[Illustration: At that moment . .. Mr. Tutt emerged from behind the jury boxand took his stand at Tony's side. ]

By Advice of Counsel

Being Adventures ofthe Celebrated Firm of

Tutt & Tutt

Attorneys & Counsellors at Law

By

Arthur Train

With Frontispiece

By Arthur William Brown

Published March, 1921

CONTENTS

THE SHYSTER

THE KID AND THE CAMEL

CONTEMPT OF COURT

BY ADVICE OF COUNSEL

"THAT SORT OF WOMAN"

YOU'RE ANOTHER!

BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT

The Shyster

 Shyster, n. [Origin obscure. ] One who does business trickily; a person without professional honor: used chiefly of lawyers; as, pettifoggers and shysters. --CENTURY DICTIONARY. 

When Terry McGurk hove the brick through the window of Froelich'sbutcher shop he did it casually, on general principles, and without anyidea of starting anything. He had strolled unexpectedly round the cornerfrom his dad's saloon, had seen the row going on between Froelich andthe gang of boys that after school hours used the street in front of theshop as a ball ground, and had merely seized the opportunity tovindicate his reputation as a desperado and put one over on theDutchman. The fact that he had on a red sweater was the barestcoincidence. Having observed the brick to be accurately pursuing itsproper trajectory he had ducked back round the corner again andcontinued upon his way rejoicing. He had not even noticed Tony Mathusek, who, having accidentally found himself in the midst of the mêlée, hadstarted to beat a retreat the instant of the crash, and had run plumpinto the arms of Officer Delany of the Second. Unfortunately Tony toowas wearing a red sweater. 

"I've got you, you young devil!" exulted Delany. "Here's one of 'em, Froelich!"

"Dot's him! It was a feller mit a red sweater! Dot's the vun who doneit!" shrieked the butcher. "I vill make a gomblaint against him!"

"Come along, you! Quit yer kickin'!" ordered the cop, twisting Tony'sthin arm until he writhed. "You'll identify him, Froelich?"

"Sure! Didn't I see him mit my eyes? He's vun of dem rascals vot drivesall mine gustomers avay mit deir yelling and screaming. You fix it forme, Bill. "

"That's all right, " the officer assured him. "I'll fix him good, I will!It's the reformatory for him. Or, say, you can make a complaint formalicious mischief. "

"Sure! Dot's it! Malicious mischief!" assented the not over-intelligenttradesman. "Ve'll get rid of him for good, eh?"

"Sure, " assented Delany. "Come along, you!"

Tony Mathusek lifted a white face drawn with agony from his torturedarm. 

"Say, mister, you got the wrong feller! I didn't break the window. I wasjust comin' from the house--"

"Aw, shut up!" sneered Delany. "Tell that to the judge!"

"Y' ain't goin' to take me to jail?" wailed Tony. "I wasn't with themboys. I don't belong to that gang. "

"Oh, so you belong to a gang, do ye? Well, we don't want no gangstersround here!" cried the officer with adroit if unscrupulous sophistry. "Come along now, and keep quiet or it'll be the worse for ye. "

"Can't I tell my mother? She'll be lookin' for me. She's an old lady. "

"Tell nuthin'. You come along!"

Tony saw all hope fade. He hadn't a chance--even to go to a decentjail! He had heard all about the horrors of the reformatory. Theywouldn't even let your people visit you on Sundays! And his mother wouldthink he was run over or murdered. She would go crazy with worry. Hedidn't mind on his own account, but his mother-- He loved the oldwidowed mother who worked her fingers off to send him to school. And hewas the only one left, now that Peter had been killed in the war. It wastoo much. With a sudden twist he tore out of his coat and dashed blindlydown the street. As well might a rabbit hope to escape the claws of awildcat. In three bounds Delany had him again, choking him until theworld turned black. 

But this is not a story about police brutality, for most cops are notbrutal. Delany was an old-timer who believed in rough methods. Hebelonged, happily, to a fast-vanishing system more in harmony with themiddle ages than with our present enlightened form of municipalgovernment. He remained what he was for the reason that farther up inthe official hierarchy there were others who looked to him, when it wasdesirable, to deliver the goods--not necessarily cash--but to stand withthe bunch. These in turn were obligated on occasion, throughself-interest or mistaken loyalty to friend or party, to overlooktrifling irregularities, to use various sorts of pressure, or to forgetwhat they were asked to forget. There was a far-reaching web ofcomplicated relationships--official, political, matrimonial, commercialand otherwise--which had a very practical effect upon the performance oftheoretical duty. 

Delany was neither an idealist nor a philosopher. He was an empiricist, with a touch of pragmatism--though he did not know it. He was "apractical man. " Even reform administrations have been known to advocatea liberal enforcement of the laws. Can you blame Delany for beingpractical when others so much greater than he have prided themselvesupon the same attribute of practicality? There were of course a lot ofthings he simply had to do or get out of the force; at any rate, had henot done them his life would have been intolerable. These consisted inpart of being deaf, dumb and blind when he was told to be so--acomparatively easy matter. But there were other things that he had todo, as a matter of fact, to show that he was all right, which were notonly more difficult, but expensive, and at times dangerous. 

He had never been called upon to swear away an innocent man's liberty, but more than once he had had to stand for a frame-up against a guiltyone. According to his cop-psychology, if his side partner saw somethingit was practically the same as if he had seen it himself. Thatphantasmagorical scintilla of evidence needed to bolster up a weak ordoubtful case could always be counted on if Delany was the officer whohad made the arrest. None of his cases were ever thrown out of court forlack of evidence, but then, Delany never arrested anybody who wasn'tguilty!

Of course he had to "give up" at intervals, depending on whatadministration was in power, who his immediate superior was, and whatprecinct he was attached to, but he was not a regular grafter by anymeans. He was an occasional one merely; when he had to be. He did notconsider that he was being grafted on when expected to contribute tochowders, picnics, benevolent associations, defense funds or weddingpresents for high police officials. Neither did he think that he wastaking graft because he amicably permitted Froelich to leave afourteen-pound rib roast every Saturday night at his brother-in-law'sflat. In the same way he regarded the bills slipped him by Grabinsky, the bondsman, as well-earned commissions, and saw no reason why thecivilian clothes he ordered at the store shouldn't be paid for by somemysterious friendly person--identity unknown--but shrewdly suspected tobe Mr. Joseph Simpkins, Mr. Hogan's runner. Weren't there to be anycakes and ale in New York simply because a highbrow happened to bemayor? Were human kindness, good nature and generosity all dead? Wouldhe have taken a ten-dollar bill--or even a hundred-dollar one--fromSimpkins when he was going to be a witness in one of Hogan's cases? Noton your life! He wasn't no crook, he wasn't! He didn't have to be. Hewas just a cog in an immense wheel of crookedness. When the wheel camedown on his cog he automatically did his part. 

I perceive that the police are engaging too much of our attention. Butit is necessary to explain why Delany was so ready to arrest TonyMathusek, and why as he dragged him into the station house he beckonedto Mr. Joey Simpkins, who was loitering outside in front of the deputysheriff's office, and whispered behind his hand, "All right. I've gotone for you!"

Then the machine began to work as automatically as a cash register. Tonywas arraigned at the bar, and, having given his age as sixteen years andfive days, charged with the "malicious destruction of property, to wit, a plate-glass window of one Karl Froelich, of the value of one hundredand fifty dollars. " Mr. Joey Simpkins had shouldered his way through thesmelly push and taken his stand beside the bewildered and half-faintingboy. 

"It's all right, kid. Leave it to me, " he said, encircling him with aprotecting arm. Then to the clerk: "Pleads not guilty. "

The magistrate glanced over the complaint, in which Delany, to saveFroelich trouble, had sworn that he had seen Tony throw the brick. Hadn't the butcher said he'd seen him? Besides, that let the Dutchmanout of a possible suit for false arrest. Then the magistrate looked downat the cop himself. 

"Do you know this boy?" he asked sharply. 

"Sure, Yerroner. He's a gangster. Admitted it to me on the way over. "

"Are you really over sixteen?" suddenly demanded the judge, who knew anddistrusted Delany, having repeatedly stated in open court that hewouldn't hang a yellow dog on his testimony. The underfed, undersizedboy did not look more than fourteen. 

"Yes, sir, " said Tony. "I was sixteen last week. "

"Got anybody to defend you?"

Tony looked at Simpkins inquiringly. He seemed a very kind gentleman. 

"Mr. Hogan's case, judge, " answered Joey. "Please make the bail as lowas you can. "

Now this judge was a political accident, having been pitchforked intooffice by the providence that sometimes watches over sailors, drunks andthird parties. Moreover, in spite of being a reformer he was nobody'sfool, and when the other reformers who were fools got promptly fired outof office he had been reappointed by a supposedly crooked boss simplybecause, as the boss said, he had made a hell of a good judge and theyneeded somebody with brains here and there to throw a front. Incidentally, he had a swell cousin on Fifth Avenue who had invited theboss and his wife to dinner, by reason of which the soreheads who lostout went round asking what kind of a note it was when a silk-stockingcrook could buy a nine-thousand-dollar job for a fifty-dollar dinner. Anyhow, he was clean and clean-looking, kindly, humorous and wise abovehis years--which were thirty-one. And Tony looked to him like a poorrunt, Simpkins and Delany were both rascals, Froelich wasn't in court, and he sensed a nigger somewhere. He would have turned Tony out on therun had he had any excuse. He hadn't, but he tried. 

"Would you like an immediate hearing?" he asked Tony in an encouragingtone. 

"Mr. Hogan can't be here until to-morrow morning, " interposed Simpkins. "Besides, we shall want to produce witnesses. Make it to-morrowafternoon, judge. "

Judge Harrison leaned forward. 

"Are you sure you wouldn't prefer to have the hearing now?" he inquiredwith a smile at the trembling boy. 

"Well, I want to get Froelich here--if you're going to proceed now, "spoke up Delany. "And I'd like to look up this defendant's record atheadquarters. "

Tony quailed. He feared and distrusted everybody, except the kind Mr. Simpkins. He suspected that smooth judge of trying to railroad him. 

"No! No!" he whispered to the lawyer. "I want my mother should be here;and the janitor, he knows I was in my house. The rabbi, he will give mea good character. "

The judge heard and shrugged his bombazine-covered shoulders. It was nouse. The children of darkness were wiser in their generation than thechildren of light. 

"Five hundred dollars bail, " he remarked shortly. "Officer, have yourwitnesses ready to proceed to-morrow afternoon at two o'clock. "

 * * * * *

"Mr. Tutt, " said Tutt with a depressed manner as he watched Willieremove the screen and drag out the old gate-leg table for the firm'sdaily five o'clock tea and conference in the senior partner's office, "if a man called you a shyster what would you do about it?"

The elder lawyer sucked meditatively on the fag end of his stogy beforereplying. 

"Why not sue him?" Mr. Tutt inquired. 

"But suppose he didn't have any money?" replied Tutt disgustedly. 

"Then why not have him arrested?" continued Mr. Tutt. "It's libelous_per se_ to call a lawyer a shyster. "

"Even if he is one, " supplemented Miss Minerva Wiggin ironically, as sheremoved her paper cuffs preparatory to lighting the alcohol lamp underthe teakettle. "The greater the truth the greater the libel, you know!"

"And what do you mean by that?" sharply rejoined Tutt. "You don't--"

"No, " replied the managing clerk of Tutt & Tutt. "I don't! Of coursenot! And frankly, I don't know what a shyster is. "

"Neither do I, " admitted Tutt. "But it sounds opprobrious. Still, thatis a rather dangerous test. You remember that colored client of ours whowanted us to bring an action against somebody for calling him anEthiopian!"

"There's nothing dishonorable in being an Ethiopian, " asserted MissWiggin. 

"A shyster, " said Mr. Tutt, reading from the Century Dictionary, "isdefined as 'one who does business trickily; a person withoutprofessional honor; used chiefly of lawyers. '"

"Well?" snapped Tutt. 

"Well?" echoed Miss Wiggin. 

"H'm! Well!" concluded Mr. Tutt. 

"I nominate for the first pedestal in our Hall of Legal IllFame--Raphael B. Hogan, " announced Tutt, complacently disregarding allinnuendoes. 

"But he's a very elegant and gentlemanly person, " objected Miss Wigginas she warmed the cups. "My idea of a shyster is a down-at-the-heels, unshaved and generally disreputable-looking police-courtlawyer--preferably with a red nose--who murders the Englishlanguage--and who makes his living by preying upon the ignorant andhelpless. "

"Like Finklestein?" suggested Tutt. 

"Exactly!" agreed Miss Wiggin. "Like Finklestein. "

"He's one of the most honorable men I know!" protested Mr. Tutt. "Mydear Minerva, you are making the great mistake--common, I confess, to alarge number of people--of associating dirt and crime. Now dirt maybreed crime, but crime doesn't necessarily breed dirt. "

"You don't have to be shabby to prey upon the ignorant and helpless, "argued Tutt. "Some of our most prosperous brethren are the worst sharksout of Sing Sing. "

"That is true!" she admitted, "but tell it not in Gath!"

"A shyster, " began Mr. Tutt, unsuccessfully applying a forced draft tohis stogy and then throwing it away, "bears about the same relation toan honest lawyer as a cad does to a gentleman. The fact that he's welldressed, belongs to a good club and has his name in the Social Registerdoesn't affect the situation. Clothes don't make men; they only makeopportunities. "

"But why is it, " persisted Miss Wiggin, "that we invariably associatethe idea of crime with that of 'poverty, hunger and dirt'?"

"That is easy to explain, " asserted Mr. Tutt. "The criminal laworiginally dealt only with crimes of violence--such as murder, rape andassault. In the old days people didn't have any property in the modernsense--except their land, their cattle or their weapons. They had nobonds or stock or bank accounts. Now it is of course true that rough, ignorant people are much more prone to violence of speech and actionthan those of gentle breeding, and hence most of our crimes of violenceare committed by those whose lives are those of squalor. But"--and hereMr. Tutt's voice rose indignantly--"our greatest mistake is to assumethat crimes of violence are the most dangerous to the state, for theyare not. They cause greater disturbance and perhaps more momentaryinconvenience, but they do not usually evince much moral turpitude. After all, it does no great harm if one man punches another in the head, or even in a fit of anger sticks a dagger in him. The police can easilyhandle all that. The real danger to the community lies in the crimes ofduplicity--the cheats, frauds, false pretenses, tricks and devices, flimflams--practised most successfully by well-dressed gentlemanlycrooks of polished manners. "

By this time the kettle was boiling cheerfully, quite as if no suchthing as criminal law existed at all, and Miss Wiggin began to make thetea. 

"All the same, " she ruminated, "people--particularly very poorpeople--are often driven to crime by necessity. "

"It's Nature's first law, " contributed Tutt brightly. 

Mr. Tutt uttered a snort of disgust. 

"It may be Nature's first law, but it's about the weakest defense aguilty man can offer. 'I couldn't help myself' has always been theexcuse for helping oneself!"

"Rather good--that!" approved Miss Wiggin. "Can you do it again?"

"The victim of circumstances is inevitably one who has made a victim ofsomeone else, " blandly went on Mr. Tutt without hesitation. 

"Ting-a-ling! Right on the bell!" she laughed. 

"It's true!" he assured her seriously. "There are two defenses that areplayed out--necessity and instigation. They've never been any good sincethe Almighty overruled Adam's plea in confession and avoidance that acertain female co-defendant took advantage of his hungry innocence andput him up to it. "

"No one could respect a man who tried to hide behind a woman's skirts!"commented Tutt. 

"Are you referring to Adam?" inquired his partner. "Anyhow, come tothink of it, the maxim is not that 'Necessity is the first law ofNature, ' but that 'Necessity knows no law. '"

"I'll bet you--" began Tutt. Then he paused, recalling a certaincelebrated wager which he had lost to Mr. Tutt upon the question of whocut Samson's hair. "I bet you don't know who said it!" he concludedlamely. 

"If I recall correctly, " ruminated Mr. Tutt, "Shakspere says in 'JuliusCaesar' that 'Nature must obey necessity'; while Rabelais says'Necessity has no law'; but the quotation we familiarly use is'Necessity knows no law except to conquer, ' which is from PubliliusSyrus. "

"From who?" cried Tutt in ungrammatical surprise. 

"Never mind!" soothed Miss Wiggin. "Anyway, it wasn't Raphael B. Hogan. "

"Who certainly completely satisfies your definition so far as preyingupon the ignorant and helpless is concerned, " said Mr. Tutt. "That manis a human hyena--worse than a highwayman. "

"Yet he's a swell dresser, " interjected Tutt. "Owns his house and livesin amity with his wife. "

"Doubtless he's a loyal husband and a devoted father, " agreed Mr. Tutt. "But so, very likely, is the hyena. Certainly Hogan hasn't got theexcuse of necessity for doing what he does. "

"Don't you suppose he has to give up good and plenty to somebody?"demanded Tutt. "Cops and prison keepers and bondsmen and under sheriffs, and all kinds of crooked petty officials. I should worry!"

 _"Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite 'em, And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum, "_

quoted Miss Wiggin reminiscently. 

"A flea has to be a flea, " continued Tutt. "He, or it, can't be anythingelse, but Hogan doesn't have to be a lawyer. He could be an honest manif he chose. "

"He? Not on your life! He couldn't be honest if he tried!" roared Mr. Tutt. "He's just a carnivorous animal! A man eater! They talk aboutscratching a Russian and finding a Tartar; I'd hate to scratch some ofour legal brethren. "

"So would I!" assented Tutt. "I guess you're right, Mr. Tutt. Christianity and the Golden Rule are all right in the upper socialcircles, but off Fifth Avenue there's the same sort of struggle forexistence that goes on in the animal world. A man may be all sweetnessand light to his wife and children and go to church on Sundays; he mayeven play pretty fair with his own gang; but outside of his home andsocial circle he's a ravening wolf; at least Raphael B. Hogan is!"

