Page:Baboohurrybungsh00anstiala.djvu/258

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236
BABOO HURRY BUNGSHO

after all the marked attentions he had paid the plaintiff, he deserved to be cut dead by all the gentlemen in the house. Insisted on the engagement being made public at once; thought it her bounden duty to do so. Did not know whether defendant was married already, or how many wives he was entitled to in his own country—he had taken good care not to say anything about all that when he proposed. Did not consider him a desirable match, and never had done, but thought he ought to be made to pay heavily for his heartless behaviour to her poor unprotected child, who would never get over the slight of being jilted by a black man . . . .

Here I sat down, amidst suppressed murmurs from the Court of indignation and sympathy at such gross unmannerly insults to a highly educated Indian University man and qualified native barrister.

3.15.—More witnesses for plaintiff, viz., Miss Spink and sundry select boarders, who have testified to my courtship and the notoriety of my engagement. Seeing that they were pre-determined not to answer favourably to myself, I tore a leaf out of Mister Witherington's book, and said that I had no questions to ask. . . . The plaintiff's junior has just sat down, with the announcement that that is his case. I am now to turn the tables by dint of rhetorical loquacity.