your oath, remember, were you ever the editor of a certain thing
published every Wednesday, and called the 'Athenaeum,' or the 'Asinaeum,'
or some such name?"

Commencing with this insidious and self-damnatory question, the learned
counsel then proceeded, as artfully as he was able, through a series of
interrogatories calculated to injure the character, the respectable
character, of MacGrawler, and weaken his testimony in the eyes of the
jury. He succeeded in exciting in the audience that feeling of merriment
wherewith the vulgar are always so delighted to intersperse the dull
seriousness of hanging a human being. But though the jury themselves
grinned, they were not convinced. The Scotsman retired from the witness-
box "scotched," perhaps, in reputation, but not "killed" as to testimony.
It was just before this witness concluded, that Lord Mauleverer caused to
be handed to the judge a small slip of paper, containing merely these
words in pencil:--

DEAR BRANDON,--A dinner waits you at Mauleverer Park, only three
miles hence. Lord--and the Bishop of--meet you. Plenty of news
from London, and a letter about you, which I will show to no one
till we meet. Make haste and hang this poor fellow, that I may see
you the sooner; and it is bad for both of us to wait long for a
regular meal like dinner. I can't stay longer, it is so hot, and my
nerves were always susceptible.

Yours, MAULEVERER.

If you will come, give me a nod. You know my hour,--it is always
the same.