 * * * * *

The subject of the foregoing entirely accidental conversation was atthat moment standing contemplatively in his office window smoking anexcellent cigar preparatory to returning to the bosom of his family. Raphael B. Hogan believed in taking life easily. He was accustomed tosay that outside office hours his time belonged to his wife andchildren; and several times a week he made it his habit on the way hometo supper to stop at the florist's or the toy shop and bear away withhim inexpensive tokens of his love and affection. On the desk behindhim, over which in the course of each month passed a lot of very taintedmoney, stood a large photograph of Mrs. Hogan, and another of the threelittle Hogans in ornamented silver frames, and his face would softentenderly at the sight of their self-conscious faces, even at a momentwhen he might be relieving a widowed seamstress of her entiresavings-bank account. After five o'clock this hyena purred at his wifeand licked his cubs; the rest of the time he knew no mercy. 

But he concealed his cruelty and his avarice under a mask of benignity. He was fat, jolly and sympathetic, and his smile was the smile of awarm-hearted humanitarian. The milk of human kindness oozed from hisevery pore. In fact, he was always grumbling about the amount of work hehad to do for nothing. He was a genial, generous host; unostentatiouslyconspicuous in the local religious life of his denomination; in court amodel of obsequious urbanity, deferential to the judges before whom heappeared and courteous to all with whom he was thrown in contact. Agood-natured, easy-going, simple-minded fat man; deliberate, slow ofspeech, well-meaning, with honesty sticking out all over him, you wouldhave said; one in whom the widow and the orphan would have found astaunch protector and an unselfish friend. And now, having thus subtlyconnoted the character of our villain, let us proceed with ournarrative. 

The telephone buzzed on the wall set beside him. 

"That you, chief?" came the voice of Simpkins. 

"Yep. "

"Got one off Delany. "

"What is it?"

"Kid smashed a window--malicious mischief. Held for examinationto-morrow at two. Five hundred bail. "

"Any sugar?"

"Don't know. Says his father's dead and mother earns seventeen a week ina sweatshop and sends him to school. Got some insurance. I'm going rightround there now. "

"Well, " replied Hogan, "don't scare her by taking too much off her atfirst. I suppose there's evidence to hold him?"

"Sure. Delany says he saw it. "

"All right. But go easy! Good night. "

"Leave that to me, chief!" assured Simpkins. "See you to-morrow. "

It will be observed that in this professional interchange nothing at allwas said regarding the possibility of establishing Tony's innocence, butthat on the contrary Mr. Simpkins' mind was concentrated upon hismother's ability to pay. This was the only really importantconsideration to either of them. But Hogan did not worry, because heknew that Simpkins would skilfully entangle Mrs. Mathusek in such a webof apprehension that rather than face her fears she would if necessarygo out and steal the money. So Mr. Raphael B. Hogan hung up the receiverand with his heart full of gentle sympathy for all mankind walked slowlyhome, pausing to get some roses for Mrs. Hogan and to buy a box forDaddy Long Legs at the Strand, for whenever he got a new case he alwaysmade it the occasion for a family party, and he wanted the children tobenefit by passing an evening under the sweet influence of MissPickford. 

Now just at the moment that his employer was buying the roses Mr. Simpkins entered the apartment of Mrs. Mathusek and informed her ofTony's arrest and incarceration. He was very sympathetic about it, verygentle, this dapper little man with the pale gray eyes and inquisitive, tapirlike nose; and after the first moment of shock Mrs. Mathusek tookcourage and begged the gentleman to sit down. There are always twovultures hanging over the poor--death and the law; but of the two thelaw is the lesser evil. The former is a calamity; the latter is amisfortune. The one is final, hopeless, irretrievable; from the otherthere may perhaps be an escape. She knew Tony was a good boy; was surehis arrest was a mistake, and that when the judge heard the evidence hewould let Tony go. Life had dealt hardly with her and made her an oldwoman at thirty-four, really old, not only in body but in spirit, justas in the middle ages the rigor of existence made even kings old atthirty-five. What do the rich know of age? The women of the poor have aday of spring, a year or two of summer, and a lifetime of autumn andwinter. 

Mrs. Mathusek distrusted the law and lawyers in the abstract, but Mr. Simpkins' appearance was so reassuring that he almost counteracted inher mind the distress of Tony's misfortune. He was clearly a gentleman, and she had a reverential regard for the gentry. What gentlefolk saidwas to be accepted as true. In addition this particular gentleman waslearned in the law and skilled in getting unfortunate people out oftrouble. Now, though Mr. Simpkins possessed undoubtedly this latterqualification, it was also true that he was equally skilled in gettingpeople into it. If he ultimately doubled their joys and halved theirsorrows he inevitably first doubled their sorrows and halved theirsavings. Like the witch in Macbeth: "Double, double toil and trouble. "His aims were childishly simple: First, to find out how much money hisvictim had, and then to get it. 

His methods were no more complicated than his aims and had weathered thetest of generations of experience. So:

"Of course Tony must be bailed out, " he said gently. "You don't want himto spend the night in jail. "

"Jail! Oh, no! How much is the bail?" cried Tony's mother. 

"Only five hundred dollars. " His pale gray eyes were watching her forthe slightest sign of suspicion. 

"Five hundred dollars! Eoi! Eoi! It is a fortune! Where can I get fivehundred dollars?" She burst into tears. "I have saved only one hundredand sixty!"

Mr. Simpkins pursed his lips. Then there was nothing for it! He reachedfor his hat. Mrs. Mathusek wrung her hands. Couldn't the gentleman gobail for Tony? He was such a dear, kind, good gentleman! She searchedhis face hungrily. Mr. Simpkins falteringly admitted that he did notpossess five hundred dollars. 

"But--" he hesitated. 

"Yes!"

"But--" she echoed, seizing his sleeve and dragging him back. 

Mr. Simpkins thought that they could hire somebody to go bail; no, inthat case there would be no money to pay the great lawyer whom they mustat once engage to defend her son--Mr. Hogan, one who had the pull andcalled all the judges by their first names. He would not usually go intocourt for less than five hundred dollars, but Mr. Simpkins said he wouldexplain the circumstances to him and could almost promise Mrs. Mathusekthat he would persuade him to do it this once for one hundred and fifty. So well did he act his part that Tony's mother had to force him to takethe money, which she unsewed from inside the ticking of her mattress. Then he conducted her to the station house to show her how comfortableTony really was and how much better it was to let him stay in jail onenight and make sure of his being turned out the next afternoon by givingthe money to Mr. Hogan, than to use it for getting bail for him andleave him lawyerless and at the mercy of his accusers. When Mrs. Mathusek saw the cell Tony was in she became even more frightened thanshe had been at first. But by that time she had already given the moneyto Simpkins. 

Second thoughts are ofttimes best. Most crooks are eventually caughtthrough their having, from long immunity, grown careless and yielded toimpulse. Once he had signed the complaint in which he swore that he hadseen Tony throw the brick, Delany had undergone a change of heart. Beingan experienced policeman he was sensitive to official atmosphere, and hehad developed a hunch that Judge Harrison was leery of the case. Themore he thought of it the less he liked the way the son-of-a-gun hadacted, the way he'd tried to get Mathusek to ask for an immediatehearing. Why had he ever been such a fool as to sign the complainthimself? It had been ridiculous--just because he was mad at the boy fortrying to get away and wanted to make things easy for Froelich. If hewent on the stand the next afternoon he'd have to make up all sorts offancy details, and Hogan would have his skin neatly tacked to the barndoors for keeps. Thereafter, no matter what happened, he'd never be ableto change his testimony. After all, it would be easy enough to abandonthe charge at the present point. It was a genuine case of cold feet. Hescented trouble. He wanted to renig while the renigging was good. Whatin hell had Froelich ever done for him, anyhow? A few measly pieces ofroast!

When Hogan returned home that evening with the little Hogans from themovies he found the cop waiting for him outside his door. 

"Look here, " Delany whispered, "I'm going to can this here Mathusekwindow case. I'm going to fall down flat on my identification and giveyou a walkout. So go easy on me--and sort of help me along, see?"

"The hell you are!" retorted Hogan indignantly. "Then where do I comein, eh? Why don't you come through?"

"But I've got him wrong!" pleaded Delany. "You don't want me to put myneck in a sling, do you, so as you can make a few dollars? Look at allthe money I've sent your way. Have a heart, Rafe!"

"Bull!" sneered the Honorable Rafe. "A man's gotta live! You saw him doit! You've sworn to it, haven't you?"

"I made a mistake. "

"How'll that sound to the commissioner? An' to Judge Harrison? No, no!Nothin' doin'! If you start anything like that I'll roast the life outof you!"

Delany spat as near Hogan's foot as he elegantly could. 

"You're a hell of a feller, you are!" he growled, and turned his back onhim as upon Satan. 

 * * * * *

The brick that Terry McGurk hurled as a matter of principle throughFroelich's window produced almost as momentous consequences as the wantof the horseshoe nail did in Franklin's famous maxim. It is the unknownelement in every transaction that makes for danger. 

The morning after the catastrophe Mr. Froelich promptly made applicationto the casualty company with which he had insured his window forreimbursement for his damage. Just as promptly the company's lawyerappeared at the butcher shop and ascertained that the miscreant who haddone the foul deed had been arrested and was to be brought into courtthat afternoon. This lawyer, whose salary depended indirectly upon thesuccess which attended his efforts to secure the conviction andpunishment of those who had cost his company money, immediately campedupon the trails of both Froelich and Delany. It was up to them, he said, to have the doer of wanton mischief sent away. If they didn't cooperatehe would most certainly ascertain why. Now insurance companies arepowerful corporations. They can do favors, and contrariwise they canmake trouble, and Lawyer Asche was hot under the collar about thatwindow. Had he ever heard of the place he would have likened it to thedestruction of Coucy-le-Château by the Huns. 

This, for Delany, put an entirely new aspect upon the affair. It was onething to ditch a case and another to run up against Nathan Asche. He hadsworn to the complaint and if he didn't make good on the witness standAsche would get his hide. Then he bethought him that if only Froelichwas sufficiently emphatic in his testimony a little uncertainty on hisown part might be excused. 

In the meantime, however, two things had happened to curdle Froelich'senthusiasm. First, his claim against the Tornado Casualty Company hadbeen approved, and second, he had been informed on credible authoritythat they had got the wrong boy. Now he had sincerely thought that hehad seen Tony throw the brick--he had certainly seen a boy in a redsweater do something--but he realized also that he had been excited andmore or less bewildered at the time; and his informant--Mrs. Sussman, the wife of the cigar dealer--alleged positively that it had been thrownby a strange kid who appeared suddenly from round the corner and assuddenly ran away in the direction whence he had come. 

Froelich perceived that he had probably been mistaken, and beingrelatively honest--and being also about to get his money--and notwishing to bear false witness, particularly if he might later be suedfor false imprisonment, he decided to duck and pass the buck to Delany, who was definitely committed. He was shrewd enough, however, not to givehis real reason to the policeman, but put it on the ground of being soconfused that he couldn't remember. This left Delany responsible foreverything. 

"But you said that that was the feller!" argued the cop, who had gone tourge Froelich to assume the onus of the charge. "And now you want toleave me holdin' the bag!"

"Vell, you said yourself you seen him, didn't you?" replied the German. "An' you svore to it. I didn't svear to noddings. "

"Aw, you!" roared the enraged cop, and hastened to interview Mr. Asche. 

Aping a broad humanitarianism he suggested to Asche that if Mrs. Mathusek would pay for the window they could afford to let up on theboy. He did it so ingeniously that he got Asche to go round there, onlyto find that she had no money, all given to Simpkins. Gee, what amix-up!

It is quite possible that even under these circumstances Delany mightstill have availed himself of what in law is called a _locuspoenitentiae_ had it not been that the mix-up was rendered still moremixed by the surreptitious appearance in the case of Mr. Michael McGurk, the father of the actual brick artist, who had learned that the cop wasgetting wabbly and was entertaining the preposterous possibility ofwithdrawing the charge against the innocent Mathusek, to the imminentdanger of his own offspring. In no uncertain terms the saloon keeperintimated to the now embarrassed guardian of the public peace that if hepulled anything like that he would have him thrown off the force, to saynothing of other and darker possibilities connected with the morgue. All of which gave Delany decided pause. 

Hogan, for his own reasons, had meanwhile reached an independentconclusion as to how he could circumvent Delany's contemplatedtreachery. If, he decided, the cop should go back on his identificationof the criminal he foresaw Tony's discharge in the magistrate's court, and no more money. The only sure way, therefore, to prevent Tony'sescape would be by not giving Delany the chance to change his testimony;and by waiving examination before the magistrate and consentingvoluntarily to having his client held for the action of the grand jury, in which event Tony would be sent to the Tombs and there would be plentyof time for Simpkins to get an assignment of Mrs. Mathusek's insurancemoney before the grand jury kicked out the case. This also had theadditional advantage of preventing any funny business on the part ofJudge Harrison. 

Delany was still undecided what he was going to do when the case wascalled at two o'clock. It is conceivable that he might still have triedto rectify his error by telling something near the truth, in spite ofHogan, Asche and McGurk, but the opportunity was denied him. 

At two o'clock Tony, a mere chip tossed aimlessly hither and yon byeddies and cross currents, the only person in this melodrama of motivewhose interests were not being considered by anybody, was arraigned atthe bar and, without being consulted in the matter, heard Mr. Hogan, thefat, kindly lawyer whom his mother had retained to defend him, tell thejudge that they were going to waive examination and consent to be heldfor the action of the grand jury. 

"You see how it is, judge, " Hogan simpered. "You'd have no choice but tohold my client on the officer's testimony. The easiest way is to waiveexamination and let the grand jury throw the case out of the window!"

Delany heard this announcement with intense relief, for it let him out. It would relieve him from the dangerous necessity of testifying beforeJudge Harrison and he could later spill the case before the grand jurywhen called before that august body. Moreover, he could tip off thedistrict attorney in charge of the indictment bureau that the case was alemon, and the latter would probably throw it out on his own motion. TheD. A. 's office didn't want any more rotten cases to prosecute than itcould help. It seemed his one best bet, the only way to get his feet outof the flypaper. What a mess for a few pieces of rotten beef!

"You understand what is being done, do you?" inquired the keen-facedjudge sharply. "You understand this means that unless you give bail youwill have to stay in jail until the grand jury dismisses the case orfinds an indictment against you?"

Underneath the cornice of the judge's dais Hogan patted his arm, andTony, glancing for encouragement at the big friendly face above him, whispered "Yes. "

So Tony went to the Tombs and was lodged in a cell next door to Soko theMonk, who had nearly beaten a Chinaman to death with a pair of brassknuckles, from whom he learned much that was exciting if not edifying. 

Now, as Delany was wont to say for years thereafter, that damn Mathusekcase just went bad on him. He had believed that in the comparativesecrecy of the inquisitorial chamber he could easily pretend that he hadoriginally made an honest mistake and was no longer positive of thedefendant's identity, in which case when the grand jury threw out thecase nobody would ever know the reason and no chickens would come hometo roost on him. 

But when the cop visited the office of Deputy Assistant DistrictAttorney Caput Magnus the next morning, to inform him that this herewindow-breaking case was a Messina, he found Mr. Nathan Asche alreadysolidly there present, engaged in advising Mr. Magnus most emphaticallyto the exact contrary. Indeed the attorney was rhetorical in hisinsistence that this destruction of the property of law-abidingtaxpayers must stop. 

Mr. Asche was not a party to be trifled with. He was a rectangularperson whom nothing could budge, and his very rectangularity bespoke hisstubborn rectitude. His shoulders were massive and square, his chin andmouth were square, his burnsides were square cut, and he had a squarehead and wore a square-topped derby. He looked like the family portraitof Uncle Amos Hardscrabble. When he sat down he remained until he hadsaid his say. It was a misfortunate meeting for Delany, for Asche nailedhim upon the spot and made him repeat to Caput Magnus the story of howhe had seen Tony throw the brick and then, for some fool reason, notbeing satisfied to let it go at that, he insisted on calling in astenographer and having Delany swear to the yarn in affidavit form! Thisentirely spoiled any chance the policeman might otherwise have had ofchanging his testimony. He now had no choice but to go on and swear thecase through before the grand jury--which he did. 

Even so, that distinguished body of twenty-three representative citizenswas not disposed to take the matter very seriously. Having heard whatDelany had to say--and he made it good and strong under thecircumstances--several of them remarked disgustedly that they did notunderstand why the district attorney saw fit to waste their valuabletime with trivial cases of that sort. Boys would play ball and boyswould throw balls round; if not balls, then stones. They were about todismiss by an almost unanimous vote, when the case went bad again. Theforeman, a distinguished person in braided broadcloth, rose andannounced that he was very much interested to learn their views uponthis subject as he was the president of a casualty company, and hewished them to understand that thousands--if not hundreds ofthousands--of dollars' worth of plate-glass windows were wantonly brokenby young toughs, every year, for which his and other insurance companieshad to recoup the owners. In fact, he alleged heatedly, window breakingwas a sign of peculiar viciousness. Incipient criminals usually startedtheir infamous careers that way; you could read that in any book onpenology. An example ought to be made. He'd bet this feller who threwthe brick was a gangster. 

