"
"Can you suggest any class of person who would be likely to possess the
knowledge and skill to which you refer?"
"It would, of course, be possessed by a surgeon or medical student, and
possibly by a butcher."
"You think that the person who dismembered this body may have been a
surgeon or a medical student?"
"Yes; or a butcher. Someone accustomed to the dismemberment of bodies
and skilful with the knife."
Here the cobbler suddenly rose to his feet.
"I rise, Mr. Chairman," said he, "to protest against the statement that
has just been made."
"What statement?" demanded the coroner.
"Against the aspersion," continued the cobbler, with an oratorical
flourish, "that has been cast upon a honourable calling."
"I don't understand you," said the coroner.
"Doctor Summers has insinuated that this murder was committed by a
butcher. Now a member of that honourable calling is sitting on this
jury--"
"You let me alone," growled the butcher.
"I will not let you alone," persisted the cobbler. "I desire--"
"Oh, shut up, Pope!" This was from the foreman, who, at the same moment,
reached out an enormous hairy hand with which he grabbed the cobbler's
coat-tails and brought him into a sitting posture with a thump that
shook the room.
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