He owned that he supposed that there might be something in
the herrings, something that would probably be deleterious to
hounds as well as foxes,--or to children should the herrings happen
to fall into children's hands; but he assured the Court that he had
no knowledge of poison,--none whatever. Then he was made by the
other side to give a complete and a somewhat prolonged account of
his own life up to the present time, this information being of
course required by the learned barrister on the other side; in
listening to which the Senator did become thoroughly ashamed of the
Briton whom he had assisted with his generosity.
But all this would have been nothing had not Nickem secured the old
woman who had sold the herrings,--and also the chemist, from whom
the strychnine had been purchased as much as three years
previously. This latter feat was Nickem's great triumph, the
feeling of the glory of which induced him to throw up his
employment in Mr. Masters' office, and thus brought him and his
family to absolute ruin within a few months in spite of the liberal
answers which were made by Lord Rufford to many of his numerous
appeals. Away in Norrington the poison had been purchased as much
as three years ago, and yet Nickem had had the luck to find it out.
When the Scrobbyites heard that Scrobby had gone all the way to
Norrington to buy strychnine to kill rats they were Scrobbyites no
longer.
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