So his twenty-two fellow grand jurymen politely permitted him to recallOfficer Delany and ask him: "Say, officer, isn't it a fact--just tell usfrankly now--if this feller Mathusek isn't a gangster?"

"Sure, he's a gangster. He was blowin' about it to me after I arrestedhim, " swore Delany without hesitation. 

The foreman swept the circle with a triumphant eye. 

"What'd I tell you?" he demanded. "All in favor of indicting said TonyMathusek for malicious destruction of property signify in the usualmanner. Cont'riminded? It's a vote. Ring the bell, Simmons, and bring onthe next case. "

So Tony was indicted by the People of the State of New York for afelony, and a learned judge of the General Sessions set his bail atfifteen hundred dollars; and Hogan had his victim where he wanted himand where he could keep him until he had bled his mother white of allshe had or might ever hope to have in this world. 

Everybody was satisfied--Hogan, Simpkins, Asche, McGurk, even Delany, because the fleas upon his back were satisfied and he was planningultimately to get rid of the whole damn tangle by having the indictmentquietly dismissed when nobody was looking, by his friend O'Brien, towhom the case had been sent for trial. And everything being as it shouldbe, and Tony being locked safely up in a cell, Mr. Joey Simpkins sethimself to the task of extorting three hundred and fifty dollars morefrom Mrs. Mathusek upon the plea that the great Mr. Hogan could notpossibly conduct the case before a jury for less. 

Now the relations of Mr. Assistant District Attorney O'Brien and theHon. Raphael B. Hogan were distinctly friendly. At any rate, wheneverMr. Hogan asked for an adjournment in Mr. O'Brien's court he usually gotit without conspicuous difficulty, and that is what occurred on the fiveseveral occasions that the case of The People versus Antonio Mathusekcame up on the trial calendar during the month following Tony'sincarceration, on each of which Mr. Hogan with unctuous suavity rose andhumbly requested that the case be put over at his client's earnestrequest in order that counsel might have adequate time in which tosubpoena witnesses and prepare for a defense. 

And each day Simpkins, who now assumed a threatening and fearsomedemeanor toward Mrs. Mathusek, visited the heartsick woman in her flatand told her that Tony could and would rot in the Tombs until such timeas she procured three hundred and fifty dollars. The first week sheassigned her life-insurance money; the second she pawned the furniture;until at last she owed Hogan only sixty-five dollars. At intervals Hogantold Tony that he was trying to force the district attorney to try thecase, but that the latter was insisting on delay. 

In point of fact, O'Brien had never looked at the papers, much less madeany effort to prepare the case; if he had he would have found that therewas no case at all. And Delany's mind became at peace because heperceived that at the proper psychological moment he could go to O'Brienand whisper: "Say, Mr. O'Brien, that Mathusek case. It's a turn-out!Better recommend it for dismissal, " and O'Brien would do so for thesimple reason that he never did any more work than he was actuallycompelled to do. 

But as chance would have it, three times out of the five, Mr. EphraimTutt happened to be in court when Mr. Hogan rose and made his requestfor an adjournment; and he remembered it because the offense charged wassuch an odd one--breaking a window. 

Delany's simple plan was again defeated by Nemesis, who pursued him inthe shape of the rectangular Mr. Asche, and who shouldered himself intoO'Brien's office during the fifth week of Tony's imprisonment and wantedto know why in hell he didn't try that Mathusek case and get rid of it. The assistant district attorney had just been called down by hisofficial boss and being still sore was glad of a chance to take it outon someone else. 

"D'you think I've nothin' better to do than try your damned oldwindow-busting cases?" he sneered. "Who ever had the idea of indicting aboy for that sort of thing, anyhow?"

"That is no way to talk, " answered Mr. Asche with firmness. "You're paidto prosecute whatever cases are sent to you. This is one of 'em. There'sbeen too much delay. Our president will be annoyed. "

"Oh, he will, will he?" retorted O'Brien, nevertheless, coming to theinstant decision that he had best find some other excuse than meredisinclination. "If he gets too shirty I'll tell him the case came inhere without any preparation and being in the nature of a privateprosecution we've been waiting for you to earn your fee. How'll you likethat, eh?"

Mr. Asche became discolored. 

"H'm!" he replied softly. "So that is it, is it? You won't have thatexcuse very long, even if you could get away with it now. I'll have atrial brief and affidavits from all the witnesses ready for you inforty-eight hours. "

"All right, old top!" nodded O'Brien carelessly. "We always strive toplease!"

So Mr. Asche got busy, while the very same day Mr. Hogan asked for andobtained another adjournment. 

Some people resemble animals; others have a geometrical aspect. In eachclass the similarity tends to indicate character. The fox-faced man isapt to be sly, the triangular man is likely to be a lump. So Mr. Asche, being rectilinear, was on the square; just as Mr. Hogan, being soft andround, was slippery and hard to hold. Three days passed, during whichMrs. Mathusek grew haggard and desperate. She was saving at the rate oftwo dollars a day, and at that rate she would be able to buy Tony atrial in five weeks more. She had exhausted her possibilities as aborrower. The indictment slept in O'Brien's tin file. Nobody but Tony, his mother and Hogan remembered that there was any such case, except Mr. Asche, who one afternoon appeared unexpectedly in the offices of Tutt &Tutt, the senior partner of which celebrated law firm happened to beadvisory counsel to the Tornado Casualty Company. 

"I just want you to look at these papers, Mr. Tutt, " Mr. Asche said, andhis jaw looked squarer than ever. 

Mr. Tutt was reclining as usual in his swivel chair, his feet crossedupon the top of his ancient mahogany desk. 

"Take a stog!" he remarked without getting up, and indicating with thetoe of one Congress-booted foot the box which lay open adjacent to theCode of Criminal Procedure. "What's your misery?"

"Hell's at work!" returned Mr. Asche, solemnly handing over a sheaf ofaffidavits. "I never smoke. "

Mr. Tutt somewhat reluctantly altered his position from the horizontalto the vertical and reached for a fresh stogy. Then his eye caught thename of Raphael B. Hogan. 

"What the devil is this?" he cried. 

"It's the devil himself!" answered Mr. Asche with sudden vehemence. 

"Tutt, Tutt! Come in here!" shouted the head of the firm. "Mine enemyhath been delivered into mine hands!"

"Hey? What?" inquired Tutt, popping across the threshold. "Who--Imean--"

"Raphael B. Hogan!"

"The devil!" ejaculated Tutt. 

"You've said it!" declared Mr. Asche devoutly. 

 * * * * *

That evening under cover of darkness Mr. Ephraim Tutt descended from adilapidated taxi at the corner adjacent to Froelich's butcher shop, andseveral hours later was whisked uptown again to the brownstone dwellingoccupied by the Hon. Simeon Watkins, the venerable white-haired judgethen presiding in Part I of the General Sessions, where he remaineduntil what may be described either as a very late or a very early hour, and where during the final period of his intercourse he and thatdistinguished member of the judiciary emptied an ancient bottlecontaining a sparkling rose-colored liquid of great artistic beauty. 

Then Mr. Tutt returned to his own library at the house on Twenty-thirdStreet and paced up and down before the antiquated open grate, inhalingquantities of what Mr. Bonnie Doon irreverently called "hay smoke, " andpondering deeply upon the evils that men do to one another, until thedawn peered through the windows and he bethought him of the all-nightlunch stand round the corner on Tenth Avenue, and there soughtrefreshment. 

"Salvatore, " he remarked to the smiling son of the olive groves whotended that bar of innocence, "the worst crook in the world is the manwho does evil for mere money. "

"_Si, Signor Tutti_, " answered Salvatore with Latin perspicacity. "Yougotta one, eh? You giva him hell?"

"_Si! Si!_" replied Mr. Tutt cheerily. "Even so! And of a truth, moreover! Give me another hot dog and a cup of bilge water!"

 * * * * *

"People versus Mathusek?" inquired Judge Watkins some hours later on thecall of the calendar, looking quite vaguely as if he had never heard ofthe case before, round Part I, which was as usual crowded, hot, stuffyand smelling of unwashed linen and prisoners' lunch. "People versusMathusek? What do you want done with this case, Mr. O'Brien?"

"Ready!" chanted the red-headed O'Brien, and, just as he had expected, the Hon. Raphael Hogan limbered up in his slow, genial way and said: "IfYour Honor please, the defendant would like a few days longer to get hiswitnesses. Will Your Honor kindly adjourn the case for one week?"

He did not notice that the stenographer was taking down everything thathe said. 

"I observe, " remarked Judge Watkins with apparent amiability, "that youhave had five adjournments already. If The People's witnesses are here Iam inclined to direct you to proceed. The defendant has been underindictment for six weeks. That ought to be long enough to prepare yourdefense. "

"But, Your Honor, " returned Hogan with pathos, "the witnesses are veryhard to find. They are working people. I have spent whole eveningschasing after them. Moreover, the defendant is perfectly satisfied tohave the case go over. He is anxious for an adjournment!"

"When did you last see him?"

"Yesterday afternoon. "

The judge unfolded the papers and appeared to be reading them for thefirst time. He wasn't such a bad old actor himself, for he had alreadylearned from Mr. Tutt that Hogan had not been near Tony for three weeks. 

"Um--um! Did you represent the defendant in the police court?"

"Yes, Your Honor. "

"Why did you waive examination?"

Hogan suddenly felt a lump swelling in his pharynx. What in hell was itall about?

"I--er--there was no use in fighting the case there. I hoped the grandjury would throw it out, " he stammered. 

"Did anybody ask you to waive examination?"

The swelling in Hogan's fat neck grew larger. Suppose McGurk or Delanywere trying to put something over on him!

"No! Certainly not!" he replied unconvincingly. He didn't want to makethe wrong answer if he could help it. 

"You have an--associate, have you not? A Mr. Simpkins?"

"Yes, Your Honor. " Hogan was pale now and little beads were gatheringover his eyebrows. 

"Where is he?"

"Downstairs in the magistrate's court. "

"Officer, " ordered the judge, "send for Mr. Simpkins. We will suspenduntil he can get here. "

Then His Honor occupied himself with some papers, leaving Hogan standingalone at the bar trying to work out what it all meant. He began to wishhe had never touched the damn case. Everybody in the courtroom seemed tobe looking at him and whispering. He was most uncomfortable. Supposethat crooked cop had welshed on him! At the same instant in the back ofthe room a similar thought flashed through the mind of Delany. SupposeHogan should welsh on him! Coincidentally both scoundrels turned sick atheart. Then came to each the simultaneous realization that neither couldgain anything by giving the other away, and that the only thing possiblefor either was to stand pat. No, they must hang together or assuredlyhang separately. Then the door opened and a tall officer entered, followed by a very nervous Mr. Joey Simpkins. 

"Come up here!" directed the judge. "You are Mr. Hogan's assistant, areyou not?"

"Yes, sir!" quavered the anxious Simpkins. 

"How much money have you taken from Mrs. Mathusek?"

"Four hundred and thirty-five dollars. "

"For what?" sharply. 

"For protecting her son. "

"Where? How?"

"Why--from his arrest to the present time--and for his defense here inGeneral Sessions. "

"Have either you or Mr. Hogan done anything as yet--except to waiveexamination in the police court?"

Mr. Simpkins turned hastily to Mr. Hogan, who realized that things weregoing badly. 

"Your Honor, " he interposed thickly, "this money was an agreed fee formy services as counsel. This examination seems to me somewhat uncalledfor and unfair. "

"Call Tony Mathusek to the bar!" suddenly ordered the judge. 

It was a dangerous play, but Hogan decided to bluff it through. 

"In view of the fact that I have not received my fee I shall refuse toappear for the defendant!" he announced brazenly. 

"Indeed!" retorted the judge with sarcasm. "Then I will assign Mr. Ephraim Tutt to the defense. You two gentlemen will please sit down--butnot leave the courtroom. We may need you. "

At that moment, just as the defendant was led to the bar, Mr. Tuttemerged from behind the jury box and took his stand at Tony's side. Nothing much to look at before, the boy was less so now, with the prisonpallor on his sunken little face. There was something about the thinneck, the half-open mouth and the gaunt, blinking, hollow eyes thatsuggested those of a helpless fledgling. 

"Impanel a jury!" continued the judge, and Mr. Tutt conducted Tonyinside the rail and sat down beside him at the table reserved for thedefendant. 

"It's all right, Tony!" he whispered. "The frame-up isn't on you thistime, my lad. "

Cowering in the back of the room Delany tried to hide himself among thespectators. Some devilish thing had gone wrong. He hadn't heard all thathad passed between the judge and Hogan, but he had caught enough toperceive that the whole case had gone blooey. 

Judge Watkins was wise! He was going after Hogan just as old Tutt wouldgo after him, Delany. There was a singing in his head and the bloodsmarted in his eyes. He'd better beat it! Half bent over he startedsneaking for the door. 

"Who is that man trying to go out?" shouted the judge in terrifyingtones that shook Delany to the ankles. Hastily he tried to sit down. 

"Bring that man to the bar!"

Half blind with fear Delany attempted to make a show of bravado andswagger to the rail. 

"What is your name?"

"Delany. Officer attached to the Second Precinct. "

"What were you leaving the room for?"

Delany could not answer. His wits were befogged, his throat numb. Hesimply stared vacuously at Judge Watkins, his lips vibrating with fear. 

"Sit down. No; take the stand!" cried Judge Watkins. "I'll try this casemyself. "

As if his foot were already attached to a ball and chain Delany draggedhimself up--up--hundreds of feet up, it seemed--to the witness chair. Asif from a mountain side he saw dim forms moving into the jury box, heardthe judge and Mr. Tutt exchanging meaningless remarks. The faces beforehim grinned and gibbered at him like a horde of monkeys. They had gothim at last--all for a few pieces of rotten beef! That lean, hungrywolfhound would tear his tongue out by the roots if he even opened hismouth; claw wide open his vitals. And old Tutt was fixing him with theeye of a basilisk and slowly turning him to stone. Somebody sure hadwelshed! He had once been in a side show at Coney Island where the roomsimulated the motion of an ocean steamer. The courtroom began to do thesame--slanting this way and that and spinning obliquely round and round. Through the swirl of its gyrations he could see old Tutt's vulture eyes, growing bigger, fiercer, more sinister every instant. It was all up withhim! It was an execution, and the crowd down below were thirsting forhis blood, waiting to tear him to bits!

"You saw this boy throw a brick through Mr. Froelich's window, didn'tyou?" coaxed Judge Watkins insinuatingly. Delany sensed that the oldwhite fox was trying to trick him--get him for perjury. No! He wouldn'tperjure himself again! No! But what could he do? His head swungstupidly, swaying like a dazed bull's. The sweat poured from every porein his vast bulk. A hoarse noise--like a death rattle--came from histhroat. The room dissolved in waves of white and black. Then in avertigo he toppled forward and pitched headlong to the floor. 

 * * * * *

Deacon Terry, star reporter for the _Tribune_, who happened to be there, told his city editor at noon that he had never passed such a pleasantmorning. What he saw and heard really constituted, he alleged, a greatbig full front-page story "in a box"--though it got only four sticks onthe eleventh page--being crowded out by the armistice. Why, he said, itwas the damnedest thing ever! There had been no evidence against thedefendant at all! And after the cop had collapsed Judge Watkins hadrefused to dismiss the case and directed Mr. Tutt to go on in his ownway. 

The proceeding had resolved itself into a criminal trial of Hogan andSimpkins. Tony's good character had been established in three minutes, and then half a dozen reputable witnesses had testified that the brickhad been thrown by an entirely different boy. Finally, Sussman and hisassistant both swore positively that Delany had been in the back of thetobacco shop with his back to the door, holding them up for cigars, whenthe crash came. 

Terry wanted two columns; he almost cried when they cut his great bigfull-page story to:

 SHYSTERS ACCUSED OF EXTORTION

 A dramatic scene was enacted at the conclusion of a minor case in Part I of the General Sessions yesterday, when upon the motion of Ephraim Tutt, of the firm of Tutt & Tutt, Judge Simeon Watkins, sitting as a committing magistrate, held for the action of the grand jury Raphael B. Hogan and Joseph P. Simpkins, his assistant, for the crime of extortion, and directed that their case be referred to the Grievance Committee of the County Lawyers' Association for the necessary action for their disbarment. 

 Earlier in the trial a police officer named Delany, the supposed chief witness for the prosecution, fainted and fell from the witness chair. Upon his recovery he was then and there committed for perjury, in default of ten thousand dollars bail. It is understood that he has signified his willingness to turn state's evidence, but that his offer has not been accepted. So far as can be ascertained this is the first time either Hogan or Simpkins has been accused of a criminal offense. District Attorney Peckham stated that in addition to separate indictments for extortion and perjury he would ask for another, charging all three defendants with the crime of conspiracy to obstruct the due administration of the law. 

 At the conclusion of the proceedings Judge Watkins permitted a voluntary collection to be taken up by Mr. Tutt on behalf of the accused among the jury, the court attendants and the spectators, which amounted to eleven hundred and eighty-nine dollars. In this connection the judge expressed the opinion that it was unfortunate that persons falsely accused of crime and unjustly imprisoned should have no financial redress other than by a special act of the legislature. The defendant in the case at bar had been locked up for six weeks. Among the contributions was found a new one-thousand-dollar bill. 

"Talk about crime!" quoth the Deacon savagely to Charlie Still, of the_Sun_. "That feckless fool at the city desk committed assault, mayhemand murder on that story of mine!" Then he added pensively: "If Ithought old man Tutt would slip me a thousand to soothe my injuredfeelings I'd go down and retain his firm myself!"

