“Couldn’t rightly say,” answered the policeman, looking up sideways; “but I do wish they’d cover them people over more decent.  They’re a houtrage on respectable witnesses.”

“All art—­” Mr. Clarkson was beginning, when the policeman said “Grand Jury?” and pushed him through a door into a large court.  A vision of middle-age was there gathering, and a murmur of complaint filled the room—­the hurried breakfast, the heat, the interrupted business, the reported large number of prisoners, likely to occupy two days, or even three.

Silence was called, and four or five elderly gentlemen in black-and-scarlet robes—­“wise in their wigs, and flamboyant as flamingoes,” as a daily paper said of the judges at the Coronation—­some also decorated with gilded chains and deep fur collars, in spite of the heat, entered from a side door and took their seats upon a raised platform.  Each carried in his hand a nosegay of flowers, screwed up tight in a paper frill with lace-work round the edges, like the bouquets that enthusiasts or the management throw to actresses.

“Are those flowers to cheer the prisoners?” Mr. Clarkson whispered, “or are they the rudimentary survivals of the incense that used to counteract the smell and infection of gaol-fever?”

“Covent Garden,” was the reply, and the list of jurors was called.  The first twenty-three were sent into another room to select their foreman, and, though Mr. Clarkson had not the slightest desire to be chosen, he observed that the other jurors did not even look in his direction.  Finally, a foreman was elected, no one knew for what reasons, and all went back to the Court to be “charged.”  A gentleman in black-and-scarlet made an hour’s speech, reviewing the principal cases with as much solemnity as if the Grand Jury’s decisions would affect the Last Judgment, and Mr. Clarkson began to realise his responsibility so seriously that when the jurors were dismissed to their duties, he took his seat before a folio of paper, a pink blotting-pad, and two clean quill pens, with a resolve to maintain the cause of justice, whatever might befall.

“Page eight, number twenty-one,” shouted the black-robed usher, who guided the jurors as a dog guides sheep, and wore the cheerful air of congenial labour successfully performed.  Turning up the reference in the book of cases presented to each juror, Mr. Clarkson found:  “Charles Jones, 35, clerk; forging and uttering, knowing the same to be forged, a receipt for money, to wit, a receipt for fees on a plaint note of the Fulham County Court, with intent to defraud.”

“This threatens to be a very abstruse case,” he remarked to a red-faced juror on his right.

“A half of bitter would elucidate it wonderful to my mind,” was the answer.

But already a policeman had been sworn, and given his evidence with the decisiveness of a gramophone.

“Any questions?” said the foreman, looking round the table.  No one spoke.