Page:Paul Clifford Vol 3.djvu/281

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PAUL CLIFFORD.
273

acquired by the adverse party; so, clearing his throat, he rose with a sneering air to the cross-examination.

"So, so!" began Mr. Botheram, putting on a pair of remarkably large spectacles, wherewith he truculently regarded the witness—"So, so, Mr. Mac Grawler, is that your name? eh!—Ah, it is—is it? a very respectable name it is too, I warrant. Well, Sir, look at me. Now, on your oath, remember, were you ever the editor of a certain thing published every Wednesday, and called the Attenæum, or the Asinæum, 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 Mac Grawler, and weaken his testimony in the eyes of the Jury. He succeeded in exciting in the audience that feeling 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