"What I want," said Slater, the butcher of Offley, to old George Parkes of Wormald's Farm, "is a calf--a nice one--just about prime." With his heavy hand old Parkes nursed his stubbly chin. "Ah!" he reflected. "I haven't got nothing, not just now, I haven't. Might have in about a month." Slater shook his head. "Must have it Friday." "Ah!" Mr. Parkes paused. "I haven't got nothing." Paused again. "I might have, though." A. B. Timmins, secretary of the local branch of the Primrose League, was calling across the room to Mr. Hisgard, a well-known amateur vocalist, with a view of retaining his services for an approaching "smoker." The foreman looked about him. He raised his voice, rapped on the table. "Gentlemen, please--business!" Somebody laughed, as if the foreman had been guilty of a joke--so he improved on it. "Business first, pleasure afterwards." The laugher held his peace--the joke fell flat. The jury seated themselves--not with any air of over-anxious haste. The foreman continued--he was one of the most flourishing auctioneers in that division of the county--and now spoke with that half persuasive, half authoritative manner with which many of them were familiar in the rostrum. "We must remember, gentlemen, that the court is waiting. So, with your permission, we will come to the point at once. Those who are of opinion that the prisoner is guilty will please hold up their hands." Seven hands went up. "Those who are of the contrary opinion." One hand was raised--Jacob Longsett's. Mr. Grice, the foreman, eyed the three gentlemen who had made no sign on either occasion. He addressed himself to one of them, "Well, Mr. Tyler, which is it to be?" "The fact is, Mr. Grice," said Mr. Tyler, "that I've had a bad earache--it was the draught which must have given it me. I think I didn't quite catch all that was being said now and again; but I'm willing to say what the other gentlemen do!" "You mean that you'll vote with the majority?" "That's just what I do mean, Mr. Grice." "I ain't going to say nothing," declared George Parkes, who had also refrained from expressing an opinion. "I don't know no good about young Bailey, nor yet about Sam Nichols neither. Sam Nichols, he's owed me nigh on four pound these three years and more." "I don't think," observed the foreman, "that we ought to allow personal considerations to enter into the case. It's our duty to speak to the evidence, and to that only." "I don't care nothing about no evidence. The one's as big a thief as t'other." Old George clenched his toothless jaws and blinked. "What'll he get if we bring him in guilty?" asked Mr. Plummer, the third abstainer. The foreman shook his head. "That oughtn't to influence our decision." Mr. Plummer differed, and said so. "It'll influence mine. James Bailey is not yet eighteen. To send him to prison will do him more harm than good. If his case is to come under the First Offenders Act, we shall know where we are."