Penny Blood Serial Cover — page 43: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

oe ALFRED DE ROSANN. 35 father’s—the partnership between him and La Motte —the notorious indifference which he still manifested towards the details of his commercial speculations— the material fact that the whole business was left to the entire management of La Motte—the ignorance of De Rosann in mercantile matters—his occupations and pursuits so much at variance with them—his per- petual absence from the establishment—and the facility with which a designing villain might have taken himin. | The lawyer, amidst a hum of approbation which ceased at a signal from the President, then proceeded to de- tail De Rosann’s version of the affair that had thus. brought him before the court—the manner in which La Motte had made use of him as a mere tool—his in- toxication on the night when the bills were fabricated —the circumstance of La Motte’s having desired a domestic to supply them with writing materials, and to retire for the night, as his services were no longer required—the certainty that La Motte himself nego- tiated the bills on the following morning, and de- camped the day after—and lastly, the contents of the letter despatched from Dover, which was in La Motte’s own hand-writing, and which proved that De Rosann was ignorant of the fraud attached to the transaction, till the receipt of said letter. ‘The coun- sel terminated his skilful defence by saying that if the evidence he had recapitulated in favour of his client were not sufficient to procure a verdict of acquittal, he sincerely hoped that the youth and inexperience of the accused might have their weight in his side of the balance which a just judge and jury held in their hands. A murmur of approbation’ followed this able de- fence ; and hope beat high in the breast of De Rosann, when the Procureur du Roi rose to reply. The public minister said, that however negligent in his affairs the accused might have been, he must still have had some acquaintance with the principal trans- actions of the house—that the investigation into the position of his affairs, which took place according to COmicoooks