But there was no opportunity for further deliberation; the court was almost waiting, and one went downstairs to meet the inevitable. The proceedings were brief. Vizetelly took his stand at the foot of the solicitors' table, his son who sat there, and who at every moment feared to see him fall, holding his hand the while. For an instant, when challenged, he hesitated, then ejaculated the word "guilty," much as if he were expectorating. Thus the case was never argued on its merits. Of course the Solicitor-general held that the previous undertaking had been violated, and asked that the defendant's recognisances in two hundred pounds should be estreated. Then Mr. Cock spoke of the expurgation of the books, which in his opinion "had not gone sufficiently far," and added that the defendant was in his seventieth year and in very delicate health. On that point Ernest Vizetelly testified on oath that his father had suffered for some years from a complaint which had lately assumed a very serious character and necessitated the constant employment of surgical instruments. He then imagined his examination to be over, and was about to leave the witness-box when Sir Edward Clarke inquired if he were a member of the firm of Vizetelly & Co. The witness answered in the negative, he was a journalist by profession, and if previously employed by the firm he had then ceased to be so. But the Solicitor-general pressed him for the purpose, so it seemed, of extracting some undertaking with respect to the future sale of Zola's works or the destruction of the existing stock. This the witness had no power to give, and he was determined to say nothing that might lead to it being given by others. As the pertinacity of counsel continued, the witness, feeling somewhat ruffled, could not refrain from retorting: "You have made the defendant a pauper! What more do you want?" "Now, now," Sir Edward Clarke shouted back, "we want none of that!" "Well, I have nothing else to say," the witness added. "I do not belong to the firm of Vizetelly & Co., and I now know nothing about it." Thereupon the Solicitor-general, somewhat discomfited, had to let him go.