had been got together, Serjeant Strongbow says,
"Seems clear case," and commences sandwich.

After an interval of twenty minutes, the court
resumed, Serjeant Strongbow intimated that the
case for the prosecution was concluded, and the
prisoner, called upon for his defence, humbly
prayed that a written paper which he had prepared
might be read aloud. The court assenting,
the paper was handed to an officer, and was
read aloud, to the following effect. In the first
place, the prisoner denied any participation in
the crime of which he was accused, and stated
that in the month of January last, he was travelling
with a person of the name of Trotter, on
business, in the counties of Somerset and Devon.
That on Monday, the 22nd January, he and
Trotter arrived at the George Inn, Glastonbury,
kept by Mr. Booth. That they left the George
the same day, and went to Mr. Baker's, who
keeps an inn at Somerton, and thence in Mr.
Baker's gig to Yeovil. That the prisoner, taking
a fancy to the horse in this gig, sent word back
to Mr. Baker that if he had a mind to sell it, he
(prisoner) would meet him at the George Inn,
Glastonbury, on the ball night, the Thursday following.
That on this Thursday night the prisoner
and Trotter duly arrived at the George, bought
Baker's horse for twelve guineas twelve shillings,
borrowing the silver money from Booth, tried it
on the Friday morning, and left it with Booth
to get it into better condition. That he (prisoner)
and Trotter left Glastonbury at half-past eleven
on Saturday morning, the 27th, by the Exeter
coach, which they quitted on the road about five
miles from Tiverton, and walked on to that town.
That at Tiverton they put up at the Three Tuns
Hotel, and being cold, they called for and had some
hot egg beer on their arrival, and that while at
this hotel, having a wish to procure some clotted
cream, they inquired of the waiter how they
should carry it, when the waiter recommended
them to have two tin cans for the purpose,
which cans were procured and filled accordingly.
That they stayed at the Three Tuns during the
Saturday, the 27th, and Sunday, the 28th, and
left on Monday, the 29th, by the Bristol coach
to Bridgewater.

This statement of the prisoner's having been
read aloud, he was called upon to corroborate it
by evidence. Thereupon he summoned and
produced in the witness-box, one after the other,
Booth, the landlord of the George at Glastonbury;
Baker, of whom he bought the horse;
Ellis, the waiter at the Three Tuns at Tiverton,
who produced the book containing the entries
of the refreshment had by the prisoner— among
them the hot egg beer, the clotted cream, and
the tins for carrying it; and the chambermaid at
the same inn. All of these persons exactly
corroborated the prisoner's statement, and all of
them swore positively to his identity. After
the evidence of the last witness the judge
interposed and asked the crown counsel whether he
desired to press his case? Serjeant Strongbow
turned to the Post-office solicitor, who, with a
pinch of snuff suspended in the air, was gravely
shaking his head, when several of the jury
expressed themselves satisfied that the
witnesses for the prosecution were mistaken,
and that the prisoner was not one of the
persons who had committed the robbery. Whereupon
a verdict of acquittal was recorded, and
with a smiling face and a bow to the court
Mr. Tom Partridge walked out of the dock a
free man.

Some two years after this trial, which gave rise
to a vast amount of wonder as to how the government
could have been so mistaken as to prosecute
an innocent man, the Post-office solicitor,
wending his way quietly along Bishopsgate-street
to catch the Norwood coach at the Flower-Pot
Inn, was brushed against by a man going into
a public-house, and, looking up, saw that
the man was Tom Partridge. Now, in Mr.
Solicitor's leisure moments, which were few
enough, he had often thought of Tom Partridge,
and had puzzled his brain ineffectually for a
solution of Tom Partridge's mystery. So now,
having a few minutes to spare, he first satisfied
himself that the man who had brushed against
him was the veritable Tom, and then crossed
the street and took a careful survey of the public-
house into which Tom had vanished. As he
stood looking up at the house Tom came out of
the street door, looked up, and called "Hi!"
whereupon, from an upper window of the house,
appeared the head and shoulders of another
Tom, an exact reproduction of the original Tom,
middle-sized, stoutly built, with a queer humorous
face lighted by a twinkling arch blue eye.
Mr. Solicitor rubbed his eyes and took a stinging
pinch of snuff; but when, he looked again
there were the two Tom Partridges, exactly
alike, one on the pavement in the street, the
other looking out of the third floor window.
Then both disappeared into the house, whence
presently emerging both by the street door, one
pointed to some distant object and the other
started off up the street, the first returning
into the public-house, each so exactly like the
other that, when they separated, they looked
like halves of one body.

Mr. Solicitor took a short joyous pinch, rubbed
his hands slowly, and went off to the Flower-Pot
Inn. That evening he had several extra glasses
of a peculiarly fine brown sherry which he only
drank on special occasions, and Mrs. Solicitor
remarked to the Misses Solicitor that she thought
father must have had a very good case on
somewhere, he was in such spirits. Next morning Mr.
Solicitor was closeted for half an hour with one
of the heads of the Post-office department who
had the official conduct of criminal cases, and
shortly afterwards a confidential messenger was
despatched with a letter to William Lexden—
otherwise known as Conkey Lexden, otherwise
as Bill the Nobbier, otherwise as sundry and
divers flash personages.

That evening Mr. La Trappe, of the General
Post-office, sat in the study of his private house
in Brunswick-square. On the desk before him
stood his despatch-box, a cutting from a newspaper