bullied away the young woman's faint upbraidings, and in a little time
Lewis Pyneweck troubled her no more; and the Judge secretly chuckled
over the perfectly fair removal of a bore, who might have grown little
by little into something very like a tyrant.

It was the lot of the Judge whose adventures I am now recounting to try
criminal cases at the Old Bailey shortly after his return. He had
commenced his charge to the jury in a case of forgery, and was, after
his wont, thundering dead against the prisoner, with many a hard
aggravation and cynical gibe, when suddenly all died away in silence,
and, instead of looking at the jury, the eloquent Judge was gaping at
some person in the body of the court.

Among the persons of small importance who stand and listen at the sides
was one tall enough to show with a little prominence; a slight mean
figure, dressed in seedy black, lean and dark of visage. He had just
handed a letter to the crier, before he caught the Judge's eye.

That Judge descried, to his amazement, the features of Lewis Pyneweck.
He had the usual faint thin-lipped smile; and with his blue chin raised
in air, and as it seemed quite unconscious of the distinguished notice
he has attracted, he was stretching his low cravat with his crooked
fingers, while he slowly turned his head from side to side--a process
which enabled the Judge to see distinctly a stripe of swollen blue round
his neck, which indicated, he thought, the grip of the rope.

This man, with a few others, had got a footing on a step, from which he
could better see the court. He now stepped down, and the Judge lost
sight of him.