"Your honor will readily understand me, though the gentleman of the bar does not. I conceive him not only to have abandoned the case, your honor, but actually to have joined hand and hand with the prosecuting counsel. It is true, sir, that he still calls himself _my_ counsel--and still, under that name, presumes to harangue, as he alleges, in my behalf; but, when he violates the truth, not less than my instructions--when he declares all that is alleged against me in that paper _to be true_, all of which I declare to be _false_--when he admits me to be guilty of a crime of which I am _not_ guilty--I say that he has not only abandoned my case, but that he has betrayed the trust reposed in him. What, your honor, must the jury infer from the confession which he has just made?--what, but that in my conference with him _I_ have made the same confession? It becomes necessary, therefore, may it please your honor, not only that I take from him, thus openly, the power which I confided to him, but that I call upon your honor to demand from him, upon oath, whether such an admission was ever made to him by me. I know that my own words will avail me nothing here--I also know why they should not--but I am surely entitled to require that he should speak out, as to the truth, when _his_ misrepresentations are to make weight against me in future. His oath, that I made no such confession to him, will avail nothing for my defence, but will avail greatly with those who, from present appearances, are likely to condemn me. I call upon him, may it please your honor, as matter of right, that he should be _sworn_ to this particular. This, your honor will perceive, if my assertion be true, is the smallest justice which he can do me; beyond this I will ask and suggest nothing--leaving it to your own mind how far the license of his profession should be permitted to one who thus not only abandons, but betrays and misrepresents his client." The youth was silent, and Pippin rose to speak in his defence. Without being sworn, he admitted freely that such a confession had not been made, but that he had inferred the killing from the nature of the testimony, which he thought conclusive on the point; that his object had been to suggest a probable difficulty between the parties, in which he would have shown Forrester as the aggressor. He bungled on for some time longer in this manner, but, as he digressed again into the defence of the accused, Ralph again begged to interrupt him. "I think it important, may it please your honor, that the gentleman should be sworn as to the simple fact which he has uttered. _I want it on record_, that, at some future day, the few who have any interest in my fate should feel no mortifying doubts of my innocence when reminded of the occurrence--which this strange admission, improperly circulated, might otherwise occasion. Let him swear, your honor, to the fact: this, I think, I may require."