CHAPTER THREE

WHICH THE READER, ON PERUSAL, MAY WISH WERE CHAPTER THE LAST.


The doctor prescribed a repetatur of the julep, and mixed the
ingredients, secundum artem; Tom Clarke hemmed thrice, to clear his
pipes; while the rest of the company, including Dolly and her mother, who
had by this time administered to the knight, composed themselves into
earnest and hushed attention. Then the young lawyer began his narrative
to this effect:--

"I tell ye what, gemmen, I don't pretend in this here case to flourish
and harangue like a--having never been called to--but what of that, d'ye
see? perhaps I may know as much as--facts are facts, as the saying is.--I
shall tell, repeat, and relate a plain story--matters of fact, d'ye see,
without rhetoric, oratory, ornament, or embellishment; without
repetition, tautology, circumlocution, or going about the bush; facts
which I shall aver, partly on the testimony of my own knowledge, and
partly from the information of responsible evidences of good repute and
credit, any circumstance known to the contrary notwithstanding.--For as
the law saith, if so be as how there is an exception to evidence, that
exception is in its nature but a denial of what is taken to be good by
the other party, and exceptio in non exceptis, firmat regulam, d'ye see.
--But howsomever, in regard to this here affair, we need not be so
scrupulous as if we were pleading before a judge sedente curia."