. Some of these authorities (of course the wisest) hold with indignation
that the deceased had no business to die in the alleged manner; and being
reminded by other authorities of a certain inquiry into the evidence for such
deaths, reprinted in the sixth volume of the Philosophical Transactions; and
also of a book not quite unknown, on English Medical Jurisprudence; and likewise
of the Italian case of the Countess Cornelia Baudi as set forth in detail by one
Bianchini, prebendary of Verona, who wrote a scholarly work or so, and was
occasionally heard of in his time as having gleams of reason in him; and also of
the testimony of Messrs. Foderé and Mere, two pestilent Frenchmen who would
investigate the subject; and further, of the corroborative testimony of Monsieur
Le Cat, a rather celebrated French surgeon once upon a time, who had the
unpoliteness to live in a house where such a case occurred, and even to write an
account of it; - still they regard the late Mr. Krook's obstinacy, in going out
of the world by any such by-way, as wholly unjustifiable and personally
offensive. The less the court understands of all this, the more the court likes
it; and the greater enjoyment it has in the stock in trade of the Sol's Arms.
Then, there comes the artist of a picture newspaper, with a foreground and
figures ready drawn for anything, from a wreck on the Cornish coast to a review
in Hyde Park, or a meeting in Manchester, - and in Mrs. Perkins's own room,
memorable evermore, he then and there throws in upon the block, Mr. Krook's
house, as large as life; in fact, considerably larger, making a very Temple of
it. Similarly, being permitted to look in at the door of the fatal chamber, he
depicts that apartment as three-quarters of a mile long, by fifty yards high; at
which the court is particularly charmed. All this time, the two gentlemen before
mentioned pop in and out of every house, and assist at the philosophical
disputations, - go everywhere, and listen to everybody, - and yet are always
diving into the Sol's parlour, and writing with the ravenous little pens on the
tissue-paper.
    At last come the Coroner and his inquiry, like as before, except that the
Coroner cherishes this case as being out of the common way, and tells the
gentlemen of the Jury, in his private capacity, that »that would seem to be an
unlucky house next door, gentlemen, a destined house;
