witt _v_. Parfitts.
In the great betting industrial towns of the provinces wagers were laid
at scientific prices. England, in a word, was content, and the principal
actors had the right to be content also. Very astute people in clubs and
saloon bars talked darkly about those two moles, and Priam's nod in
response to the whispers of the solicitor's clerk: such details do not
escape the modern sketch writer at a thousand a year. To very astute
people the two moles appeared to promise pretty things.

_Priam's Refusal_

"Leek in the box."

This legend got itself on to the telegraph wires and the placards within
a few minutes of Priam's taking the oath. It sent a shiver of
anticipation throughout the country. Three days had passed since the
opening of the case (for actors engaged at a hundred a day for the run
of the piece do not crack whips behind experts engaged at ten or twenty
a day; the pace had therefore been dignified), and England wanted a
fillip.

Nobody except Alice knew what to expect from Priam. Alice knew. She knew
that Priam was in an extremely peculiar state which might lead to
extremely peculiar results; and she knew also that there was nothing to
be done with him! She herself had made one little effort to bathe him in
the light of reason; the effort had not succeeded. She saw the danger of
renewing it. Pennington, K.C., by the way, insisted that she should
leave the court during Priam's evidence.

Priam's attitude towards the whole case was one of bitter resentment, a
resentment now hot, now cold. He had the strongest possible objection to
the entire affair. He hated Witt as keenly as he hated Oxford. All that
he demanded from the world was peace and quietness, and the world would
not grant him these inexpensive commodities. He had not asked to be
buried in Westminster Abbey; his interment had been forced upon him. And
if he chose to call himself by anoth