The Kid and the Camel

 Breathes there the man with soul so dead Who never to himself hath said, This is my own, my native land! --LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL. 

The shortest street in the world, Edgar Street, connects New York'sfinancial center with the Levant. It is less than fifty feet throughthis tiny thoroughfare from the back doors of the great Broadway officebuildings to Greenwich Street, where the letters on the window signsresemble contorted angleworms and where one is as likely to stumble intoa man from Bagdad as from Boston. One can stand in the middle of it andwith his westerly ear catch the argot of Gotham and with his easterlyall the dialects of Damascus. And if through some unexpected convulsionof Nature 51 Broadway should topple over, Mr. Zimmerman, thestockbroker, whose office is on the sixth story, might easily fall clearof the Greek restaurant in the corner of Greenwich Street, rolltwenty-five yards more down Morris Street, and find himself onWashington Street reading a copy of Al-Hoda and making his luncheon off_baha gannouge_, _majaddarah_ and _milookeiah_, which, after all, areonly eggplant salad, lentils and rice, and the popular favorite known asEgyptian Combination. 

To most New Yorkers this is a section of the city totally unknown andunsuspected, yet existing as in a fourth dimension within a stone'sthrow--and nearer--of our busiest metropolitan artery--and there withinone hundred yards of the aforesaid Mr. Zimmerman's office above theelectric cars of Broadway, and within earshot of the hoots of many amultimillionaire's motor, on a certain evening something of an Orientalcharacter was doing in the hallway of a house on Washington Street thatsubsequently played a part in the professional lives of Tutt & Tutt. 

Out of the literally Egyptian darkness of the tenement owned byAbadallah Shanin Khaldi issued curious smothered sounds, together withan unmistakable, pungent, circuslike odor. 

"Whack!"

There came an indignant grunt, followed by a flabby groan and astraining and squeaking of the jerry-built staircase as Kasheed Hassounvigorously applied a lath to the horny backsides of Eset el Gazzar. 

"Ascend, dog of a dog!" panted Kasheed. "Move thy accursed feet, Owizened hump! Daughter of Satan, give me room! Thou art squeezing out mylife! Only go on, child of my heart! It is but a step upward, O Queen ofthe Nile. Hold the rope tight, Kalil!"

The camel obediently surged forward, breaking off a section of banister. Through the racket from the hallway above faintly came the voice ofKalil Majdalain. 

"Her head is free of the ceiling. Quick, Kasheed! Turn her, thou, uponthe landing!"

"Whack!" responded the lath in the hand of Kasheed Hassoun. 

Step by step the gentle shaggy brute felt her way with feet, knees andnozzle up the narrow staircase. What was this but another of thosebizarre experiences which any camel-of-the-world must expect in a landwhere the water wells squirted through a tube and men rode in chariotsdriven by fire?

"Whack!"

"Go on, darling of my soul!" whispered Kasheed. "Curses upon thy fatherand upon the mother that bore thee! Wilt thou not move?"

"Whack!"

"Ouch! She devil! Thou hast trod upon my foot!"

Outside, that the Western world might not suspect what was going on, Shaheen Mahfous and Shanin Saba unloaded with as much noise as possiblea dray of paper for Meraat-ul-Gharb, the Daily Mirror. By and by awindow on the fourth floor opened and the head of Kalil Majdalainappeared. 

"_Mahabitcum!"_ he grinned; which, being interpreted, means "Goodfellowship to all!"

Then presently he and Kasheed joined the others upon the sidewalk, and, the rolls of paper having been delivered inside the pressroom, the fourSyrians climbed upon the truck and drove to the restaurant of Ghabryel &Assad two blocks farther north, where they had a bit of _awamat_, coffeeand cigarettes, and then played a game of cards, while in the attic ofthe tenement house Eset el Gazzar munched a mouthful of hay and tappedher interior reservoir for a drink of clear water, as she sighed throughher valvelike nostrils and pouted with her cushioned lips, ponderingupon the vagaries of quadrupedal existence. 

Willie Toothaker, the office boy of Tutt & Tutt, had perfected acatapult along the lines of those used in the Siege of Carthage--formderived from the appendix of Allen and Greenough's Latin Grammar--whichboded ill for the truck drivers of lower Gotham. 

Since his translation from Pottsville Center, Willie's inventive geniushad worked something of a transformation in the Tutt & Tutt offices, forhe had devised several labor-saving expedients, such as a complicatedseries of pulleys for opening windows and automatically closing doorswithout getting up; which, since they actually worked, Mr. Tutt, being apragmatist, silently, patiently and good-naturedly endured. To-day bothpartners were away in court and Willie had the office to himself withthe exception of old Scraggs. 

"Bet it'll shoot a block!" asserted Willie, replacing his gum, which hehad removed temporarily to avert the danger of swallowing it in hisexcitement. "Caesar used one just like this--only bigger, of course. Seethat scuttle over on Washington Street? Bet I can hit it!"

"Bet you can't come within two hundred feet of it!" retorted thewatery-eyed scrivener. "It's a lot further'n you think. "

"'Tain't neither!" declared Willie. "I know how far it is! What can weshoot?"

Scraggs' eye wandered aimlessly round the room. 

"Oh, I don't know. "

"Got to be something with heft to it, " said Willie. "'S got to overcomethe resistance of the atmosphere. "

"How about that paperweight?"

"'S too heavy. "

"Well--"

"I know!" exclaimed William suddenly. "Gimme that little bottle of redink. 'S just about right. And when it strikes it'll make a mark so's wecan tell where we hit--like a regular target. "

Scraggs hesitated. 

"Ink costs money, " he protested. 

"But it's just the thing!" insisted Willie. "Besides, you can charge mefor it in the cash account. Give it here!"

Conscience being thus satisfied the two eagerly placed the ink bottle inthe proper receptacle, which Willie had fashioned out of a stogy box, twisted back the bow and aimed the apparatus at the slanting scuttle, which projected from a sort of penthouse upon the roof of the tenementhouse across the street. 

"Now!" he exclaimed ecstatically. "Stand from under, Scraggs!"

He pressed a lever. There was a whang, a whistle--and the ink bottlehurtled in a beautiful parabola over Greenwich Street. 

"Gee! look at her go!" cried Willie in triumph. "Straight's a string. "

At exactly that instant--and just as the bottle was about to descendupon the penthouse--the scuttle opened and there was thrust forth a hugeyellow face with enormous sooty lips wreathed in an unmistakable smile. On the long undulating neck the head resembled one of the grotesquemanikins carried in circus parades. Eset el Gazzar in a search for airhad discovered that the attic scuttle was slightly ajar. 

"Gosh! A camel!" gasped Willie. 

"Lord of love!" ejaculated Scraggs. "It sure is a camel!"

There was a faint crash and a tinkle of glass as the bottle of red inkstruck the penthouse roof just over the beast's head and deluged it withits vermilion contents. Eset reared, shook her neck, gave a defiantgrunt and swiftly withdrew her head into the attic. 

Sophie Hassoun, the wife of Kasheed, seeing the violent change in Eset'scomplexion, wrung her hands. 

"What hast thou done, O daughter of devils? Thou art bleeding! Thou hastcut thyself! Alack, mayhap thou wilt die, and then we shall be ruined!Improvident! Careless one! Cursed be thy folly! Hast thou no regard? AndI dare not send for Doctor Koury, the veterinary, for then thy presencewould be discovered and the gendarmes would come and take thee away. Would that we had left thee at Coney Island! O, great-granddaughter ofAl Adha--sacred camel of the Prophet--why hast thou done this? Why hastthou brought misery upon us? _Awar! Awar!_"

She cast herself upon the improvised divan in the corner, while Eset, blinking, licked her big yellow hind hump, and tumbled forward upon herknees preparatory to sitting down herself. 

"A camel!" repeated Willie, round-eyed. He counted the roofs dividingthe penthouse from where Morris Street bisected the block. "Whoop!" hecried and dashed out of the office. 

In less than four minutes Patrolman Dennis Patrick Murphy, who wasstanding on post on Washington Street in front of Nasheen Zereik'sEmbroidery Bazaar talking to Sardi Babu, saw a red-headed, pug-nosedurchin come flying round the corner. 

"One--two--three--four--five. That's the house!" cried Willie Toothaker. "That's it!"

"What yer talkin' 'bout?" drawled Murphy. 

"There's a camel in there!" shouted Willie, dancing up and down. 

"Camel--yer aunt!" sneered the cop. "They couldn't get no camel inthere!"

"There is! I seen it stick its head out of the roof!"

Sardi Babu, the oily-faced little dealer in pillow shams, smiled slyly. He had thick black ringlets, parted exactly down the middle of hisscalp, hanging to his shoulders, and a luxuriant black curly beardreaching to his middle; in addition to which he wore a blue blouse andcarpet slippers. He was a Maronite from Lebanon, and he and his had afeud with Hassoun, Majdalain, and all others who belonged to the sectheaded by the Patriarch of Antioch. 

"_Belki!"_ he remarked significantly. "Perhaps his words are true! Ihave heard it whispered already by Lillie Nadowar, now the wife ofButros the confectioner. Moreover, I myself have seen hay on thestairs. "

"Huh?" exclaimed Murphy. "We'll soon find out. Come along you, Babu!Show me where you was seein' the hay. "

By this time those who had been lounging upon the adjacent doorstep hadcome running to see what was the matter, and a crowd had gathered. 

"It is false--what he says!" declared Gadas Maloof the shoemaker. "Ihave sat opposite the house day and night for ten--fifteen years--and nocamel has gone in. Camel! How could a camel be got up such narrowstairs?"

"But thou art a friend of Hassoun's!" retorted Fajala Mokarzel thegrocer. "And, " he added in a lower tone, "of Sophie Tadros, his wife. "

There was a subdued snicker from the crowd, and Murphy inferred thatthey were laughing at him. 

"But this man, " he shouted wrathfully, pointing at Sardi Babu, "says youall know there's a camel up there. An' this kid's seen it! Come alongnow, both of you!"

There was an angry murmur from the crowd. Sardi Babu turned white. 

"I said nothing!" he declared, trembling. "I made no complaint. Thegendarme will corroborate me. What care I where Kasheed Hassoun stableshis camel?"

Maloof shouldered his way up to him, and grasping the Maronite by thebeard muttered in Arabic: "Thou dog! Go confess thy sins! For by theHoly Cross thou assuredly hast not long to live!"

Murphy seized Babu by the arm. 

"Come on!" he ordered threateningly. "Make good now!" And he led him upthe steps, the throng pressing close upon his heels. 

 * * * * *

"What's all this?" inquired Magistrate Burke bewilderedly an hour lateras Officer Murphy entered the police court leading a tall Syrian in aheavy overcoat and green Fedora hat, and followed by several hundredblack-haired, olive-skinned Levantines. "Don't let all those Dagos inhere! Keep 'em out! This ain't a moving-picture palace!"

"Them ain't Dagos, judge, " whispered Roony the clerk. "Them's Turks. "

"They ain't neither Turks!" contradicted the stenographer, whosegrammar was almost sublimated by comparison with Roony's. "They'reArmenians--you can tell by their complexions. "

"Well, I won't have 'em in here, whatever they are!" announced Burke. "Idon't like 'em. What have you got, Murphy?"

"Shoo! Get out of here!" ordered the officer on duty. 

The crowd, however, not understanding, only grinned. 

"_Avanti! Alley! Mouch_! Beat it!" continued the officer, waving hisarms and hustling those nearest toward the door. 

The throng obediently fell back. They were a gentle, simple-minded lot, used in the old country to oppression, blackmail and tyranny, andburning with a religious fervor unknown to the pale heterodoxy of theOccident. 

"This here, " began Murphy, "is a complaint by Sardi Babu"--he swung thecowering little man with a twist before the bench--"against one KasheedHassoun for violating the health ordinances. "

"No, no! I do not complain! I am not one who complains. It is nothingwhatever to me if Kasheed Hassoun keeps a camel! I care not, " cried Babuin Arabic. 

"What's he talkin' about?" interrupted Burke. "I don't understand thatsort of gibberish. "

"He makes the complaint that this here Hassoun"--he indicated the tallman in the overcoat--"is violating Section 1093d of the regulations bykeeping a camel in his attic. "

"Camel!" ejaculated the magistrate. "In his attic!"

Murphy nodded. 

"It's there all right, judge!" he remarked. "I've seen it. "

"Is that straight?" demanded His Honor. "How'd he get it up there? Ididn't suppose--"

Suddenly Sardi Babu threw himself fawning upon Hassoun. 

"Oh, Kasheed Hassoun, I swear to thee that I made no complaint. It is afalsification of the gendarme! And there was a boy--a red and yellowboy--who said he had seen thy camel's head above the roofs! I am thyfriend!"

He twisted his writhing snakelike fingers together. Hassoun regarded himcoldly. 

"Thou knowest the fate of informers and provocateurs--of spies--thouinfamous Turk!" he answered through his teeth. 

"A Turk! A Turk!" shrieked Sardi Babu frantically, beating the breast ofhis blue blouse. "Thou callest me a Turk! Me, the godson of Sarkis Babuand of Elias Stephan--whose fathers and grandfathers were Christianswhen thy family were worshipers of Mohammed. Blasphemy! Me, the godsonof a bishop!"

"I also am godson of a bishop!" sneered Kasheed. "A properly anointedbishop! Without Tartar blood. "

Sardi Babu grew purple. 

"Ptha! I would spit upon the beard of such a bishop!" he shrieked, beside himself. 

Hassoun slightly raised his eyebrows. 

"Spit, then, infamous one--while thou art able!"

"Here, here!" growled Burke in disgust. "Keep 'em still, can't you?Now, what's all this about a camel?"

 * * * * *

"That's the very scuttle, sir, " asseverated Scraggs to the firm, as Tutt& Tutt, including Miss Wiggin, gazed down curiously out of their officewindows at the penthouse upon the Washington Street roof which had beenWillie's target of the day before. "I don't say, " he continued by way ofexplanation, "that the camel stuck his head out because Willie hit theroof with the bottle--it was probably just a circumstance--but it lookedthat way. 'Bing!' went the ink bottle on the scuttle; andthen--pop!--out came the camel like a jack-in-the-box. "

"What became of the camel?" inquired Miss Wiggin, cherishing a fainthope that--pop!--it might suddenly appear again in the same way. 

"The police took it away last night--lowered it out of the window with ablock and tackle, " answered the scrivener. "A sort of breeches buoy. "

"I've heard of camel's-hair shawls but not of camel's-hair breeches!"murmured Tutt. "I suppose if a camel wore pants--well, my imaginationrefuses to contemplate the spectacle! Where's Willie?"

"He hasn't been in at all this morning!" said Miss Wiggin. "I'llwarrant--"

"What?" demanded Mr. Tutt suspiciously. 

"--he's somewhere with that camel, " she concluded. 

 * * * * *

Now, Miss Minerva, as her name connoted, was a wise woman; and she hadreached an unerring conclusion by two different and devious routes, towit, intuition and logic, the same being the high road and low road ofreason--high or low in either case as you may prefer. Thus logic:Camel--small boy. Intuition: Small boy--camel. But there was here anadditional element--a direct personal relationship between thisparticular small boy and this particular camel, rising out of theincident of the ink bottle. She realized that that camel must haveacquired for William a peculiar quality--almost that of a possession--inview of the fact that he had put his mark upon it. She knew that Williecould no more stay away from the environs of that camel than said camelcould remain in that attic. Indeed we might go on at some lengthexpounding further this profound law of human nature that where thereare camels there will be small boys; that, as it were, under suchcircumstances Nature abhors an infantile vacuum. 

"If I know him, he is!" agreed Mr. Tutt, referring to William's probableproximity to Eset el Gazzar. 

"Speaking of camels, " said Tutt as he lit a cigarette, "makes me thinkof brass beds. "

"Yes, " nodded his partner. "Of course it would, naturally. What on earthdo you mean?"

"I mean this, " began Tutt, clearing his throat as if he were addressingtwelve good and true men--"a camel is obviously an unusual--not to saypeculiar--animal to be roosting over there in that attic. It is anexotic--if I may use that term. It is as exotic as a brass bed fromConnecticut would be, or is, in Damascus or Lebanon. Now, therefore, acamel will as assuredly give cause for trouble in New York as a brassbed in Bagdad!"

"The right thing often makes trouble if put in the wrong place, "pondered Mr. Tutt. 

"Or the wrong thing in the right place!" assented Tutt. "Now all theseunassimilated foreigners--"

"What have they got to do with brass beds in Lebanon?" challenged MissWiggin. 

"Why, " continued Tutt, "I am credibly informed that the American brassbed--particularly the double bed--owing to its importation into AsiaMinor was the direct cause of the Armenian massacres. "

"Tosh!" said Miss Wiggin. 

"For a fact!" asserted Tutt. "It's this way--an ambassador told me sohimself--the Turks, you know, are nuts on beds--and they think a greatbig brass family bed such as--you know--they're in all thedepartment-store windows. Well, every Turk in every village throughoutAsia Minor saves up his money to buy a brass bed--like a nigger buys acathedral clock. Sign of superiority. You get me? And it becomes hismost cherished household possession. If he meets a friend on the streethe says to him naturally and easily, without too much conscious egotism, just as an American might say, 'By the way, have you seen my newlimousine?'--he says to the other Turk, 'Oh, I say, old chap, do youhappen to have noticed my new brass bed from Connecticut? They just putit off the steamer last week at Aleppo. Fatima's taking a nap in it now, but when she wakes up--'"

"What nonsense!" sniffed Miss Wiggin. 

