The Judge could not repress a little ripple of amusement, which, from a benevolent mouth, ran out over his face.  Biting his lips, he said:  “The witness had better be confined to the matter in hand.”

“An’ Jedge—­no ‘fense—­but I like yer looks, an’ if ye’ll come to Number Nine—­it’s a little late now—­I’ll”—­

Mr. Cavendish jumped up and said fiercely:  “I object to this trifling.”

“Jim,” said Mr. Balfour, “the defendant’s counsel objects to your trifling.  He has a right to do so, particularly as he is responsible for starting it.  Now tell me whether the Paul Benedict you knew was the only man of the name who has lived in Sevenoaks since you have lived in Number Nine?”

“He was the only one I ever hearn on.  He was the one as invented Belcher’s machines, any way.  He’s talked about ’em with me a thousand times.”

“Is he in the room?”

“Mostly,” said Jim, with his bland smile.

“Give me a direct answer, now.”

“Yis, he’s in this room, and he’s a settin’ there by you, an’ he’s been a stannin’ where I stan’ now.”

“How do you know that this is the same man who used to visit you in the woods, and who invented Mr. Belcher’s machines?”

“Well, it’s a long story.  I don’t mind tellin’ on it, if it wouldn’t be too triflin’,” with a comical wink at Mr. Cavendish.

“Go on and tell it,” said Mr. Balfour.

“I knowed Benedict up to the time when he lost his mind, an’ was packed off to the ‘Sylum, an’ I never seen ’im agin till I seen ’im in the Sevenoaks’ poor-house.  I come acrost his little boy one night on the hill, when I was a trampin’ home.  He hadn’t nothin’ on but rags, an’ he was as blue an’ hungry as a spring bar.  The little feller teched me ye know—­teched my feelins—­an’ I jest sot down to comfort ’im.  He telled me his ma was dead, and that his pa was at old Buffum’s, as crazy as a loon.  Well, I stayed to old Buffum’s that night, an’ went into the poor-house in the mornin’, with the doctor.  I seen Benedict thar, an’ knowed him.  He was a lyin’ on the straw, an’ he hadn’t cloes enough on ‘im to put in tea.  An’, says I, ’Mr. Benedict, give us your benediction;’ an’, says he, ‘Jim!’ That floored me, an’ I jest cried and swar’d to myself.  Well, I made a little ‘rangement with him an’ his boy, to take ‘im to Abram’s bosom.  Ye see he thought he was in hell, an’ it was a reasomble thing in ‘im too; an’ I telled ’im that I’d got a settlement in Abram’s bosom, an’ I axed ’im over to spend the day.  I took ‘im out of the poor-house an’ carried ‘im to Number Nine, an’ I cured ‘im.  He’s lived there ever sence, helped me build my hotel, an’ I come down with ’im, to ‘tend this Court, an’ we brung his little boy along too, an’ the little feller is here, an’ knows him better nor I do.”

“And you declare, under oath, that the Paul Benedict whom you knew in Sevenoaks, and at Number Nine—­before his insanity—­the Paul Benedict who was in the poor-house at Sevenoaks and notoriously escaped from that institution—­escaped by your help, has lived with you ever since, and has appeared here in Court this morning,” said Mr. Balfour.