Snodgrass, by way of keeping up a
conversation on the eventful morning of the fourteenth of February.
'Ah!' said Perker, 'I hope he's got a good one.'
'Why so?' inquired Mr. Pickwick.
'Highly important--very important, my dear Sir,' replied
Perker. 'A good, contented, well-breakfasted juryman is a capital
thing to get hold of. Discontented or hungry jurymen, my dear
sir, always find for the plaintiff.'
'Bless my heart,' said Mr. Pickwick, looking very blank, 'what
do they do that for?'
'Why, I don't know,' replied the little man coolly; 'saves time,
I suppose. If it's near dinner-time, the foreman takes out his
watch when the jury has retired, and says, "Dear me, gentlemen,
ten minutes to five, I declare! I dine at five, gentlemen." "So do I,"
says everybody else, except two men who ought to have dined at
three and seem more than half disposed to stand out in consequence.
The foreman smiles, and puts up his watch:--"Well,
gentlemen, what do we say, plaintiff or defendant, gentlemen? I
rather think, so far as I am concerned, gentlemen,--I say, I
rather think--but don't let that influence you--I RATHER think
the plaintiff's the man.
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