Paul Clifford — Volume 04 by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton
page 59 of 96 (61%)
page 59 of 96 (61%)
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lowest orders, but who, seemingly enjoying large connections, and
possessing natural acuteness and address, appeared to have been of great use in receiving and disposing of such goods as were fraudulently obtained. As a witness against the latter person appeared a pawnbroker, who produced certain articles that had been pledged to him at different times by this humble agent. Now, Brandon, in examining the guilty go-between, became the more terribly severe in proportion as the man evinced that semblance of unconscious stolidity which the lower orders can so ingeniously assume, and which is so peculiarly adapted to enrage and to baffle the gentlemen of the bar. At length, Brandon entirely subduing and quelling the stubborn hypocrisy of the culprit, the man turned towards him a look between wrath and beseechingness, muttering,-- "Aha! _if_ so be, Counsellor Prandon, you knew vat I knows. You vould not go for to bully I so!" "And pray, my good fellow, what is it that you know that should make me treat you as if I thought you an honest man?" The witness had now relapsed into sullenness, and only answered by a sort of grunt. Brandon, who knew well how to sting a witness into communicativeness, continued his questioning till the witness, re-aroused into anger, and it may be into indiscretion, said in a low voice,-- "Hax Mr. Swoppem the pawnbroker what I sold 'im on the 15th hof February, exactly twenty-three yearn ago." Brandon started back, his lips grew white, he clenched his hands with a convulsive spasm; and while all his features seemed distorted with an earnest yet fearful intensity of expectation, he poured forth a volley of questions, so incoherent and so irrelevant that he was immediately called to order by his learned |
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