"'Did ye see th' pris'ner afther his arrest?' 'I did.' 'Where?' 'In th'
pa-apers.' 'What was he doin'?' 'His back was tur-rned.' 'What did that
indicate to ye?' 'That he had been sufferin' fr'm a variety iv tomaine
excelsis--' 'Greek wurruds,' says th' coort. 'Latin an' Greek,' says th'
expert. 'Pro-ceed,' says th' coort. 'I come to th' conclusion,' says th'
expert, 'that th' man, when he hooked th' watch, was sufferin' fr'm a
sudden tempest in his head, a sudden explosion as it were, a sudden I
don't know-what-th'-divvle-it-was, that kind iv wint off in his
chimbley, like a storm at sea.' 'Was he in anny way bug befure th'
crime?' 'Not a bit. He suffered fr'm warts whin a boy, which sometimes
leads to bozimbral hoptocollographophiloplutomania, or what th' Germans
call tantrums, but me gin'ral con-clusion was that he was perfectly sane
all his life till this minnyit, an' that so much sanity wint to his head
an' blew th' cover off.'

"'Has he been sane iver since?' says the lawyer. 'Ye'd betther have a
care how ye answer that question, me boy,' says th' pris'ner, carelessly
jingling th' loose change in his pocket. 'Sane?' says th' expert. 'Well,
I shud think he was. Why, I can hardly imagine how he stayed
feather-headed long enough to take th' villan's joolry. Sane, says ye? I
don't mean anny disrespect to th' coort or th' bar, but if ye gintlemen
had half as much good brains in ye'er head as he has, ye'd not be
wastin' ye'er time here. There ain't a man in this counthry th' akel iv
this gr-reat man. Talk about Dan'l Webster, he was an idyut compared
with this joynt intelleck. No, sir, he's a fine, thoughtful, able,
magnificent specimen iv man an' has been iver since between twelve four
an' twelve four-an'-a-half on that fatal night. An' a good fellow at
that.'