"You don"t seem very sure, sir," remarked the judge; and he added, addressing the intruder, "Who are you, sir?"
The old man seemed in a nervous and broken-down condition; but he stammered out, "He"s my son, my son, my lord."
"It"s a lie," cried young Mr. Pippitt.
"Hold your tongue till you"re asked to speak," said his lordship snappishly. "I want to hear what this man has to say."
The old man had much to say: much of young Mr. Pippitt"s virtue, industry, and much of his own fortunes, misfortunes, and wrongs. He usurped the functions of both lawyer and witness, and all the court listened to him.
"I"m glad to be here, gentlemen," he said--"glad to be here. I thought I was never going to get out of that cell they put me in, not for long years. But here I am, Joe, thank G.o.d!"
"Who put you in a cell?" asked the judge.
"I"m telling you as fast as I can," answered the old man petulantly.
"I"d just written to Joe to send him a bit of money and tell him to look out for me, when they brought a charge of fraud against me--against me, a respectable merchant. And I was tried: tried and found guilty--unjustly, my lord--and sentenced to five years. To think of it! They didn"t know me out in Louisiana; no east-coast jury would have convicted."
"Why didn"t they know you?"
"I wasn"t going to have my name known. I called myself Brown; and they convicted me--as I wrote to you, Joe--for five years. But the Governor did his duty. He was a white man, the Governor. He let me out."
"Why?" asked the judge curiously.
"Was a white man to get five years for besting a n.i.g.g.e.r?" demanded the old man, with his first approach to vigor. "Not if the Governor knew it!
Oh, he was a white man. So here I am, Joe--here I am, thank G.o.d!"
The judge leaned forward and asked, "Have you any letters from the man you say is your son?"
The old man pulled a dirty letter out of his pocket, and handed it up with a bewildered look.
Young Mr. Pippitt still looked on with his fixed smile, while the judge read:
"DEAR FATHER:
"It"s a bad job that you"re nabbed. Five years is no joke. Why were you such a fool? You were right about the name. Keep it quite dark, for G.o.d"s sake! I"ll see what I can do.
"Yours, "J. P.
"Received your last all right."
"Is that your handwriting?" the judge asked of the plaintiff; but young Mr. Pippitt swayed to and fro and fell in a faint in the witness-box.
The judge turned to Mr. Budge.
"Do you desire," he asked, "that this man should be sworn, and repeat his evidence on oath, so that you may cross-examine him?"
Mr. Budge looked at his inanimate client, and answered, "I do not, my lord. I shall probably have your lordship"s approval in withdrawing from the case?"
While the judge directed the jury to return a verdict for the defendant, the old man had anxiously watched the usher, who was unloosing young Mr.
Pippitt"s neckcloth. When the plaintiff revived, the old man leaned over to Mr. Budge, and said, with a pleased smile, "Oh, he"ll be all right directly, won"t he? I thought I could help a bit. I have helped a bit, haven"t I?"
"You have helped him to twelve months" hard labor," said Mr. Budge.
But the old man did not understand what it all meant, till one day they took him to Kensal Green, and showed him a handsome tombstone. The inscription ran:
"IN MEMORY OF JAMES PIPPITT."
The old man read and laughed.
"To think of that!" he said. "It beats everything!"
He read on with a chuckle:
"Erected by his sorrowing son, Joseph Pippitt. Born 13th December, 1821. Died 5th February, 1891. "I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me.""
This prophecy might or might not be true of the person interred beneath the tombstone. On its unfortunate inapplicability to his father, and on the tainting of the fountain of Louisiana justice, young Mr. Pippitt enjoyed twelve months" quiet reflection.
HOW THEY STOPPED THE "RUN."
There was a run on the Sandhill and District Bank. It had lasted the whole of one day, and had shown no signs of abating in the evening. If it lasted another day! Old Mr. Bradshaw wiped his brow. It had come just at the awkwardest time--just after the farmers had got their usual loans, just when securities were hard to realize; in fact, just at the moment when the bank, though in reality solvent, was emphatically not in a position in answer a long-continued demand for payment on the spot.
Mr. Bradshaw groaned out all these distressing facts to his son d.i.c.k.
It was, indeed, no use talking to d.i.c.k, for he took no interest in business, and had spent the day in a boat with the Flirtington girls; still, Mr. Bradshaw was bound to talk to someone.
"We shall have to put the shutters up. One day"s grace would save us, I believe; we could get the money then. But if they"re at us again to-morrow morning, we can"t last two hours."
d.i.c.k sympathized, but had nothing to suggest, except that it would not make matters worse if he carried out his engagement to go to the circus with the Flirtington girls.
"Oh, go to h--ll with the Flirtington girls, if you like," groaned Mr.
Bradshaw.
So d.i.c.k went--to the circus (the other expedition, as he observed, would keep), and enjoyed the performance very much, especially the lion-taming, which was magnificent, and so impressed d.i.c.k that he deserted his companions, went behind the scenes, and insisted on standing Signor Philippini several gla.s.ses.
"Is that big chap quite safe?" he asked admiringly.
"_I_ can do anythink with "im," said the signor (whose English was naturally defective); "but with anyone helse "e"s a roarer, "e is, and no mistake."
After the performance d.i.c.k took the Flirtington girls home; then, with a thoughtful look on his face, he went and had some talk with his father, and came away, carefully placing a roll of notes in his breast pocket.
Then he sought Signor Philippini"s society once more. And that"s all that is really known about it--if, that is, we discard the obviously fanciful statement of f.a.n.n.y Flirtington that, as she was gazing at the moon about 2 A. M., she saw a heavy wagon, drawn by two horses and driven by Signor Philippini, pa.s.s along the street in the direction of the bank. She must have been wrong; for Philippini, by the evidence of his signora (whose name, notwithstanding that Philippini"s morals were perfectly correct, was Mrs. Buggins), went to bed at 11.30, and snored like a pig all night.
However these things may be, this is what happened next morning. When the first of the depositors arrived at 7 A. M., they found one of the windows of the bank smashed to pieces and the shutter hanging loose. A cry went up that there had been a robbery, and one or two men began to climb in. They did not get far before a fearful roar proceeded from the neighborhood of the counter. They looked at one another, and said it would be more regular to wait for the officials. The roars continued.
They sent for Mr. Bradshaw. Hardly had he arrived (accompanied by d.i.c.k, breathless and in shirt-sleeves) before the backmost rows of the now considerable crowd became agitated with a new sensation. The news spread rapidly. Frantic men ran to and fro; several ladies fainted; the circus-proprietor was sent for. A lion had escaped from the menagerie, and was supposed to be at large in the town!
"Send for Philippini!" cried the proprietor. They did so. Philippini had started early for a picnic in the country, and would not return till just before the performance in the evening. The proprietor was in despair.
"Where"s the beast gone to?" he cried.