The cases on which I sat, and those to which I listened while I remained in attendance, need not be particularised.  I will merely mention that they were nearly all due to drink.  Mr. Justice Lawrance, who sat upon the bench, was visibly impressed by the circumstance, to which he more than once alluded in his summings up.  In one case he was so good as to refer to a question, put by me from the jury box, as a proper and pertinent one, at which I naturally felt vastly complimented.  On the second or third day, either before the proceedings began or when the Court rose for luncheon—­I do not exactly remember which—­a gentleman approached me, and introduced himself as a member of the Press.  Said he, ’I have been asking Mr. Avory for you.  You are Mr. Vizetelly, I believe?’

‘That is my name,’ I answered.

‘Well, I have come to speak to you about M. Zola’s presence in England.’

I should here mention that, in spite of my contradiction of the ‘Chronicle’ story, there remained some people who had reason to believe it.  Moreover, it had been more or less confirmed by the ‘Morning Leader,’ and some editors, rightly surmising that if M. Zola were in London he would very likely be in communication with his usual translator, had despatched reporters to my house, where my wife had seen them.  On learning that I was quietly during jury service at the Old Bailey, some had apparently concluded that I was not concerned in M. Zola’s movements, which, so it happened, was the very conclusion I had desired them to arrive at.  One gentleman, however, not content with his repulse at my house, had followed me to the Court.

I answered his inquiries with a variety of suggestions.  Zola in England, and in London too!  Well, we had heard that before, said I. But was it a probable course for the novelist to take?  He knew no English, and had but few personal friends in England.  His portraits, however, were in several shops and in many newspapers.  And only a few years previously he had been seen by a thousand English pressmen and others.  So would he not be liable to recognition almost immediately?  Now, the only modern language besides French of which M. Zola had any knowledge was Italian.  And if I were in his place, I said, I should go to Italy—­for instance, to one of the little towns in the North, whence, if needful, one could cross over into Switzerland; though, of course, there was little likelihood that the Italian Government would ever surrender the distinguished writer to his persecutors.

Continuing in this strain I gave my interviewer material for a very plausible article, which I remember was duly published, and which thus helped to divert attention from the right scent.