Is this the charge, my friends ?" "Ay, ay, lawyer, that's the how, that's the very thing itself.

Put it to the skunk, let him deny that if he can--let him deny that his name is Jared Bunce--that he hails from Connecticut--that he is a shark, and a pirate, and a pestilence.

Let him deny that he is a cheat--that he goes about with his notions and other rogueries--that he doesn't manufacture maple-seeds, and hickory nutmegs, and ground coffee made out of rotten rye.

Answer to that, Jared Bunce, you white-livered lizard." Thus did one of his accusers take up the thread of the discourse as concluded in part by the chairman.

Another and another followed with like speeches in the most rapid succession, until all was again confusion; and the voice of the lawyer, after a hundred ineffectual efforts at a hearing, degenerated into a fine squeak, and terminated at last in a violent fit of coughing, that fortunately succeeded in producing the degree of quiet around him to secure which his language had, singularly enough, entirely failed.