‘No doubt, no doubt, Mr. Macnee, you would indeed do that. But I’ll explain by giving you an account of a case that once happened to myself,’ and he proceeded to recount a narrative worthy of the days ‘when wretches hung that jurymen might dine.’ ‘Well, you see, there was a man in the village near my place and his house was broken into and a lot of valuable things were stolen from it. The police were on the spot next morning, but for a time they could get no clue at all. They found in the end that the last man seen at the house was a baker in the village, and their suspicions began to fall on him. Well this baker was a notorious radical, and he was corrupting the village with his radical notions and theories. And I had determined, if I could manage it anyhow, to get him away. So I was not sorry to hear that the police were looking up the baker and his doings. At last, as they could get nobody else to suspect, they arrested him, and after a while a day was appointed for his trial. A jury was summoned, and I was one of the jury; and being the chief man in the place, I was chosen as foreman. Well, the case went to trial, and we heard all the evidence the police could scrape together, and the jury retired to consider their verdict. When we were all met, I said to them, “Well, gentlemen, what do you think of the case?” And they answered to a man, “O the baker’s as innocent as any of us.” So I looked amazed and said, “What’s that you say, gentlemen? Innocent! I really am astonished to hear you say that. Just let us go over the evidence.” So I went over all the facts and inferences, bit by bit, and showed how they all made for the prisoner’s guilt. I argued down every objection, and when they were all silenced and convinced, we marched back into the court with a unanimous verdict of “guilty as libelled.” You should have seen the face of the judge, but still more, you should have seen the face of the baker. But _there_ was the verdict, and so the judge passed sentence of imprisonment on the baker, and we have never seen him more in the village. Now, Mr. Macnee, that’s what I mean by _personal satisfaction_!’