"It's not nonsense!" protested the junior partner. "Now listen to whathappens. Some Armenian--the Armenians are the pawnbrokers of AsiaMinor--moves into that village and in three months he has a mortgage oneverything in it, including that brass bed. Then the Turkish Government, which regards him as an undesirable citizen, tells him to move along;and Mister Armenian piles all the stuff the inhabitants have mortgagedto him into an oxcart and starts on his way, escorted by the Sultan'stroops. On top of the load is Yusuf Bulbul Ameer's brass bed. Yusuflooks out of his doorway and sees the bed moving off and rushes after itto protect his property. 

"'Look here!' he shouts. 'Where are you going with my brass bed?'

"'It isn't yours!' retorts Mister Pawnbroker. 'It's mine. I loaned youeighty-seven piasters on it!'

"'But I've got an equity in it! You can't take it away!'

"'Of course I can!' replies the Armenian. 'Where I goeth it will go. TheTurkish Government is responsible. '

"'Not much, ' says Yusuf, grabbing hold of it, trying to pull it off thecart. 

"'Hands off there!' yells the Armenian. 

"Then there is a mix-up and everybody piles in--and there is amassacre!"

"That's a grand yarn!" remarked Mr. Tutt. "Still, it may be--"

"Bunk!" declared Miss Wiggin. "And what has that got to do with camels?"

"My point is, " affirmed Tutt, waving his index finger--"my point is thatjust as a Yankee brass bed in Turkey will make certain trouble, so aTurkish camel in New York is bound to do the same thing. "

A door slammed behind them and Willie's voice interrupted theconversation. 

"Mr. Tutt! Mr. Tutt!" he cried hysterically. "There's been a murderdown there--and we--I'm--partly responsible. I spent the night with thecamel and he's--she's--all right--in Regan's Boarding Stable. ButKasheed is in the Tombs, and I told them you'd defend him. You will, won't you?"

Mr. Tutt looked at the excited boy. 

"Who killed whom?" he asked correctly. "And where does the camel comein?"

"Somebody killed Sardi Babu, " explained Willie. "I don't know exactlywho did it--but they've arrested Kasheed Hassoun, the owner of Eset elGazzar. "

"Who?" roared Tutt. 

"The camel. You see, nobody knew she was in the attic until I saw herstick her head out of the hole in the roof. Then I told Murphy and hewent up and found her there. But Kasheed thought Sardi had told on him, you see, and nobody would believe him when he said he hadn't. The judgefined Kasheed twenty-five dollars, and he--Kasheed--accused Sardi ofbeing a Turk and they had a big row right there in court. Nothinghappened until the cops had got Eset out of the window and she was overat Regan's. I stayed there. Her head is bright red from the ink, youknow. Then somebody went over to the restaurant where Sardi was andkilled him. So you see, in a way, I'm to blame, and I didn't think you'dmind defending Kasheed, because he's a corker and if they electrocutehim Eset will starve to death. "

"I see, " said. Mr. Tutt thoughtfully. "You think that by rights ifanybody was going to get killed it ought to have been you?"

Willie nodded. 

"Yes, sir, " he assented. 

And that is how a camel was the moving cause of the celebrated firm ofTutt & Tutt appearing as counsel in the case of The People againstKasheed Hassoun, charged with the crime of murder in the first degreefor having taken the life of Sardi Babu with deliberation andpremeditation and malice aforethought and against the peace of thePeople of the State of New York. 

 * * * * *

"And then there's this here Syrian murder case, " groaned the chief clerkof the district attorney's office plaintively to his chief. "I don'tknow what to do with it. The defendant's been six months in the Tombs, with all the Syrian newspapers hollering like mad for a trial. He killedhim all right, but you know what these foreign-language murder casesare, boss! They're lemons, every one of 'em!"

"What's the matter with it?" inquired the D. A. "It's a regularknock-down-and-drag-out case, isn't it? Killed him right in arestaurant, didn't he?"

"Sure! That part of it's all right, " assented the chief clerk. "Hekilled him--yes! But how are you going to get an American jury to choosebetween witnesses who are quite capable of swearing that the corpsekilled the defendant. How in hell can you tell what they're talkingabout, anyway?"

"You can't!" said the D. A. "Send the papers in to Pepperill and tell himon the side it'll make him famous. He'll believe you. "

"But it'll take ten weeks to try it!" wailed the chief clerk. 

"Well, send it down to old Wetherell, in Part Thirteen. He's got thesleeping sickness and it will be sort of soothing for him to listen to. "

"Might wake him up?" suggested the other. 

"You couldn't!" retorted the D. A. "What's the case about, anyhow?"

"It's about a camel, " explained the subordinate hesitatingly. 

The D. A. Grinned. Said he: "It is easier for a camel to go through theeye of a needle than for a just prosecutor to convict a Syrian ofmurder. Well, old top, send for a couple of dozen Korans and hire roomsfor the jury over Kaydoub, Salone & Dabut's and turn 'em loose on_kibbah arnabeiah, kashtah_ and _halawee_. "

Mr. William Montague Pepperill was a very intense young person, twenty-six years old, out of Boston by Harvard College. He had been bornbeneath the golden dome of the State House on Beacon Street, and fromthe windows of the Pepperill mansion his infant eyes had gazed smuglydown upon the Mall and Frog Pond of the historic Common. There had beenan aloof serenity about his life within the bulging front of thepaternal residence with its ancient glass window panes--faintly tingedwith blue, just as the blood in the Pepperill veins was also faintlytinged with the same color--his unimpeachable social position at Hoppy'sand later on at Harvard--which he pronounced Haavaad--and the profoundrespect in which he was held at the law school in Cambridge, that gaveMr. W. Montague Pepperill a certain confidence in the impeccability ofhimself, his family, his relatives, his friends, his college, hishabiliments and haberdashery, his deportment, and his opinions, political, religious and otherwise. 

For W. M. P. The only real Americans lived on Beacon Hill, though a fewperhaps might be found accidentally across Charles Street upon the madeland of the Back Bay. A real American must necessarily also be agraduate of Harvard, a Unitarian, an allopath, belong to the SomersetClub and date back ancestrally at least to King Philip's War. W. Montague had, however, decided early in life that Boston was too smallfor him and that he owed a duty to the rest of the country. 

So he had condescended to New York, where through his real Americanconnections in law, finance and business he had landed a job in apolitical office where the aristocrats were all either Irish, Jews orItalians, who regarded him as an outlandish animal. It had been astrange experience for him. So had the discovery that graft, blackmail, corruption, vice and crime were not mere literary conventions, existingonly for the theoretical purposes of novelists and playwrights, but wereactualities frequently dealt with in metropolitan society. He hadsecured his appointment from a reform administration and he had beenretained as a holdover by Peckham, the new district attorney, by reasonof the fact that his uncle by marriage was a Wall Street banker whocontributed liberally without prejudice to both political parties. This, however, W. M. P. Did not know, and assumed that he was allowed to keephis four-thousand-dollar salary because the county could not get onwithout him. He was slender, wore a mouse-colored waistcoat, fawn tieand spats, and plastered his hair neatly down on each side of a glossycranium that was an almost perfect sphere. 

"Ah! Mr. William Montague Pepperill, I believe?" inquired Mr. Tutt withprofound politeness from the doorway of W. M. P. 's cubicle, which lookedinto the gloomy light shaft of the Criminal Courts Building. 

Mr. Pepperill finished what he was writing and then looked up. 

"Yes, " he replied. "What can I do for you?"

He did not ask Mr. Tutt his name or invite him to sit down. 

The old lawyer smiled. He liked young men, even conceited young men;they were so enthusiastic, so confident, so uncompromising. Besides, W. M. P. Was at heart, as Mr. Tutt perceived, a high-class sort of chap. So he smiled. 

"My name is Tutt, " said he. "I am counsel for a man named Hassoun, whomyou are going to try for murder. You are, of course, perfectly familiarwith the facts. "

He fumbled in his waistcoat, produced two withered stogies and cast hiseye along the wall. 

"Would you--mind--if I sat down? And could I offer you a stogy?"

"Sit down--by all means, " answered W. M. P. "No, thanks!"--to the stogy. 

Mr. Tutt sat down, carefully placed his old chimney pot upside down onthe window ledge, and stacked in it the bundle of papers he wascarrying. 

"I thought you might forgive me if I came to talk over the case a littlewith you. You see, there are so many things that a prosecutor has toconsider--and which it is right that he should consider. " He paused tolight a match. "Now in this case, though in all probability my client isguilty there is practically no possibility of his being convicted ofanything higher than manslaughter in the first degree. The defense willproduce many witnesses--probably as many as the prosecution. Both sideswill tell their stories in a language unintelligible to the jury, whomust try to ascertain the true inwardness of the situation through aninterpreter. They will realize that they are not getting the realtruth--I mean the Syrian truth. As decent-minded men they won't dare tosend a fellow to the chair whose defense they cannot hear and whosemotives they do not either know or understand. They will feel, as I doand perhaps you do, that the only persons to do justice among Syriansare Syrians. "

"Well, " replied Mr. Pepperill politely, "what have you to propose?"

"That you recommend the acceptance of a plea of manslaughter in thesecond degree. "

Deputy Assistant District Attorney William Montague Pepperill drewhimself up haughtily. He regarded all criminal practitioners assemicrooks, ignorant, illiterate, rather dirty men--not in the realAmerican class. 

"I can do nothing of the kind, " he answered sternly and very distinctly. "If these men seek the hospitality of our shores they must be preparedto be judged by our laws and by our standards of morality. I do notagree with you that our juridical processes are not adequate to thatpurpose. Moreover, I regard it as unethical--un-eth-i-cal--to accept aplea for a lesser degree of crime than that which the defendant haspresumptively committed. "

Mr. Tutt regarded him with undisguised admiration. 

"Your sentiments do you honor, Mr. Pepperill!" he returned. "You aresure you do not mind my smoke? But of course my client is presumedinnocent. I am very hopeful--almost confident--of getting him offentirely. But rather than take the very slight chance of a convictionfor murder I am letting discretion take the place of valor and offer tohave him admit his guilt of manslaughter. "

"I guess, " answered Pepperill laconically, indulging in his onlyfrequent solecism, "that you wouldn't offer to plead to manslaughterunless you felt pretty sure your client was going to the chair! Now--"

Mr. Tutt suddenly rose. 

"My young friend, " he interrupted, "when Ephraim Tutt says a thing manto man--as I have been speaking to you--he means what he says. I havetold you that I expected to acquit my client. My only reason foroffering a plea is the very slight--and it is a very slight--chance thatan Arabian quarrel can be made the basis of a conviction for murder. When you know me better you will not feel so free to impugn mysincerity. Are you prepared to entertain my suggestion or not?"

"Most certainly not!" retorted W. M. P. With the shadow of a sneer. 

"Then I will bid you good-day, " said Mr. Tutt, taking his hat from thewindow ledge and turning to the door. "And--you young whippersnapper, "he added when once it had closed behind him and he had turned to shakehis lean old fist at the place where W. M. P. Presumably was stillsitting, "I'll show you how to treat a reputable member of the bar oldenough to be your grandfather! I'll take the starch out of your darnedPuritan collar! I'll harry you and fluster you and heckle you and make afool of you, and I'll roll you up in a ball and blow you out the window, and turn old Hassoun loose for an Egyptian holiday that will make oldRome look like thirty piasters! You pinheaded, pretentious, pompous, egotistical, niminy-piminy--"

"Well, well, Mr. Tutt, what's the matter?" inquired Peckham, laying hishand on the old lawyer's shoulder. "What's Peppy been doing to you?"

"It isn't what he's been doing to me; it's what I'm going to do to him!"returned Mr. Tutt grimly. "Just wait and see!"

"Go to it!" laughed the D. A. "Eat him alive! We're throwing him to thelions!"

"No decent lion would want him!" retorted Mr. Tutt. "He might maul him alittle, but I won't. I'm just going to give him a full opportunity totest his little proposition that the institutions of these jolly oldUnited States are perfectly adapted to settle quarrels among all thepolyglot prevaricators of the world and administer justice among peoplewho are still in a barbarous or at least in a patriarchal state. He'syoung, and he don't understand that a New York merchant is entirely tooconscientious to find a man guilty on testimony that he would discountheavily in his own business. "

"Go as far as you like, " laughed Peckham. 

"Oh, I'm only going as far as Bagdad, " answered Mr. Tutt. 

Deputy Assistant District Attorney Pepperill complacently set about thepreparation of his case, utterly unconscious of the dangers with whichhis legal path was beset. As he sat at his shiny oaken desk and pressedthe button that summoned the stenographer it seemed to him the simplestthing in the world to satisfy any jury of what had taken place and thesummit of impudent audacity on the part of Mr. Tutt to have suggestedthat Hassoun should be dealt with otherwise than a first-degreemurderer. And it should be added parenthetically that W. M. P. , in spiteof his New England temperament, had a burning ambition to send somebodyto the electric chair. 

In truth, on its face the story as related by Fajala Mokarzel and theother friends of Sardi Babu the deceased pillow-sham vender wassimplicity itself. Besides Sardi Babu and Mokarzel there had been NicolaAbbu, the confectioner; Menheem Shikrie, the ice-cream vendor; HabuKahoots, the showman; and David Elias, a pedler. All six of them, asthey claimed, had been sitting peacefully in Ghabryel & Assad'srestaurant, eating _kibbah arnabeiah_ and _mamoul_. Sardi had ordered_sheesh kabab_. It was about nine o'clock in the evening, and they weretalking politics and drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes. 

Suddenly Kasheed Hassoun, accompanied by a smaller and much darker man, had entered and striding up to the table exclaimed in a threateningmanner: "Where is he who did say that he would spit upon the beard of mybishop?"

Thereupon Sardi Babu had risen and answered: "Behold, I am he. "

Immediately Kasheed Hassoun, and while his accomplice held them at baywith a revolver, had leaned across the table and grabbing Sardi by thethroat had broken his neck. Then the smaller man had fired off hispistol and both of them had run away. The simplest story ever told. There was everything the law required to send any murderer to the chair, and little Mr. Pepperill had a diagram made of the inside of therestaurant and a photograph of the outside of it, and stamped theindictment in purple ink: Ready for Trial. 

Contemporaneously Mr. Tutt was giving his final instructions to Mr. Bonnie Doon, his stage manager, director of rehearsals and generalsuperintendent of arrangements in all cases requiring an extra-artistictouch. 

"It's too bad we can't cart a few hundred cubic feet of the Sahara intothe court room and divert the Nile down Center Street, but I guess youcan produce sufficient atmosphere, " he said. 

"I could all right--if I had a camel, " remarked Bonnie. 

"Atmosphere is necessary, " continued Mr. Tutt. "Real atmosphere! Have'em in native costume--beads, red slippers, hookahs, hoochi-koochis. "

"I get you, " replied Mr. Doon. "You want a regular Turkish village. Well, we'll have it all right. I'll engage the entire Streets of Cairoproduction from Coney and have Franklin Street crowded with goats, assesand dromedaries. I might even have a caravan pitch its tents alongsidethe Tombs. "

"You can't lay it on too strong, " declared Mr. Tutt. "But you don't needto go off Washington Street. And, Bonnie, remember--I want every blessedTurk, Greek, Armenian, Jew, Arab, Egyptian and Syrian that saw SardiBabu kill Kasheed Hassoun. "

"You mean who saw Kasheed Hassoun kill Sardi Babu, " corrected Bonnie. 

"Well--whichever way it was, " agreed Mr. Tutt. 

When at length the great day of the trial arrived Judge Wetherell, ascending the bench in Part Thirteen, was immediately conscious of asubtle Oriental smell that emanated from no one could say where, butwhich none the less permeated the entire court room. It seemed to be acurious compound of incense, cabbage, garlic and eau de cologne, with asuggestion of camel. The room was entirely filled with Syrians. One rowof benches was occupied by a solemn group of white-bearded patriarchswho looked as if they had momentarily paused on a pilgrimage to Mecca. All over the room rose the murmur of purring Arabic. The stenographerwas examining a copy of Meraat-ul-Gharb, the clerk a copy of El Zeman, and in front of the judge's chair had been laid a copy of Al-Hoda. 

His honor gave a single sniff, cast his eye over the picturesque throng, and said: "Pst! Captain! Open that window!" Then he picked up thecalendar and read: "'People versus Kasheed Hassoun--Murder. '"

The stenographer was humming to himself:

 _Bagdad is a town in Turkey On a camel tall and jerky_. 

"Are both sides ready to try this case?" inquired Judge Wetherell, choking a yawn. He was a very stout judge and he could not help yawning. 

Deputy Assistant District Attorney Pepperill and Mr. Tutt rose inunison, declaring that they were. At or about this same moment thesmall door in the rear of the room opened and an officer appeared, leading in Kasheed Hassoun. He was an imposing man, over six feet inheight, of dignified carriage, serious mien, and finely chiseledfeatures. Though he was dressed as a European there was neverthelesssomething indefinably suggestive of the East in the cut of his clothes;he wore no waistcoat and round his waist was wound a strip of crimsoncloth. His black eyes glinted through lowering brows, wildly, almostfiercely, and he strode haughtily beside his guard like some unbrokenstallion of the desert. 

"Well, you may as well proceed to select a jury, " directed the court, putting on his glasses and studying his copy of Al-Hoda with interest. Presently he beckoned to Pepperill. 

"Have you seen this?" he asked. 

"No, Your Honor. What is it?"

"It's a newspaper published by these people, " explained His Honor. "Rather amusing, isn't it?"

"I didn't know they had any special newspaper of their own, " admittedPepperill. 

"They've got eight right in New York, " interjected the stenographer. 

