_Mrs Nutts._ To be sure, not. I’d forgot. He’s only killed his wife; and what’s a wife? Men make laws, of course; and when they make ’em, don’t they take care o’ themselves? However, we shall have our turn. Yes, yes! the world--as I said to Mrs Biggleswade over the way--the world is going on, and must take us women with it. Of course, Mr Peabody, though you are a policeman, you’ll take the husband’s part; of course. Nevertheless, I _should_ like to know why they can’t hang him? The brute! _Peabody._ Now, in the first place, my dear Mrs Nutts---- _Nutts._ Don’t talk to her in that way: I tell you she’s never been used to it. _Peabody._ In the first place, there’s no evidence. Gun-cotton leaves nothing behind it--not a vestige. Certainly there is evidence to prove that one minute there was a woman, in a certain gown, in a certain place; that there was a report: and then there was no woman; nothing more than a little white floating smoke. Now, Mrs Nutts, the law can’t be satisfied with this. Where is the woman? Where’s her remains? The majesty of the English law demands the body to sit upon. _Mrs Nutts._ Fiddle-dee--nonsense! There’s plenty of people to swear that the man had a wife, and now he can’t show one: isn’t that enough? _Nosebag._ I should say no; because it’s very well known in any court o’ law that wives do sometimes go off without a bit o’ gun-cotton in the matter. _Nutts._ So you see, Mrs Nutts, your life is in my hands. I’ve only to make you a present of a nice-prepared cotton gown, and---- _Mrs Nutts._ Don’t you think it, Mr Nutts; for from this blessed minute, knowing what I do know--and I hope all women will follow my example--I’ll never wear nothing but silk. _Slowgoe._ Gun-cotton! I don’t believe a word about it. All new-fangled stuff. If we once go to war with gun-cotton, and give up our honest powder--the powder that won a Nile, and Trafalgar, and Waterloo--there’s an end of the British Constitution. They’re going to take the flints out of the muskets, too, and trust to ’cussion-caps. Well, if a war does come, I hope we shan’t see the King o’ the French, not only King of Great Britain, but the Governor of the Bank of England. _Nutts._ Wonderful discoveries, certainly! We make gunpowder of cotton to make wounds with, and lint out of linen to cure ’em. _Peabody._ I wonder what Friar Bacon would say if he knew it. Friar Bacon, Mr Nosebag, was a parson, and invented gunpowder. You knew that, I suppose? _Nosebag._ No, I didn’t; but from some parsons I’ve heard and read about, I can quite believe it. _Slowgoe._ Well, my ’pinion is, if Friar Bacon was to hear of this gun-cotton, as you call it, he’d treat it with the contempt it deserves. I say again, I don’t believe it. _Nutts._ Suppose you was blown up to the Monument by it? _Slowgoe._ Well, I hate a man who doesn’t stick to his principles--I wouldn’t believe it then.