"Have you been looking up evidence in the case of the State _versus_ Throckmorton?"
"In such investigation have you discovered evidence of the presence of chloroform in the office of Throckmorton & Rathe, and likely to have been there on the night of the robbery?"
"In the shape of a bottle partly filled with that substance."
"Indeed! Where, may I ask, did you discover this bottle?" Moth inquired, as if hearing of it now for the first time.
"I found it hidden away under the stairway off the room in which Throckmorton slept on the night of the robbery."
"I ask that you deliver it to the clerk of the court"; and upon his complying, Moth turned to the judge, saying he had no further questions to ask the witness. Cross-examination being waived, as in the case of Mr. Seymour, Moth asked that Augustus Collygog be called, which being done that gentleman stepped forward to be sworn. Mr. Collygog was a slender, clerical man, with pale face and considerable particularity of dress, having about him the look of one accustomed to handle delicate things, and such as might on occasion pertain to men's lives or matters of that nature. When he had taken the oath, which he did solemnly and as if determined to be strictly accurate in all he said, Moth asked:
"Yes, sir, a druggist; or, excuse me, more appropriately speaking, perhaps, an apothecary," Mr. Collygog replied, without relaxing the fixed expression of his face.
"Ha! yes, a drugstore; or, you will excuse me, sir, more properly a pharmacy," he answered, nursing the feeble whiskers that grew on his sunken cheeks.
"In Appletop, sir, and directly over the way, facing the Galena road, if you please, and convenient from every part of the city."
"You fill prescriptions and orders for medicine and things of that kind?" Moth asked.
"Yes, and a very delicate duty and requiring circumspection. Yes, certainly, requiring circumspection--and much experience," Mr. Collygog replied, as if deriving great personal satisfaction from what he said.
"Will you look at the bottle partly filled with chloroform, in the possession of the clerk of the court, and tell me if it was put up at your shop?"
"Yes, to be sure, at my pharmacy, if you please," the witness answered, after carefully examining the bottle from different points of view.