QUESTION BY A JUROR.  “What kind o’ watch do you carry?”

ANSWER (exhibiting the watch).  “An English hunter—–­ lever escapement—–­ full jewelled.”

At any other time, Marcus would have smiled at the impertinence of the question, but he answered it gravely.

He then went on to say, that Mr. Minford had not replied to his “good-night.”  That he repeated the salutation, and extended his hand as a token of unbroken friendship.  That Mr. Minford refused to take it, and said that he had one last favor to ask of him (Marcus), and that was, never to cross his threshold again.  That he (Marcus) responded, “I forgive you, sir.  When, on reflection, you think that you have done me injustice—­as you will, at last—­send for me, and I will still be your friend.”  That he received no answer to this, save a shake of the head, and immediately went down stairs into the street.  He was feverish, and his brain was in a whirl.  Hardly knowing what he did, he walked the streets hither and thither.  He could not tell what streets he traversed, but he kept up the exercise till he was tired.  Then he became calmer, returned home, entered the house with a latch key, and went to bed without waking any of the inmates.  On going to bed, he observed that his watch marked one o’clock.

An intelligent juror.  “You must have passed a large number of people in the streets between eleven and one o’clock.  Did you see no one whom you knew?”

“No one; but at a corner some distance from here,—­I could not say what corner,—­I noticed a policeman sitting on a barrel in front of a grocery, smoking.  He was a short, fat man, and his legs hardly reached to the pavement.  I remember him the more particularly, because I stopped and lighted a cigar at his pipe.  Just at that moment, the City Hall bell commenced striking a fire alarm.”

“What was the district?” asked the juror who was assistant foreman of the Bully Boy Hose.

“The Seventh.  I counted the strokes.  I walked on rapidly, and soon came up with another policeman, who was leaning against a grocery store.  I said to him, ‘A cold night, Mr. Policeman,’ and I think he would remember that circumstance, if he could be found.  Just after I had passed him, the alarm bells struck the last round.  Three or four rounds had been struck.”

The assistant foreman of the Bully Boy Hose, having referred to a memorandum book which he drew from a breast pocket, here exclaimed: 

“The alarm was at twenty-five minutes of twelve.  Nothing but a chimney in Whitehall street.  We run into Twenty’s fellers, comin’ back, and had a nice little row.  Ever belong to the department, sir?”

Marcus answered “No;” and the pyrophilist looked compassionately upon him, as upon one who had never known true happiness.

“If you never run with the mersheen,” observed the coroner, “you do’ ‘no’ wot life is.  As for me, sir, it’s my boast and pride that I have been a member of the New York Fire Department for more’n twenty years.  It wos the backin’ of the boys that made me a coroner; and, thank God!  I’m never ashamed to tell ’em so.”