“Made your fortune at thirty, you lucky man, and retired from business, is that it?” His clothes answered for him. “Then may I ask how you’ve lived since you gave up working?” “Hadn’t he a license to hawk, sure?” “A pedlar, eh? In other words, a licensed mendicant. Let me see your license.” After much fumbling in the inner creases of the rag that served him as a vest, the witness produced a soiled, tattered document that Beaumont handled gingerly. “Dated seven years ago and long out of date. That won’t do, my man. Well what else have you done?” “Arrah! odd jobs, an’ maybe, a copper or two from a friend or a Christian lady of the town or the praste. God bless them.” “Now, turn up the sleeve of your arm, higher, let’s see your muscles, man.” A brawny, muscular arm was bared to view. “An arm, your Worships will observe” said Edward, “that hasn’t done a stroke of honest work these ten years back.” “You’re a married man, I think, Graham?” “’Deed, I am, sorr, worse luck.” “Where’s your wife?” Graham couldn’t say, but when his memory was assisted he confessed she had left him years ago, but not before he had been convicted three or four times in that very Court of aggravated assault upon her. “You didn’t strike Pat Sullivan last night, you say?” “Not a strike, sorr!” “Striking a woman’s more in your line, I suppose. Perhaps you’ll have their Worships believe you never beat your wife. Who was the friend you had been spending the night with?” Then it transpired that the friend was the genial host of the “Spotted Dog,” and that before visiting that popular house of entertainment Graham had favoured the “Brindled Cow” with his company, and when somebody in the crowd at the back called out “Wheatsheaf,” to the great indignation of half-a-dozen constables, who all called out “Silence in Court,” and glared angrily at a very small boy who began to whimper, Mr. Graham confessed to having had a glass, or maybe, two, ’deed, he wouldn’t swear not three, at the “Wheatsheaf.” But at this the confusion of the witness was so great that Beaumont knew it to be more damaging than any evidence, and magnanimously forbore to press the question. “Hadn’t we better get to last night?” suggested Mr. Mayor, mildly. “I agree with your Worship. But it was desirable that we should know who this injured innocent is that comes here with his whimpering, whining story. And now, Graham, you know Nelly Sullivan?” “Sure he did, bad cess to her for a squalling, meddling woman!” “What made you strike Nelly Sullivan when you returned to your lodgings last night?” Of course he hadn’t struck Nelly. “Was he the man to lift his hand against any woman?” “Bar your wife, Graham,” reminded Beaumont. “That was different. He hadn’t come there to talk about his wife. He swore before God and all His saints on the blessed book he’d never lifted so much as his little finger ’gainst Nelly Sullivan; strike him dead, if he had!”