and as the remedy lay only in the disease, he felt it incumbent on him also to ask an adjournment of five minutes. And these pleasant little compliments were continued by both sides until by eight o'clock there had been no less than twenty adjournments,
TTnder the circumstances the judge was certainly excusable if in summing up the case to the juiy his ideas appeared a little confused, and his tongue somewhat thick. It so happened that one of the twelve, whose fate, he used to say, it always was to be placed upon the jury with eleven fools, and whose leathery brain no measure of the most villainous compound ever sold for drinking purposes could saturate,—it happened that this man gave mortal offence to the judge by asking in what book the law laid down by his honor could be found.
Now the judge was particularly sensitive about his method of expounding the law in his charge to the jury, as we all are sensitive in our vulnerable parts, and the frequent adjournments seemed rather to have increased than to have diminished his irritation. In his present state of mind, it seemed to him clear that the ermine had been insulted, and that the impertinence must be resented. With clenched hands and contracted brow, he fixed his angry eyes upon the juror.
"The book, is it," he exclaimed, "it's the law you want ? "
"Y-y-yes," meekly replied the juror. "I asked your honor where it might be found."
"Confound you, sir," roared the judge, " I would have you know when I tell you a thing is law, its law," and drawing a bowie-knife he made a spring for the offender.
The jury broke and ran, the infuriated justice hard after them, and for a time it was doubtful how this charge of the judge should terminate. At length reaching a hill outside of the camp, the jury scattered and were lost in the darkness, while the judge return
