"I don't know, Tom, how much further I might have gone on in my analytical researches into our national character; but the interpreter cut me short, by assuring the Court that he was totally unable to follow me. In the narrative parts of my discourse he was good enough; but it seemed that my reflections, and my general remarks on men and manners, were a cut above him. I was therefore warned to 'try back' to the line of my story, which I did accordingly. "As for the affair itself, my Lord," resumed I, "I understand from eyewitnesses that it was most respectably and discreetly conducted. James was put up with his face to the west, so that Roger had the sun on him. The tools were beauties. It was a fine May morning, mellow, and not too bright. There was nothing wanting to make the scene impressive, and, I may add, instructive. Roger's friend gave the word--one, two, three--bang went both pistols together, and poor James received the other's fire just here,--between the bone and the artery, so Seutin described it,--a critical spot, I'm sure." "Dodd père," said the president, solemnly, "you are trifling with the patience of the tribunal!" A grave edict, which the other judges responded to by a majestic inclination of the bead. "If you are not," resumed he, slowly, and with great emphasis,--"if you are not a man of weak intellects and deficient reasoning powers, the conduct you have pursued is inexcusable,--it is a high contempt!" "And we shall teach you, sir," said the red-eyed, "that no pretence of national eccentricity can weigh against the claims of insulted justice." "Ay, sir," chimed in number three, who had not spoken before, "and we shall let you feel that the majesty of the law in this country is neither to be assailed by covert impertinence nor cajoled by assumed ignorance." "My Lords," said I, "all this rebuke is a riddle to me. You asked me to tell you a story; and if it be not a very connected and consistent one, the fault is not mine." "Let him stand committed for contempt," said the president. "The Petits Carmes may teach him decorum." Now, Tom, the Petite Carmes is Newgate, no less! and you may imagine my feelings at this announcement, particularly as I saw the clerk busily taking down, from dictation, a little history of my offence and its penalty. I turned to look for Van in my sore distress, and there he was, searching the volumes, briefs, and records, to find, as he afterwards said, "some clew to what I had been saying."