"I notice that this paper is largely composed of advertisements, "commented Wetherell. "But the advertisers are apparently scattered allover the world--Chicago; Pittsburgh; Canton; Winnipeg; Albuquerque;Brooklyn; Tripoli; Greenville, Texas; Pueblo; Lawrence, Massachusetts;Providence, Rhode Island; Fall River; Detroit--"

"Here's one from Roxbury, Massachusetts, and another from Mexico City, "remarked the clerk delightedly. 

"And here's one from Paris, France, " added the stenographer. "Say! Sometravelers!"

"Well, go on getting the jury, " said the judge, yawning again andhanding the paper to the clerk. 

At that moment Mr. Salim Zahoul, the interpreter procured by Mr. Pepperill, approached, bowed and, twisting his purple mustache, addressed the court: "Your Excellence: I haf to zay dat dees papaire eethaf articles on zis affair--ze _memkaha_--zat are not diplomatique. "

Judge Wetherell blinked at him. 

"Who's this man?" he demanded. 

"That's the interpreter, " explained W. M. P. 

"Interpreter!" answered the court. "I can't understand a word he says!"

"He was the best I could get, " apologized Pepperill, while thecountenance of Mr. Zahoul blazed with wrath and humiliation. "It's verydifficult to get a fluent interpreter in Arabic. "

"Well, just interpret what _he_ says to _me_, will you?" kindlyrequested His Honor. 

"I zay, " suddenly exploded Zahoul--"dees papaire eet half contemptuousarticle on ze _menkaha_ zat dees Kasheed Hassoun not kill dees SardiBabu!"

"He says, " translated Pepperill, "that the newspaper contains anindiscreet article in favor of the defense. I had no idea there would beany improper attempt to influence the jury. "

"What difference does it make, anyway?" inquired His Honor. "You don'texpect any juryman is going to read that thing, do you? Why, it looks asif a bumblebee had fallen into an ink bottle and then had a fit allover the front page. "

"I don't suppose--" began Pepperill. 

"Go on and get your jury!" admonished the court. 

So the lion and the lamb in the shape of Mr. Tutt and Pepperillproceeded to select twelve gentlemen to pass upon the issue who hadnever been nearer to Syria than the Boardwalk at Atlantic City and whoonly with the utmost attention could make head or tail of what Mr. SalimZahoul averred that the witnesses were trying to say. Moreover, most ofthe talesmen evinced a profound distrust of their own ability to dojustice between the People and the defendant and a curious desire to berelieved from service. However, at last the dozen had been chosen andsworn, the congestion of the court room slightly relieved, Mr. Zahoulsomewhat appeased, and Mr. William Montague Pepperill rose to outlinehis very simple case to the jury. 

There was, he explained, no more difficulty in administering justice inthe case of a foreigner than of anyone else. All were equal in the eyesof the law--equally presumed to be innocent, equally responsible whenproved guilty. And he would prove Kasheed Hassoun absolutelyguilty--guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, beyond any doubt. He wouldproduce five--five reputable witnesses who would swear that Hassoun hadmurdered Sardi Babu; and he prophesied that he would unhesitatinglydemand at the end of the trial such an unequivocal, fearless, honestexpression of their collective opinion as would permanently fix Mr. Kasheed Hassoun so that he could do no more harm. He expressed it moreelegantly but that was the gist of it. He himself was as sincere andhonest in his belief in his ability to establish the truth of his claimas he was in the justice of his cause. Alas, he was far too young torealize that there is a vast difference between knowing the truth andbeing able to demonstrate what it is!

In proper order he called the photographer who had taken the picture ofthe restaurant, the draftsman who had made the diagram of the interior, the policeman who had arrested Hassoun, the doctor who had performed theofficial autopsy upon the unfortunate Babu, and the five Syrians who hadbeen present when the crime was perpetrated. Each swore by all that washoly that Kasheed Hassoun had done exactly as outlined by AssistantDistrict Attorney Pepperill--and swore it word for word, _verbatim etliteratim, in iisdem verbis, sic_, and yet again exactly. Theirtestimony mortised and tenoned in a way to rejoice a cabinet-maker'sheart. And at first to the surprise and later to the dismay of Mr. Pepperill, old man Tutt asked not one of them a single question aboutthe murder. Instead he merely inquired in a casual way where they camefrom, how they got there, what they did for a living, and whether theyhad ever made any contradictory statement as to what had occurred, andas his cross-examination of Mr. Habu Kahoots was typical of all the restit may perhaps be set forth as an example, particularly as Mr. Kahootsspoke English, which the others did not. 

"And den, " asserted Mr. Kahoots stolidly, "Kasheed Hassoun, he grab heemby ze troat and break hees neck. "

He was a short, barrel-shaped man with curly ringlets, fat, bulgingcheeks, heavy double chin and enormous paunch, and he wore a greenworsted waistcoat and his fingers were laden with golden rings. 

"Ah!" said Mr. Tutt complaisantly. "You saw all that exactly as you havedescribed it?"

"Yes, sair!"

"Where were you born?"

"Acre, Syria. "

"How long have you been in the United States?"

"Tirty years. "

"Where do you live?"

"Augusta, Georgia. "

"What's your business?"

Mr. Kahoots visibly expanded. 

"I have street fair and carnival of my own. I have electric theater, oldplantation, Oriental show, snake exhibit and merry-go-round. "

"Well, well!" exclaimed Mr. Tutt. "You are certainly a capitalist! Ihope you are not financially overextended!"

Mr. Pepperill looked pained, not knowing just how to prevent suchjocoseness on the part of his adversary. 

"I object, " he muttered feebly. 

"Quite properly!" agreed Mr. Tutt. "Now, Mr. Kahoots, are you a citizenof the United States?"

Mr. Kahoots looked aggrieved. 

"Me? No! Me no citizen. I go back sometime Acre and build moving-picturegarden and ice-cream palace. "

"I thought so, " commented Mr. Tutt. "Now what, pray, were you doing inthe Washington Street restaurant?"

"Eating _kibbah arnabeiah_ and _mamoul_. "

"I mean if you live in Augusta how did you happen to be in New York atprecisely that time?"

"Eh?"

"How you come in New York?" translated Mr. Tutt, while the jury laughed. 

"Just come. "

"But why?"

"Just come. "

"Yes, yes; but you didn't come on just to be present at the murder, didyou?"

Kahoots grinned. 

"I just come to walk up and down. "

"Where--walk up and down?"

"On Washington Street. I spend the winter. I do nothing. I rich man. "

"How long did you stay when you just came on?"

"Tree days. Then I go back. "

"Why did you go back?"

"I dunno. Just go back. "

Mr. Tutt sighed. The jury gave signs of impatience. 

"Look here!" he demanded. "How many times have you gone over your storywith the district attorney?"

"Nevvair. "

"What?"

"I nevvair see heem. "

"Never see whom?"

"Dees man--judge. "

"I'm not talking about the judge. "

"I nevvair see no one. "

"Didn't you tell the Grand Jury that Hassoun stabbed Babu with a longknife?"

"I dunno heem!"

"Who?"

"Gran' Jury. "

"Didn't you go into a big room and put your hand on a book and swear?"

"I no swear--ever!"

"And tell what you saw?"

"I tell what I saw. "

"What did you see?"

"I saw Hassoun break heem hees neck. "

"Didn't you say first that Hassoun stabbed Babu?"

"No--nevvair!"

"Then didn't you come back and say he shot him?"

"No--nevvair!"

"And finally, didn't you say he strangled him--after you had heard thatthe coroner's physician had decided that that was how he was killed?"

"Yes--he break heem hees neck. "

Mr. Kahoots was apparently very much bored, but he was not bored inquite the same way as the judge, who, suddenly rousing himself, askedMr. Tutt if he had any basis for asking such questions. 

"Why, certainly, " answered the old lawyer quietly. "I shall prove thatthis witness made three absolutely contradictory statements before theGrand Jury. "

"Is that so, Mister District Attorney?"

"I don't know, " replied Pepperill faintly. "I had nothing to do with theproceedings before the Grand Jury. "

Judge Wetherell frowned. 

"It would seem to me, " he began, "as if a proper preparation of the casewould have involved some slight attention to--Well, never mind! Proceed, Mr. Tutt. "

"Kahoots!" cried the lawyer sternly. "Isn't it a fact that you havebeen convicted of crime yourself?"

The proprietor of the merry-go-round drew himself up indignantly. 

"Me? No!"

"Weren't you convicted of assault on a man named Rafoul Rabyaz?"

"Me? Look here, sir! I tell you 'bout dat! This Rafoul Rabyaz he mypartner, see, in pool, billiard and cigar business on Greenwich Street. This long time ago. Years ago. We split up. I sell heem my shares, see. I open next door--pool table, café and all. But I not get full half thestock. I not get the tablecloth, see. I was of the tablecloth you knowshort. It don't be there. I go back there that time. I see heem. I say, 'We don't count those tablecloth. ' He say, 'Yes. ' I say, 'No. ' Hesay, 'Yes. ' I say 'No. ' He say, 'Yes. ' I say, 'No'--"

"For heaven's sake, " exclaimed Judge Wetherell, "don't say that again!"

"Yes, sair, " agreed the showman. "All right. I say, 'No. ' I say, 'Youlook in the book. ' He say, 'No. ' We each take hold of the cloth. I havea knife. I cut cloth in two. I give heem half. I take half. I say, 'Youtake half; I take half. ' He say, 'Go to hell!'"

He waved his hand definitively. 

"Well?" inquired Mr. Tutt anxiously. 

"Dat's all!" answered Mr. Kahoots. 

One of the jurymen suddenly coughed and thrust his handkerchief into hismouth. 

"Then you stuck your knife into him, didn't you?" suggested Mr. Tutt. 

"Me? No!"

Mr. Tutt shrugged his shoulders and pursed his lips. 

"You were convicted, weren't you?"

"I call twenty witness!" announced Mr. Kahoots with a grand air. 

"You don't need to!" retorted Mr. Tutt. "Now tell us why you had toleave Syria?"

"I go in camel business at Coney Island, " answered the witness demurely. 

"What!" shouted the lawyer. "Didn't you run away from home because youwere convicted of the murder of Fatima, the daughter of Abbas?"

"Me? No!" Mr. Kahoots looked shocked. 

Mr. Tutt bent over and spoke to Bonnie Doon, who produced from a leatherbag a formidable document on parchment-like paper covered withinscriptions in Arabic and adorned with seals and ribbons. 

"I have here, Your Honor, " said he, "the record of this man's convictionin the Criminal Court in Beirut, properly exemplified by our consuls andthe embassy at Constantinople. I have had it translated, but if Mr. Pepperill prefers to have the interpreter read it--"

"Show it to the district attorney!" directed His Honor. 

Pepperill looked at it helplessly. 

"You may read your own translation, " said the court drowsily. 

Mr. Tutt bowed, took up the paper and faced the jury. 

"This is the official record, " he announced. "I will read it. 

"'In the name of God. 

"'On a charge of the murder of the gendarmes Nejib Telhoon andAbdurrahman and Ibrahim Aisha and Fatima, daughter of Hason Abbas, ofthe attack on certain nomads, of having fired on them with the intent ofmurder, of participation and assistance in the act of murder, of havingshot on the regular troops, of assisting in the escape of some offendersand of having drawn arms on the regular troops, during an uprising onSunday, January 24, 1303--Mohammedan style--between the inhabitants ofthe Mezreatil-Arab quarter in Beirut and the nomads who had pitchedtheir tents near by, the following arrested persons, namely--Metri sonof Habib Eljemal and Habib son of Mikael Nakash and Hanna son ofAbdallah Elbaitar and Elias Esad Shihada and Tanous son of Jerji Khedrand Habib son of Aboud Shab and Elias son of Metri Nasir and Khalil sonof Mansour Maoud and Nakhle son of Elias Elhaj and Nakhle son of BerkatMinari and Antoon son of Berkat Minari and Lutfallah son ofJerji-Kefouri and Jabran Habib Bishara and Kholil son of Lutf Dahir andNakhle Yousif Eldefoumi, all residents of the said quarter and Turkishsubjects, and their companions, sixty-five fugitives, namely--IsbirBedoon son of Abdallah Zerik and Elias son of Kanan Zerik and Amin Matarand Jerji Ferhan alias Baldelibas and Habu son of Hanna Kahoots and--'"

Deputy Assistant District Attorney Pepperill started doubtfully to hisfeet. 

"If the court please, " he murmured in a sickly voice, "I object. In thefirst place I don't know anything about this record--and I object to iton that ground; and in the second place a trial and conviction in theabsence of a defendant under our law is no conviction at all. "

"But this man is a Turkish subject and it's a good conviction inTurkey, " argued Mr. Tutt. 

"Well, it isn't here!" protested Pepperill. 

"You're a little late, aren't you?" inquired His Honor. "It has all beenread to the jury. However, I'll entertain a motion to strike out--"

"I should like to be heard on the question, " said Mr. Tutt quickly. "This is an important matter. "

Unexpectedly a disgruntled-looking talesman in the back row held up hishand. 

"I'd like to ask a question myself, " he announced defiantly, almostarrogantly, after the manner of one with a grievance. "I'm ahard-working business man. I've been dragged here against my will toserve on this jury and decide if this defendant murdered somebody orother. I don't see what difference it makes whether or not this witnesscut a tablecloth in two or murdered Fatima, the daughter of What's hisName. I want to go home--sometime. If it is in order I'd like to suggestthat we get along. "

Judge Wetherell started and peered with a puzzled air at this boldshatterer of established procedure. 

"Mister Juryman, " said he severely, "these matters relate directly tothe credibility of the witness. They are quite proper. I--I--am--surprised--"

"But, Your Honor, " expostulated the iconoclast upon the back row, "Iguess nobody is going to waste much time over this Turkish snakecharmer! Ain't there a policeman or somebody we can believe who saw whathappened?"

"Bang!" went the judicial gavel. 

"The juryman will please be silent!" shouted Judge Wetherell. "This isentirely out of order!" Then he quickly covered his face with hishandkerchief. "Proceed!" he directed in a muffled tone. 

"Where were we?" asked Mr. Tutt dreamily. 

"Fatima, the daughter of Abbas, " assisted the foreman, sotto voce. 

"And I objected to Fatima, the daughter of Abbas!" snapped Pepperill. 

"Well, well!" conceded Mr. Tutt. "She's dead, poor thing! Let her be. That is all, Mr. Kahoots. "

It is difficult to describe the intense excitement these digressionsfrom the direct testimony occasioned among the audience. The referenceto the billiard-table cover and the murder of the unfortunate Fatimaapparently roused long-smoldering fires. A group of Syrians by thewindow broke into an unexpected altercation, which had to be quelled bya court officer, and when quiet was restored the jury seemed butslightly attentive to the precisely similar yarns of Nicola Abbu, Menheem Shikrie, Fajal Mokarzel and David Elias, especially as theminutes of the Grand Jury showed that they had sworn to three entirelydifferent sets of facts regarding the cause of Babu's death. Yet whenthe People rested it remained true that five witnesses, whatever thejury may have thought of them, had testified that Hassoun strangledSardi Babu. The jury turned expectantly to Mr. Tutt to hear what he hadto say. 

"Gentlemen, " he said quietly, "the defense is very simple. None of thewitnesses who have appeared here was in fact present at the scene of thehomicide at all. I shall call some ten or twelve reputable Syriancitizens who will prove to you that Kasheed Hassoun, my client, with alarge party of friends was sitting quietly in the restaurant when SardiBabu came in with a revolver in his hand, which he fired at Hassoun, andthat then, and only then, a small dark man whose identity cannot beestablished--evidently a stranger--seized Babu before he could fireagain, and killed him--in self-defense. "

Mr. William Montague Pepperill's jaw dropped as if he had seen the ghostof one of his colonial ancestors. He could not believe that he had heardMr. Tutt correctly. Why, the old lawyer had the thing completely turnedround! Sardi Babu hadn't gone to the restaurant. He had been in therestaurant, and it had been Kasheed Hassoun who had gone there. 

Yet, one by one, placidly, imperturbably, the dozen witnesses foretoldby Mr. Tutt, and gathered in by Bonnie Doon, marched to the chair andswore upon the Holy Bible that it was even as Mr. Tutt had said, andthat no such persons as Mokarzel, Kahoots, Abbu, Shikrie and Elias hadbeen in the restaurant at any time that evening, but on the contrarythat they, the friends of Hassoun, had been there eating Turkish pie--afew might have had mashed beans with _taheenak_--when Sardi Babu, apparently with suicidal intent, entered alone to take vengeance uponthe camel owner. 

"That is all. That is our case, " said Mr. Tutt as the last Syrian leftthe stand. 

But there was no response from the bench. Judge Wetherell had beendozing peacefully for several hours. Even Pepperill could not avoid adecorous smile. Then the clerk pulled out the copy of Al-Hoda andrustled it, and His Honor, who had been dreaming that he was ridingthrough the narrow streets of Bagdad upon a jerky white dromedary sotall that he could peek through the latticed balconies at the plump, black-eyed odalisques within the harems, slowly came back from Turkey toNew York. 

"Gentlemen of the jury, " said he, pulling himself together, "thedefendant here is charged by the Grand Jury with having murdered Fatimathe daughter of Abbas--I beg your pardon! I mean--who was it?--one SardiBabu. I will first define to you the degrees of homicide--"

 * * * * *

One day three months later, after Kasheed Hassoun had been twice triedupon the same testimony and the jury had disagreed--six to six, eachtime--Mr. Tutt, who had overstayed his lunch hour at the office, put onhis stovepipe hat and strolled along Washington Street, looking for aplace to pick up a bite to eat. It was in the middle of the afternoonand most of the stores were empty, which was all the more to his liking. He had always wanted to try some of that Turkish pie that they had alltalked so much about at the trial. Presently a familiar juxtaposition ofnames caught his eye--Ghabryel & Assad. The very restaurant which hadbeen the scene of the crime! Curiously, he turned in there. Like all theother places it was deserted, but at the sound of his footsteps a littleSyrian boy not more than ten years old came from behind the screen atthe end of the room and stood bashfully awaiting his order. 

