unabashed by the judge’s comment on his absence the day before, gave his evidence like a man who had better things to do, and the case for the prosecution was forthwith rounded in by a little speech from counsel.  The matter—­he said—­was clear as daylight.  Those who wore His Majesty’s uniform, charged with the responsibility and privilege of defending their country, were no more entitled to desert their regiments by taking their own lives than they were entitled to desert in any other way.  He asked for a conviction.  Mr. Bosengate felt a sympathetic shuffle passing through all feet; the judge was speaking: 

“Prisoner, you can either go into the witness box and make your statement on oath, in which case you may be cross-examined on it; or you can make your statement there from the dock, in which case you will not be cross-examined.  Which do you elect to do?”

“From here, my lord.”

Seeing him now full face, and, as it might be, come to life in the effort to convey his feelings, Mr. Bosengate had suddenly a quite different impression of the fellow.  It was as if his khaki had fallen off, and he had stepped out of his own shadow, a live and quivering creature.  His pinched clean-shaven face seemed to have an irregular, wilder, hairier look, his large nervous brown eyes darkened and glowed; he jerked his shoulders, his arms, his whole body, like a man suddenly freed from cramp or a suit of armour.

He spoke, too, in a quick, crisp, rather high voice, pinching his consonants a little, sharpening his vowels, like a true Welshman.

“My lord and misters the jury,” he said:  “I was a hairdresser when the call came on me to join the army.  I had a little home and a wife.  I never thought what it would be like to be away from them, I surely never did; and I’m ashamed to be speaking it out like this—­how it can squeeze and squeeze a man, how it can prey on your mind, when you’re nervous like I am.  ‘Tis not everyone that cares for his home—­there’s lots o’ them never wants to see their wives again.  But for me ’tis like being shut up in a cage, it is!” Mr. Bosengate saw daylight between the skinny fingers of the man’s hand thrown out with a jerk.  “I cannot bear it shut up away from wife and home like what you are in the army.  So when I took my razor that morning I was wild—­an’ I wouldn’t be here now but for that man catching my hand.  There was no reason in it, I’m willing to confess.  It was foolish; but wait till you get feeling like what I was, and see how it draws you.  Misters the jury, don’t send me back to prison; it is worse still there.  If you have wives you will know what it is like for lots of us; only some is more nervous than others.  I swear to you, sirs, I could not help it—–?” Again the little man flung out his hand, his whole thin body shook and Mr. Bosengate felt the same sensation as when he drove his car over a dog—­“Misters the jury, I hope you may never in your lives feel as I’ve been feeling.”