Snow.  Yes, Sir.

Clerk.  Is that the box?

Snow. [Fingering the box.] Yes, Sir.

Clerk.  And did you thereupon take possession of it, and charge the female prisoner with theft of the box from 6, Rockingham Gate?  And did she deny the same?

Snow.  Yes, Sir.

Clerk.  Did you take her into custody?

Snow.  Yes, Sir.

Magistrate.  What was her behaviour?

Snow.  Perfectly quiet, your Worship.  She persisted in the denial. 
That’s all.

Magistrate.  Do you know her?

Snow.  No, your Worship.

Magistrate.  Is she known here?

Bald constable.  No, your Worship, they’re neither of them known, we ’ve nothing against them at all.

Clerk. [To Mrs. Jones.] Have you anything to ask the officer?

Mrs. Jones.  No, sir, thank you, I ’ve nothing to ask him.

Magistrate.  Very well then—­go on.

Clerk. [Reading from his papers.] And while you were taking the female prisoner did the male prisoner interpose, and endeavour to hinder you in the execution of your duty, and did he strike you a blow?

Snow.  Yes, Sir.

Clerk.  And did he say, “You, let her go, I took the box myself”?

Snow.  He did.

Clerk.  And did you blow your whistle and obtain the assistance of another constable, and take him into custody?

Snow.  I did.

Clerk.  Was he violent on the way to the station, and did he use bad language, and did he several times repeat that he had taken the box himself?

     [Snow nods.]

Did you thereupon ask him in what manner he had stolen the box?  And did you understand him to say he had entered the house at the invitation of young Mr. Barthwick

     [Barthwick, turning in his seat, frowns at Roper.]

after midnight on Easter Monday, and partaken of whisky, and that under the influence of the whisky he had taken the box?

Snow.  I did, sir.

Clerk.  And was his demeanour throughout very violent?

Snow.  It was very violent.

Jones. [Breaking in.] Violent—–­of course it was!  You put your ‘ands on my wife when I kept tellin’ you I took the thing myself.

Magistrate. [Hissing, with protruded neck.] Now—­you will have your chance of saying what you want to say presently.  Have you anything to ask the officer?

Jones. [Sullenly.] No.

Magistrate.  Very well then.  Now let us hear what the female prisoner has to say first.

Mrs. Jones.  Well, your Worship, of course I can only say what I ’ve said all along, that I did n’t take the box.