You know me well, Tom, and you can vouch for it that I never had any objection to telling a story. It was, in truth, a kind of weakness with me, and some used to say that I was getting into the habit of telling the same ones too often. Be that as it may, I never was accused of relating a garbled, broken, and disjointed tale, and for the honor of my anecdotic powers, I resolved not to do so. "My Lord," said I, "I 'm like the knife-grinder,--I have no story!" Bad luck to my illustration, it took half an hour to show that my identity was not somehow mixed up with a wheel and a grinding-stone! "Let him relate the affair," said the president, once more; and this time his voice and manner both proclaimed that his patience was not to be trifled with. "Relate what?" asked I, tartly. "All that you know,--anything you have heard," whispered Van, who was trembling for my rashness. "My Lord," said I, "of myself I know nothing; I was in bed all the time." "He was in bed all the time," said the president to the others. "In bed," said red eyes; "let us see;" and he turned over a file of documents before him for several minutes. "Dodd père swears that he was in bed from the 7th of February, which is the first entry here, to the 19th of May, inclusive." "I swear no such thing, my Lord," cried I. "What does he swear, then?" asked the small judge. "Let us hear his own version; tell us unreservedly all that you know," said the president, who really spoke as if he compassionated my embarrassment. "My Lord," said I, "there is nothing would give me more pleasure than to display the candor you require; but when I assure you that I actually know nothing--" "Know nothing, sir!" interposed the president. "Do you mean to tell this Court that you are, and were, in total ignorance of every part of your son's conduct,--that you never heard of his difficulties, nor of his efforts to meet them?" "If hearsay be sufficient, then," said I, "you shall have it;" and so, taking a long breath, for I saw a weary road before me, I began thus, the amanuensis occasionally begging of me a slight halt to keep up:-- "It was about five or six weeks ago, my Lord, we--that is, Mrs. D., the girls, James, and myself--made an excursion to the field of Waterloo, filled by the very natural desire to see a spot so intimately associated with our country's glory. I will not weary you with any detail of disappointment, nor deplore the total absence of everything that could revive recollections of that great day. In fact, except the big lion with his tail between his legs, there is nothing symbolic of the nations engaged." I waited a moment here, Tom, to see how they took this; but they never winced, and so I perceived my shell exploded harmlessly.