USHER, CLERK OF THE COURT, MR. HUNGARY, Q.C., _and others_. MR. LA-DI-
DA, _the prisoner, not in the dock, but seated in a chair before it_.
[_Enter_ MR. JUSTICE NUPKINS.

_Usher_. Silence!--silence!

_Mr. Justice Nupkins_. Prisoner at the bar, you have been found guilty
by a jury, after a very long and careful consideration of your remarkable
and strange case, of a very serious offence; an offence which squeamish
moralists are apt to call robbing the widow and orphan; a cant phrase
also, with which I hesitate to soil my lips, designates this offence as
swindling. You will permit me to remark that the very fact that such
nauseous and improper words can be used about the conduct of a
_gentleman_ shows how far you have been led astray from the path traced
out for the feet of a respectable member of society. Mr. La-di-da, if
you were less self-restrained, less respectful, less refined, less of a
gentleman, in short, I might point out to you with more or less severity
the disastrous consequences of your conduct; but I cannot doubt, from the
manner in which you have borne yourself during the whole of this trial,
that you are fully impressed with the seriousness of the occasion. I
shall say no more then, but perform the painful duty which devolves on me
of passing sentence on you. I am compelled in doing so to award you a
term of imprisonment; but I shall take care that you shall not be
degraded by contamination with thieves and rioters, and other coarse
persons, or share the diet and treatment which is no punishment to
persons used to hard living: that would be to inflict a punishment on you
not intended by the law, and would cast a stain on your character not
easily wiped away. I wish you to return to that society of which you
have up to this untoward event formed an ornament without any such stain.