Mrs. Reed did as she was bid: turned it about and looked "well." "Yes, sir, it is the same box," said she. "That is, I am nearly sure of it." "What do you mean by _nearly_ sure?" quickly asked the coroner, catching at the word. "Have you any doubt?" "Not no moral doubt at all, sir. Only them pill-boxes is all so like one another. Yes, sir, I'm sure it is the same box." "Open it, and look at the pills. Are they, in your judgment, the same?" "Just the same, sir," she answered, after taking off the lid. "One might a'most know'em anywhere. Only----" "Only what?" demanded the coroner, as she paused. "Well, sir, I fancied I had rather more left--six or seven say. There's only five here." The coroner made no answer to that. He took the box from her and put on the lid. We soon learnt that two had been taken out for the purpose of being analyzed. For who should loom into the room at that juncture but Pettipher, the druggist from Piefinch Cut. He had been analyzing the pills in a hasty way in obedience to orders received half-an-hour ago, and came to give the result. The pills contained arsenic, he said; not enough to kill a grown person, he thought, but enough to kill a child. As Pettipher was only a small man (in a business point of view) and sold groceries as well as drugs, and spectacles and ear-trumpets, some of us did not think much of his opinion, and fancied the pills should have been analyzed by Duffham. That was just like old Jones: giving work to the wrong man. George Reed was questioned, but could tell nothing, except that he had never touched either box or pills. While Ann Dovey was being called, and the coroner had his head bent over his clerk's notes, speaking to him in an undertone, Abel Crew suddenly asked to be allowed to look at the pills. The coroner, without lifting his head, just pushed the box down on the green cloth; and one of the jury handed it over his shoulder to Abel Crew. "This is not the box I gave Mrs. Reed," said Abel, in a clear, firm tone, after diving into it with his eyes and nose. "Nor are these the pills." Up went the coroner's head with a start. He had supposed the request to see the box came from a juryman. It might have been irregular for Abel Crew to be allowed so much; but as it arose partly through the coroner's own fault, he was too wise to make a commotion over it. "What is that you say?" he asked, stretching out his hand for the box as eagerly as though it had contained gold. "That this box and these pills are not the same that I furnished to Mrs. Reed, sir," replied Abel, advancing and placing the box in the coroner's hand. "They are not indeed." "Not the same pills and box!" exclaimed the coroner. "Why, man, you have heard the evidence of the witness, Hester Reed; you may see for yourself that she spoke nothing but truth. Don't talk nonsense here."