sat down again.

“What’s he got to do with the case?” asked the man he had

Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics

spoken with.

“Blest if I know,” said Jerry.

“What have you got to do with it, then, if a person may

inquire?”

“Blest if I know that either,” said Jerry.

The entrance of the Judge, and a consequent great stir and

settling down in the court, stopped the dialogue. Presently, the

dock became the central point of interest. Two gaolers, who had

been standing there, went out, and the prisoner was brought in,

and put to the bar.

Everybody present, except the one wigged gentleman who

looked at the ceiling, stared at him. All the human breath in the

place, rolled at him, like a sea, or a wind, or a fire. Eager faces

strained round pillars and corners, to get a sight of him; spectators

in back rows stood up, not to miss a hair of him; people on the

floor of the court, laid their hands on the shoulders of the people

before them, to help themselves, at anybody’s cost, to a view of

him, stood a-tiptoe, got upon ledges, stood upon next to nothing, to

see every inch of him. Conspicuous among these latter, like an

animated bit of the spiked wall of Newgate, Jerry stood: aiming at

the prisoner the beery breath of a whet he had taken as he came