The Argosy — page 203: what you’re looking at

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

186 The Ebony Box. spoke to the same fact. It was she who had fetched her mistress out, and she saw the box standing upon the table. ‘The accused was asked by one of the magistrates what he had to say to this. He answered, speaking freely, that he had nothing to say in contradiction, except that he did not know what became of the box. “Did you see the box on the table?” asked the lawyer on the opposite side, Mr. Standup. ‘“‘T saw it there when I first went into the room, Miss Betty made a remark about the box, which drew my attentiontoit. I was sitting at the far end of the room, at Mr. Cockermuth’s little desk-table. I did not notice the box afterwards.” ‘Pid you not see it there after Miss Cockermuth left the room P ” “No, I did not; not that I remember,” answered Sam. ‘Truth to say, I never thought about it. My attention was confined to the letter I was copying, to the exclusion of everything else.” “Did anybody come into the room after Miss Cockermuth left it?” ‘“* Nobody came into it. Somebody opened the door and looked in.” This was fresh news. ‘The town-hall pricked up its ears. “TI do not know who it was,” added Sam. ‘‘ My head was bent over my writing, when the door opened quickly, and as quickly shut again. I supposed somebody had looked in to see if Mr. or Miss Cockermuth was there, and had retreated on finding they were not.” ‘Could that person, whomsoever it might be, have advanced to the table and taken the box?” asked the chief of the magistrates. “No, sir. For certain, no!”—and Sam’s tone here, he best knew | why, was aggravatingly defiant. ‘‘The person might have put his head in—and no doubt did—but he did not set a foot inside the room.” Captain Cockermuth was asked about this: whether he observed anybody go to the parlour and look in. He protested till he was nearly blue with rage (for he regarded it as Sam’s invention), that such a thing never took place, that nobody whatever went near the parlour door. Next came up the question of the guinea, which was hanging from his watch-guard, shining and bold as if it had been brass. Sam had been questioned about this by the justices on Thursday, and his statement in answer to them was just as bold as the coin. The guinea had been given him by his late father’s uncle, Old Thomas Dene, who had jokingly enjoined him never to change it, always to keep it by him, and then he would never be without money. Sam had kept it; kept it from that time to this. He kept it in the pocket of an old-fashioned leather case, which contained some letters _ from his father, and two or three other things he valued. No, he was not in the habit of getting the guinea out to look at, he had re- torted to alittle badgering; had not looked at it (or at the case either, which lay in the bottom of his trunk) for months and months—yes, it might be years, for all he recollected. But on the Tuesday evening, GomicbooksnGo