Mr. Scruby was five feet eight inches, and had
been accurately measured on the previous day with reference to the
question. Then the examination of Lord Fawn was resumed, and Mr.
Chaffanbrass referred to that very irregular interview to which he
had so improperly enticed the witness in Mr. Wickerby's chambers. For
a long time Sir Gregory Grogram declared that he would not permit any
allusion to what had taken place at a most improper conference,--a
conference which he could not stigmatize in sufficiently strong
language. But Mr. Chaffanbrass, smiling blandly,--smiling very
blandly for him,--suggested that the impropriety of the conference,
let it have been ever so abominable, did not prevent the fact of the
conference, and that he was manifestly within his right in alluding
to it. "Suppose, my lord, that Lord Fawn had confessed in Mr.
Wickerby's chambers that he had murdered Mr. Finn himself, and had
since repented of that confession, would Mr. Camperdown and Mr.
Wickerby, who were present, and would I, be now debarred from stating
that confession in evidence, because, in deference to some fanciful
rules of etiquette, Lord Fawn should not have been there?" Mr.
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