Mr. Tutt smiled one of his genial weather-beaten smiles at the youngsterand glancing idly over the bill of fare ordered _biklama_ and coffee. Then he lit a stogy and stretched his long legs comfortably out underthe narrow table. Yes, this was the very spot where either Sardi Babuand his friends had been sitting the night of the murder or KasheedHassoun and his friends--one or the other; he wondered if anybody wouldever know which. Was it possible that in this humdrum little place humanpassions had been roused to the taking of life on account of some meredifference in religious dogma? Was this New York? Was it possible toAmericanize these people? A door clattered in the rear, and from behindthe screen again emerged the boy carrying a tray of pastry and coffee. 

"Well, my little man, " said Mr. Tutt, "do you work here?"

"Oh, yes, " answered the embryonic citizen. "My father, he owns half thestore. I go to school every day, but I work here afterward. I got aprize last week. "

"What sort of a prize?"

"I got the English prize. "

The lawyer took the child's hand and pulled him over between his knees. He was an attractive lad, clean, responsive, frank, and his eyes lookedstraight into Mr. Tutt's. 

"Sonny, " he inquired his new friend, "are you an American?"

"Me? Sure! You bet I'm an American! The old folks--no! You couldn'tchange 'em in fifty years. They're just what they always were. Theydon't want anything different. They think they're in Syria yet. Butme--say, what do you think? Of course I'm an American!"

"That's right!" answered Mr. Tutt, offering him a piece of pastry. "Andwhat is your name?"

"George Nasheen Assad, " answered the boy, showing a set of white teeth. 

"Well, George, " continued the attorney, "what has become of KasheedHassoun?"

"Oh, he's down at Coney Island. He runs a caravan. He has six camels. Igo there sometimes and he lets me ride for nothing. I know who you are, "said the little Syrian confidently, as he took the cake. "You're thegreat lawyer who defended Kasheed Hassoun. "

"That's right. How did you know that, now?"

"I was to the trial. "

"Do you think he ought to have been let off?" asked Mr. Tuttwhimsically. 

"I don't know, " returned the child. "I guess you did right not to callme as a witness. "

Mr. Tutt wrinkled his brows. 

"Eh? What? You weren't a witness, were you?"

"Of course I was!" laughed George. "I was here behind the screen. I sawthe whole thing. I saw Kasheed Hassoun come in and speak to Sardi Babu, and I saw Sardi draw his revolver, and I saw Kasheed tear it out of hishand and strangle him. "

Mr. Tutt turned cold. 

"You saw that?" he challenged. 

"Sure. "

"How many other people were there in the restaurant?" inquired Mr. Tutt. 

"Nobody at all, " answered George in a matter-of-fact tone. "Only Kasheedand Sardi. Nobody else was in the restaurant. "

Contempt of Court

 The court can't determine what is honor. --Chief Baron Bowes, 1743. 

 I know what my code of honor is, my lord, and I intend to adhere to it. --John O'Conner, M. P. , in Parnell Commission's Proceedings, 103d Day; Times Rep. Pt. 28, pp. 19 _ff_. 

 Well, honor is the subject of my story. --Julius Caesar, Act I, Sc 2. 

"What has become of Katie--the second waitress?" asked Miss AltheaBeekman of Dawkins, her housekeeper, as she sat at her satinwood deskafter breakfast. "I didn't see her either last night or this morning. "

Dawkins, who was a mid-Victorian, flushed awkwardly. 

"I really had to let the girl go, ma'am!" she explained with an outragedair. "I hardly know how to tell you--such a thing in this house! Icouldn't possibly have her round. I was afraid she might corrupt theother girls, ma'am--and they are such a self-respecting lot--almostquite ladylike, ma'am. So I simply paid her and told her to take herselfoff. "

Miss Beekman looked pained. 

"You shouldn't have turned her out into the street like that, Dawkins!"she expostulated. "Where has she gone?"

Dawkins gazed at her large feet in embarrassment. 

"I don't know, ma'am, " she admitted. "I didn't suppose you'd want herhere so I sent her away. It was quite inconvenient, too--with theservant problem what it is. But I'm hoping to get another this afternoonfrom Miss Healey's. "

Miss Beekman was genuinely annoyed. 

"I am seriously displeased with you, Dawkins!" she returned severely. "Of course, I am shocked at any girl in my household misbehavingherself, but--I--wouldn't want her to be sent away--under suchcircumstances. It would be quite heartless. Yes, I am very muchdisturbed!"

"I'm sorry, ma'am, " answered the housekeeper penitently. "But I was onlythinking of the other girls. "

"Well, it's too late to do anything about it now, " repeated hermistress. "But I'm sorry, Dawkins; very sorry, indeed. We haveresponsibilities toward these people! However--this is Thursday, isn'tit?--we'll have veal for lunch as usual--and she was so pretty!" sheadded inconsequently. 

"H'm. That was the trouble!" sniffed the housekeeper. "We're well rid ofher. You'd think a girl would have some consideration for heremployer--if nothing else. In a sense she is a guest in the house andshould behave herself as such!"

"Yes, that is quite true!" agreed her employer. "Still--yes, Brown Bettyis very well for dessert. That will do, Dawkins. "

Behind the curtain of this casual conversation had been enacted amelodrama as intensely vital and elemental as any of Shakespeare'stragedies, for the day Dawkins had fired Katie O'Connell--"for reasons, "as she said--and told her to go back where she came from or anywhere sheliked for that matter, so long as she got out of her sight, Katie'sbrother Shane in the back room of McManus' gin palace gave RedMcGurk--for the same "reasons"--a certain option and, the latter havingscornfully declined to avail himself of it, had then and there put abullet through his neck. But this, naturally, Miss Beekman did not know. 

As may have been already surmised Miss Althea was a gracious, gentle andtender-hearted lady who never knowingly would have done a wrong toanybody and who did not believe that simply because God had been pleasedto call her into a state of life at least three stories higher than herkitchen she was thereby relieved from her duty toward those who occupiedit. Nevertheless, from the altitude of those three stories she viewedthem as essentially different from herself, for she came of what isknown as "a long line of ancestors. " As, however, Katie O'Connell andAlthea Beekman were practically contemporaries, it is somewhat difficultto understand how one of them could have had a succession of ancestorsthat was any longer than that of the other. Indeed, Miss Beekman'sfriend, Prof. Abelard Samothrace, of Columbia University, probably wouldhave admitted that just as the two had lived in the same house--albeitat different levels--on Fifth Avenue, so their forebears at someprehistoric period had, likely as not, occupied the same cave and had incompany waded on frosty mornings the ice-skimmed swamps of Mittel Europain pursuit of the cave bear, the mastodon and the woolly rhinoceros, andfor afternoon relaxation had made up twosomes for hunting wives withstone clubs instead of mashies in their hairy prehensile hands. 

It would seem, therefore, that--whatever of tradition might haveoriginated in the epoch in question--glimmerings of sportsmanship, ofpersonal pride, of tribal duty or of conscience ought to have been thecommon heritage of them both. For it was assuredly true that while MissKatie's historic ancestors had been Celtiberians, clad on occasion onlyin a thin coating of blue paint, Miss Althea's had dwelt in the dankmarshes of the Elbe and had been unmistakably Teutonic, though thiscurse had been largely removed by racial intermarriage during subsequentthousands of years. Indeed, it may well have been that in the dimmerpast some Beekman serf on bended knee had handed a gilded harp to someKing O'Connell on his throne. If the O'Connells were foreigners theBeekmans, from the point of view of the aboriginal American, were noless so simply because they had preceded them by a couple of hundredyears. 

Tradition is not a matter of centuries but of ages. If Katie inheritedsome of hers from the peat bogs adjacent to Tara's Halls in that remoteperiod when there were still snakes in Ireland, Miss Althea hadvicariously acquired others from the fur-clad barbarians described byTacitus who spent their leisure time in drinking, gambling or splittingeach other's skulls with stone mallets. On this subject see Spencer's"Data of Ethics" and Lecky's "History of European Morals. " But all thisentirely escaped Miss Althea, who suffered from the erroneous impressionthat because she was a Beekman and lived in a stone mansion facingCentral Park she differed fundamentally not only from the O'Connells butfrom the Smiths, the Pasquales, the Ivanovitches and the Ginsbergs, allof whom really come of very old families. Upon this supposed differenceshe prided herself. 

Because she was, in fact, mistaken and because the O'Connells sharedwith the Beekmans and the Ginsbergs a tradition reaching back to aperiod when revenge was justice, and custom of kinsfolk the only law, Shane O'Connell had sought out Red McGurk and had sent him unshriven tohis God. The only reason why this everyday Bowery occurrence excited anyparticular attention was not that Shane was an O'Connell but that McGurkwas the son of a political boss of much influence and himself one of theleaders of a notorious cohort of young ruffians who when necessary couldbe relied upon to stuff a ballot box or otherwise to influence publicopinion. As Red was a mighty man in Gideon, so his taking off was anevent of moment, and he was waked with an elegance unsurpassed in theannals of Cherry Hill. 

"An' if ye don't put the son-of-a----- who kilt me b'y in th' chair, yename's mud--see?" the elder McGurk had informed District AttorneyPeckham the next morning. "I've told the cops who done it. Now you dothe rest--understand?"

Peckham understood very well. No one seeing the expression on McGurk'spurple countenance could have failed to do so. 

"We'll get him! Don't you worry!" Peckham had assured the desolatedfather with a manner subtly suggesting both the profoundest sympathy andthe prophetic glories of a juridical revenge in which the name of McGurkwould be upon every lip and the picture of the deceased, his family, andthe home in which they dwelt would be featured on the front page ofevery journal. "We'll get him, all right!"

"See to it that ye do!" commented his visitor meaningly. 

Therefore, though no one had seen him commit the crime, word was passedalong the line to pick up Shane O'Connell for the murder of Red McGurk. It mattered not there was no evidence except the report of a mutteredthreat or two and the lie passed openly the week before. 

Everybody knew that Shane had done it, and why; though no one could tellhow he knew it. And because everybody knew, it became a politicalnecessity for Peckham to put him under arrest with a great fanfare oftrumpets and a grandiose announcement of the celerity with which thecurrent would be turned through his body. 

The only fly in the ointment was the fact that O'Connell had walked intothe district attorney's office as soon as the rumor reached him andquietly submitted to being arrested, saying merely: "I heard you wantedme. Well, here I am!"

But though they badgered him for hours, lured him by every pretext toconfess, put a stool pigeon in the same cell with him, and resorted toevery trick, device and expedient known to the prosecutor's office totrap him into some sort of an admission, they got nothing for theirpains. It was just one of those cases where the evidence simply wasn'tforthcoming. And yet Peckham was aware that unless he convictedO'Connell his name would indeed be mud--or worse. This story, however, is concerned less with the family honor of the O'Connells than with thatof the Beekmans. 

Miss Althea was the last surviving member of her branch of the family. Though she would probably have regarded it as slightly vulgar to havebeen referred to as "one hundred per cent American" she was so nearlyso--except for a reminiscent affection for "the late dear Queen"--thatthe phrase in her case would have been substantially correct. Her motherhad been the daughter of a distinguished Revolutionary statesman who hadbeen a signer of the Declaration of Independence, an ambassador andjustice of the Supreme Court as well; her father a celebrated newspapereditor. 

She had been born in the Prue and I period in Gramercy Park near what isnow The Players' Club, and the old colonial house with its whitetrimmings and ornamental ironwork had been the scene of many a modestgayety at a time when Emerson, Lowell, and George William Curtis wereviewed less as citizens than as high priests of Culture, sharing equallyin sanctity with the goddess thereof. She could just remember thosebenign old gentlemen, as well as the many veterans of the Civil War whodined at her father's decorous mahogany and talked of the preservationof the Constitution and those other institutions to found which it isgenerally assumed the first settlers landed on the Atlantic seaboard andself-sacrificingly accepted real estate from the wily native in returnfor whisky and glass beads. She was forty-seven years of age, a ColonialDame, a Daughter of the American Revolution, a member of the board ofdirectors of several charitable institutions, and she was worth a coupleof million dollars in railroad securities. On Sundays she alwaysattended the church in Stuyvesant Square frequented by her family, andas late as 1907 did so in the famous Beekman C-spring victoria drivenby an aged negro coachman. 

But besides being full of rectitude and good works--which of themselvesso often fail of attraction--Miss Althea was possessed of a face socharming even in its slightly faded prettiness that one wondered how itwas possible that she could successfully have withstood the suitors whomust have crowded about her. Her house on Fifth Avenue was full of oldengravings of American patriots, and the library inherited from hereditorial parent was replete with volumes upon subjects which would havefilled a Bolshevik with disgust. Briefly, if ever Trotzky had becomeCommissar of the Soviet of Manhattan, Miss Althea and those like herwould have been the first candidates for a drumhead court-martial. 

She prided herself equally upon her adherence to religious principle andthe Acts of Congress. For the law, merely as law, she had theprofoundest veneration, viewing the heterogeneous statutes passed fromtime to time by desultory legislators much as if they had in somemysterious way been handed down from Mount Sinai along with the TenCommandments. 

For any violator of the law she had the uttermost abhorrence, and theonly weakness in her ethics arose out of her failure to discriminatebetween relative importances, for she undoubtedly regarded the sale of aglass of beer after the closing hour as being quite as reprehensible asgrand larceny or the bearing of false witness. To her every judge mustbe a learned, wise and honorable man because he stood for theenforcement of the law of the land, and she never questioned whether ornot that law was wise or otherwise, which latter often--it must beconfessed--it was not. 

In a word, though there was nothing progressive about Miss Althea shewas one of those delightful, cultivated, loyal and enthusiastic femalecitizens who are rightfully regarded as vertebrae in the backbone of acountry which, after it has got its back up, can undoubtedly lick anyother nation on earth. It was characteristic of her that carefullyfolded inside the will drawn for her by her family solicitor was a slipof paper addressed to her heirs and next of kin requesting that at herfuneral the national anthem should be played and that her coffin shouldbe draped with the American flag. 

But there was a somewhat curious if not uncommon inconsistency in MissBeekman's attitude toward lawbreakers in that once they were in prisonthey instantly became objects of her gentlest solicitude. Thus she was afrequent visitor at the Tombs, where she brought spiritual, and moreoften, it must be frankly admitted, bodily comfort to those of theinmates who were recommended by the district attorney and prisonauthorities as worthy of her attention; and Prosecutor Peckham being notunmindful of the possible political advantage that might accrue frombeing on friendly terms with so well-known a member of the distinguishedfamily of Beekman, lost no opportunity to ingratiate himself with herand gave orders, to his subordinates to make her path as easy aspossible. Thus quite naturally she had heard of Tutt & Tutt, and had acasual acquaintance with the senior partner himself. 

"That O'Connell is a regular clam--won't tell me anything at all!"remarked Mr. Tutt severely, hanging up his hat on the office tree withone hand while he felt for a match in his waistcoat pocket with theother, upon the afternoon of the day that Miss Beekman had had theconversation with Dawkins with which this story opens. 

"National temperament, " answered Bonnie Doon, producing the desiredmatch. "It's just like an Irishman to refuse point-blank to talk to thelawyer who has been assigned to defend him. He's probably afraid he'llmake some admission from which you will infer he's guilty. No Irishmanever yet admitted that he was guilty of anything!"

"Well, I've never met a defendant of any other nationality who would, either, " replied Mr. Tutt, pulling vigorously at his stogy. "Even so, this chap O'Connell is a puzzle to me. 'Go ahead and defend me, ' said hetoday, 'but don't ask me to talk about the case, because I won't. ' Igive it up. He wouldn't even tell me where he was on the day of themurder. "

Bonnie grunted dubiously. 

"There may be a very good reason for that!" he retorted. "If what rumorsays is true he simply hunted for McGurk until he found him and put alead pellet back of his ear. "

"And also, if what rumor says is true, " supplemented Tutt, who enteredat this moment, "a good job it was, too. McGurk was a treacherous, dirtyblackguard, the leader of a gang of criminals, even if he was, as theyall agree, a handsome rascal who had every woman in the district ontenterhooks. Any girl in this case?"

Bonnie shrugged his shoulders. 

"They claim so; only there's nothing definite. The O'Connells are wellspoken of. "

"If there was, that would explain why he wouldn't talk, " commented Mr. Tutt. "That's the devil of it. You can't put in a defense under theunwritten law without besmirching the very reputation you are trying toprotect. "

The senior partner of Tutt & Tutt wheeled his swivel chair to the windowand crossing his congress boots upon the sill gazed contemplatively downupon the shipping. 

"Unwritten law!" sarcastically exclaimed Tutt from the doorway. "Thereain't no such animal in these parts!"

"You're quite wrong!" retorted his elder partner. "Most of ourlaw--ninety-nine per cent of it, in fact--is unwritten. "

"Excuse me!" interjected Bonnie Doon, abandoning his usual flippancy. "What is that you said, Mr. Tutt?"

