Explore "A Testimonial Manque" by Thomas Anstey Guthrie on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
_THE ARGUMENT. -- Mr. Hotspur Porpentine, a distinguished resident in the rising suburb of Jerrymere, has recently been awarded fourteen days' imprisonment, without the option of a fine, for assaulting a ticket-collector, who had offered him the indignity of requiring him to show his season-ticket at the barrier. The scene is a Second-Class Compartment, in which four of Mr. Porpentine's neighbours are discussing the affair during their return from the City._
MR. COCKCROFT (_warmly_). I say, Sir -- and I'm sure all here will bear me out -- that such a sentence was a scandalous abuse of justice. As a near neighbour, and an intimate friend of Porpentine's, I don't 'esitate to assert that he has done nothing whatever to forfeit our esteem. He's a quick-tempered man, as we're all aware, and to be asked by some meddlesome official to show his season, after travelling on the line constantly for years, and leaving it at home that morning -- why -- _I_ don't blame him if he _did_ use his umbrella!