The prisoner asked permission to cross-examine the officer before he stated his own case. ‘Officer, do you say I was using bad language?’ he asked. ‘Very bad; the worst I ever heard,’ was the reply. ‘Will you give me your definition of good language?’ The officer could not. ‘Do you still say that I was using obscene words?’ ‘Very bad words,’ said the officer. ‘Do you still say that I was swearing?’ ‘I do.’ ‘Well, then, I pity your ignorance,’ he said, and the officer stood down. Turning to the magistrate, he said, ‘Your worship, I want to deny this charge most emphatically, and I want to explain how this charge was made, and what led up to it. All my life I have been fond of holding communion with the greatest minds of all ages, and I have committed to memory the greater parts of Homer and Dante, Shakespeare and Milton, as well as many other poets. If your worship will quote me a line from any of them, I will take it up and continue.’ ‘Oh no, no!’ said his worship; ‘I will take it for granted.’ ‘Well, your worship, when I have been walking about the country it has been my delight, when I have been alone, to recite aloud choice portions from the poets, and last night as I was going to my lodgings I saw the moon at full. I stopped and looked at it, and I thought it was the sun. I thought of Satan’s address to that luminary; to think of it was, with me, to recite it, so I began, “O thou that with surpassing glory crowned!” when Shakespeare comes in with Hamlet’s soliloquy. I did not want to recite from Shakespeare, so began again, “O thou----” At the end of the first line in comes Homer, so I began again with Milton: then in comes Dante. I suppose I had recited the one line from Milton twenty times, and each time was interrupted by one of the others; perhaps I did get a little loud and emphatic, but bad language I could not be guilty of, and as to obscene language, my very gorge rises at it. The ignorance of the officer prevents him understanding good language; I am quite sure your worship understands how the mistake arose.’ ‘Yes, I do,’ said his worship: ‘you had been mixing your drinks.’ ‘I had a glass of gin, a bitter-and-mild, and a Scotch whisky,’ said the tramp. ‘Ah! I thought so, and I must fine you three shillings for mixing your drinks, for that was the reason your poets got mixed; and look, when you want to “hold communion with the greatest minds of all ages,” you stick to _aqua pura_, and your poets will run straight.’ ‘Oh, don’t fine me! your worship, don’t fine me! I have a wife and three children outside.’ He was taken to the cells, where, in conversation, he told me that he was a public-school boy. Outside I saw a poor, weary-faced, bedraggled woman and three young children who tramped the country with him and whose home in London was the cheap lodging-house.