"That ninety-nine per cent of the laws by which we are governed areunwritten laws, just as binding as the printed ones upon our statutebooks, which after all are only the crystallization of the sentimentsand opinions of the community based upon its traditions, manners, customs and religious beliefs. For every statute in print there are ahundred that have no tangible existence, based on our sense of decency, of duty and of honor, which are equally controlling and which it hasnever been found necessary to reduce to writing, since their infractionusually brings its own penalty or infringes the more delicate domain ofprivate conscience where the crude processes of the criminal law cannotfollow. The laws of etiquette and fair play are just as obligatory aslegislative enactments--the Ten Commandments as efficacious as the PenalCode. "

"Don't you agree with that, Tutt?" demanded Bonnie. "Every man'sconscience is his own private unwritten law. "

Tutt looked skeptical. 

"Did you say every man had a conscience?" he inquired. 

"And it makes a lot of trouble sometimes, " continued Mr. Tutt, ignoringhim. "You remember when old Cogswell was on the bench and a man wasbrought before him for breaking his umbrella over the head of a fellowwho had insulted the defendant's wife, he said to the jury: 'Gentlemen, if this plaintiff had called my wife a name like that I'd have smashedmy umbrella over his head pretty quick. However, that's not the law!Take the case, gentlemen!'"

"Well, I guess I was wrong, " admitted Tutt. "Of course, that isunwritten law. People don't like to punish a man for resenting a slurupon his wife's reputation. "

"But you see where that leads you?" remarked his partner. "The so-calledunwritten law is based on our inherited idea of chivalry. A lady's honorand reputation were sacred, and her knight was prepared instantly todefend it with the last drop of his blood. A reflection on her honestywas almost as unbearable as one upon her virtue. Logically, theunwritten law ought to permit women to break their contracts and dopractically anything they see fit. "

"They do, don't they--the dear things!" sighed Bonnie. 

"I remember, " interjected Tutt brightly, "when it was the unwritten lawof Cook County, Illinois--that's Chicago, you know--that any woman couldkill her husband for the life-insurance money. Seriously!"

"There's no point of chivalry that I can see involved in that--it'smerely good business, " remarked Mr. Doon, lighting another cigarette. "All the same it's obvious that the unwritten law might be stretched along way. It's a great convenience, though, on occasion!"

"We should be in an awful stew if nowadays we substituted ideas ofchivalry for those of justice, " declared Mr. Tutt. "Fortunately thedanger is past. As someone has said, 'The women, once our superiors, have become our equals!'"

"We don't even give 'em our seats in the Subway, " commented Tuttcomplacently. "No, we needn't worry about the return of chivalry--in NewYork at any rate. "

"I should say not!" exclaimed Miss Wiggin, entering at that moment witha pile of papers, as nobody rose. 

"But, " insisted Bonnie, "all the same there are certainly plenty ofcases where if he had to choose between them any man would obey hisconscience rather than the law. "

"Of course, there are such cases, " admitted Mr. Tutt. "But we ought todiscourage the idea as much as possible. "

"Discourage a sense of honor?" exclaimed Miss Wiggin. "Why, Mr. Tutt!"

"It depends on what you mean by honor, " he retorted. "I don't take muchstock in the kind of honor that makes an heir apparent 'perjure himselflike a gentleman' about a card game at a country house. "

"Neither do I, " she returned, "any more than I do in the kind of honorthat compels a man to pay a gambling debt before he pays his tailor, butI do believe that there may be situations where, though it would not bepermissible to perjure oneself, honor would require one to refuse toobey the law. "

"That's a pretty dangerous doctrine, " reflected Mr. Tutt. "For everybodywould be free to make himself the judge of when he ought to respect thelaw and when he oughtn't. We can easily imagine that the law would comeout at the small end of the horn. "

"In matters of conscience--which, I take it, is the same thing as one'ssense of honor--one has got to be one's own judge, " declared Miss Wigginfirmly. 

"The simplest way, " announced Tutt, "is to take the position that thelaw should always be obeyed and that the most honorable man is he whorespects it the most. "

"Yes, the safest and also the most cowardly!" retorted Miss Wiggin. "Supposing the law required you to do something which you personallyregarded not only as morally wrong but detestable, would you do it?"

"It wouldn't!" protested Tutt with a grimace. "The law is the perfectionof reason. "

"But I am entitled, am I not, to suppose, for purposes of argument, thatit might?" she inquired caustically. "And I say that our sense of honoris the most precious thing we've got. It's our duty to respect ourinstitutions and obey the law whether we like it or not, unless itconflicts with our conscience, in which case we ought to defy it andtake the consequences!"

"Dear me!" mocked Tutt. "And be burned at the stake?"

"If necessary; yes!"

"I don't rightly get all this!" remarked Bonnie. "Me for the lee side ofthe law, every time!"

"It's highly theoretical, " commented Tutt. "As usual with ourdiscussions. "

"Not so theoretical as you might think!" interrupted his senior, hastening to reenforce Miss Wiggin. "Nobody can deny that to be true tooneself is the highest principle of human conduct, and that ''tis man'sperdition to be safe when for the truth he ought to die. ' That's why wereverence the early Christian martyrs. But when it comes to choosingbetween what we loosely call honor and what the law requires--"

"But I thought the law embodied our ideas of honor!" replied Tutt. "Didn't you say so--a few hours earlier in this conversation? As ourhighest duty is to the state, it is a mere play on words, in my humbleopinion, to speak of honor as distinguished from law or the obligationof one's oath in a court of justice. I bet I can find plenty ofauthorities to that effect in the library!"

"Of course you can, " countered Miss Wiggin. "You can find an authorityon any side of any proposition you want to look for. That's why one'sown sense of honor is so much more reliable than the law. What is thelaw, anyhow? It's what some judge says is the law--until he's reversed. Do you suppose I'd surrender my own private ideas of honor to a casualruling from a judge who very likely hadn't the remotest idea of what Ithink is honorable?"

"You'll be jailed for contempt before you get through!" Tutt warned her. 

"The fact of the matter is, " concluded Mr. Tutt, "that honor and lawhaven't anything to do with one another. The courts have constantlypointed that out from the earliest days, though judges like, when theycan, to make the two seem one and the same. Chief Baron Bowes, Iremember, said in some case in 1743, 'The court can't determine what ishonor. ' No, no; the two are different, and that difference will alwaysmake trouble. Isn't it nearly tea time?"

 * * * * *

Miss Beekman was just stepping off the elevator on the first floor ofthe Tombs the next afternoon on one of her weekly visits when she cameface to face with Mr. Tutt. 

She greeted him cordially, for she had taken rather a fancy to theshabby old man, drawn to him, in spite of her natural aversion to allmembers of the criminal bar, by the gentle refinement of hisweather-beaten face. "I hope you have had a successful day. "

The lawyer shook his head in a pseudo-melancholy manner. 

"Unfortunately, I have not, " he answered whimsically. "My only clientrefuses to speak to me! Perhaps you could get something out of him forme. "

"Oh, they all talk to me readily enough!" she replied. "I fancy theyknow I'm harmless. What is his name?"

"Shane O'Connell. "

"What is his offense?"

"He is charged with murder. "

"Oh!"

Miss Althea recoiled. Her charitable impulses did not extend todefendants charged with homicide. There was too much notoriety connectedwith them, for one thing; there was nothing she hated so much asnotoriety. 

"Seriously, " he went on with earnestness, "I wish you'd have a word withhim. It's pretty hard to have to defend a man and not to know a thingabout his side of the case. It's almost your duty, don't you think?"

Miss Althea hesitated, and was lost. 

"Very well, " she answered reluctantly, "I'll see what I can do. Perhapshe needs some medicine or letter paper or something. I'll get an orderfrom the warden and go right back and see him. "

Twenty minutes later Shane O'Connell faced Miss Beekman sullenly acrossthe deal table of the counsel room. A ray of late sunshine fell throughthe high grating of the heavily barred window upon a face quitedifferent from those which Miss Althea was accustomed to encounter inthese surroundings, for it showed no touch of depravity or evil habits, and confinement had not yet deprived its cheeks of their rugged mantleof crimson or its eyes of their bold gleam. 

He was little more than a boy, this murderer, as handsome a lad as everswaggered out of County Kerry. 

"An' what may it be that leads you to send for such as me, MissBeekman!" he demanded, glowering at her. 

She felt suddenly unnerved, startled and rather shocked at his use ofher name. Where could he have discovered it? From the keeper, probably, she decided. All her usual composure, her quiet self-possession, heraloof and slightly condescending sweetness--had deserted her. 

"I thought, " she stammered--"I might--possibly--be of help to you. "

"'Tis too late to make up for the harm ye've done!" His coal-black eyesreached into her shrinking body as if to tear out her heart. 

"I!" she gasped. "I--do harm! What do you mean?"

"Did not my sister Katie work for yez?" he asked, and his words leapedand curled about her like hissing flames. "Did you see after her orwatch her comings and goings, as she saw after you--she a mere lass ofsixteen? Arrah! No!"

With a sensation of horror Miss Althea realized that at last she was ina murder case in spite of herself! This lad, the brother of Katie, thewaitress whom she had discharged! How curious! And how unfortunate! Hischarge was preposterous; nevertheless a faint blush stole to her cheekand she looked away. 

"How ridiculous!" she managed to say. "It was no part of my obligationto look after her! How could I?"

His hawk's eyes watched her every tremor. 

"Did ye not lock her out the night of the ball when she went widMcGurk?"

"I--how absurd!"

Suddenly she faltered. An indistinct accusing recollection turned herfaint--of the housekeeper having told her that one of the girls insistedon going to a dance on an evening not hers by arrangement, and how shehad given orders that the house should be closed the same as usual atten o'clock for the night. If the girl couldn't abide by the rules ofthe Beekman ménage she could sleep somewhere else. What of it? Supposingshe had done so? She could not be held responsible for remote, unreasonable and discreditable consequences!

And then by chance Shane O'Connell made use of a phrase that indirectlysaved his life, a phrase curiously like the one used on a formeroccasion by Dawkins to Miss Althea:

"Katie was a member of your household; ye might have had a bit ofthought for her!" he asserted bitterly. 

Dawkins had said: "You'd think a girl would have some consideration forher employer, if nothing else. In a sense she is a guest in the houseand should behave herself as such. "

There was no sense in it! There was no parallel, no analogy. There wasno obligation to treat the girl as a guest, even though the girl shouldhave acted like one. Miss Beekman knew it. And yet there was--something!Didn't she owe some sort of duty at any rate toward those in heremployment--those who slept under her roof?

"'Twould have been better to have been kind to her then than to be kindto me now!" said he with sad conviction. 

The proud Miss Althea Beekman, the dignified descendant of a long lineof ancestors, turned red. Heretofore serenely confident of her ownpersonal virtue and her own artificial standards of democracy, she nowfound herself humiliated and chagrined before this rough young criminal. 

"You--are--quite right!" she confessed, her eyes smarting with suddentears. "My position is quite--quite illogical. But of course I had noidea! Please, please let me try to help you--if I can--and Katie, too--if it isn't too late. "

Shane O'Connell experienced contrition. After all it was not seemly thatthe likes of him should be dictating to the likes of her. And he couldnever abide seeing a woman--particularly a pretty woman--cry. 

"Forgive me, madam!" he begged, lowering his head. 

"You were quite justified in all you said!" she assured him. "Pleasetell me everything that has happened. I have influence with the districtattorney and--in other places. No doubt I can be of assistance to you. Of course, you can absolutely trust me!"

Shane O'Connell, looking into her honest gray eyes, knew that he couldtrust her. Slowly--brokenly--tensely, he told her how he had killed RedMcGurk, and why. 

The corridors were full of shadows when Althea Beekman put her hands onShane O'Connell's shoulders and bade him good night. Though sheabominated his crime and loathed him for having committed it she felt insome way partially responsible, and she also perceived that, by the codeof the O'Connells, Shane had done what he believed to be right. He hadtaken the law into his own hands and he was ready to pay the necessarypenalty. He would have done the same thing all over again. To thisextent at least he had her respect. 

She found Mr. Tutt waiting for her on the bench by the warden's office. 

"Well?" he asked with a smile, rising to greet her and tossing away hisstogy. 

"I haven't very good news for you, " she answered regretfully. "He'sconfessed to me--told me everything--why he shot him and where he boughtthe pistol. He's a brave boy, though! It's a sad case! But what can youdo with people who believe themselves justified in doing things likethat?"

She did not notice Detective Eddie Conroy, of the D. A. 's office, standing behind an adjacent pillar, ostentatiously lighting a cigar; norsee him smile as he slowly walked away. 

 * * * * *

"Talk about luck!" exulted O'Brien, the yellow dog of the districtattorney's office, an hour later to his chief. "What do you think, boss?Eddie Conroy heard Miss Beekman telling old man Tutt over in the Tombsthat O'Connell had confessed to her! Say, how's that? Someevidence--what?"

"What good will that do us?" asked Peckham, glancing up with a scowlfrom his desk. "She won't testify for us. "

"But she'll have to testify if we call her, won't she?" demanded hisassistant. 

The district attorney drummed on the polished surface before him. 

"We--ell, I suppose so, " he admitted hesitatingly. "But you can't justsubpoena a woman like that without any warning and put her on the standand make her testify. It would be too rough!"

"It's the only way to do it!" retorted O'Brien with a sly grin. "If sheknew in advance that we were thinking of calling her she'd beat it outof town. "

"That's true, " agreed his chief. "That's as far as she'd go, too, indefying the law. But I don't much like it. Those Beekmans have a lot ofinfluence, and if she got sore she could make us a heap of trouble!Besides it's sort of a scaly trick making her give up on him like that. "

O'Brien raised his brows. 

"Scaly trick! He's a murderer, isn't he? And he'll get off if we don'tcall her. It's a matter of duty, as I see it. "

"All the same, my son, your suggestion has a rotten smell to it. We mayhave to do it--I don't say we won't--but it's risky business!" repliedPeckham dubiously. 

"It's a good deal less risky than not doing it, so far as your candidacynext autumn is concerned!" retorted his assistant. "We won't let hersuspect what we're goin' to do; and the last minute I'll call her to thestand and cinch the case! She won't even know who called her! Perhaps Ican arrange with Judge Babson to call her on some other point and thenpretend to sort of stumble onto the fact of the confession and examineher himself. That would let us out. I can smear it over somehow. "

"You'd better, " commented Peckham, "unless you want a howl from thepapers! It would make quite a story if Miss Althea Beekman got on therampage. She could have your scalp, my boy, if she wanted it!"

"And McGurk could have yours!" retorted O'Brien with the impudence bornof knowledge. 

The prosecution of Shane O'Connell, which otherwise might have slowlylanguished and languishing died, took on new life owing to the evidencethus innocently delivered into the hands of the district attorney; infact it became a _cause célèbre_. The essential elements to convict werenow all there--the _corpus delicti_, evidence of threats on the part ofthe defendant, of motive, of opportunity, and--his confession. The lawwhich provides that the statement of an accused "is not sufficient towarrant his conviction without additional proof that the crime chargedhas been committed" would be abundantly satisfied--though without hisconfession there would have been no proof whatever that the crimecharged had been committed by him. 

Thus, without her knowing it, Miss Beekman was an essential witness and, in fact, the pivot upon which the entire case turned. 

The day of the great sporting event came. With it arrived in fullpanoply the McGurks, their relatives and followers. All Cherry Hillseemed to have packed itself into Part I of the Supreme Court. There wasan atmosphere somehow suggestive of the races or a prize fight. But itwas a sporting event which savored of a sure thing--really more like ahanging. They were there to make holiday over the law's revenge for thekilling of the darling of the Pearl Button Kids. Peckham personallyassured McGurk that everything was copper-fastened. 

"He's halfway up the river already!" he said jocularly. 

And McGurk, swelling with importance and emotion, pulled a couple ofcigars from his pocket and the two smoked the pipe of peace. 

But the reader is not particularly concerned with the progress of thetrial, for he has already attended many. It is enough to say that a jurywith undershot jaws, who had proved by previous experience theirindifference to capital punishment and to all human sympathy, werefinally selected and that the witnesses were duly called, and testifiedto the usual facts, while the Pearl Button Kids and the rest, spittingsurreptitiously beneath the benches, eagerly drank in every word. Therewas nothing for Mr. Tutt to do; nothing for him to deny. The case builtitself up, brick by brick. And Shane O'Connell sat there unemotionally, hardly listening. There was nothing in the evidence to reflect in anyway upon the honor of the O'Connells in general or in particular. He haddone that which that honor demanded and he was ready to pay thepenalty--if the law could get him. He assumed that it would get him. Sodid the Tutts. 

But when toward the end of the third day nothing had yet been broughtforward to connect him with the crime Tutt leaned over and whispered toMr. Tutt, "D'ye know, I'm beginning to have a hunch there isn't anycase!"

Mr. Tutt made an imperceptible gesture of assent. 

"Looks that way, " he answered out of the corner of his mouth. "Probablythey'll spring the connecting evidence at the end and give us the _coupde grâce_. "

At that moment a police witness was released from the stand and O'Brienstepped to the bench and whispered something to the judge, who glancedat the clock and nodded. It was twenty minutes of four, and the jurywere already getting restless, for the trial had developed into ahumdrum, cut-and-dried affair. 

Miss Beekman sitting far back in the rear of the court room suddenlyheard O'Brien call her name, and a quiver of apprehension passed throughher body. She had never testified in any legal proceeding, and the ideaof getting up before such a crowd of people and answering questionsfilled her with dismay. It was so public! Still, if it was going to helpO'Connell--

"Althea Beekman, " bellowed Cap. Phelan, "to the witness chair!"

Althea Beekman! The gentle lady felt as if she had been rudely strippedof all her protective clothing. Althea! Did not the law do her thecourtesy of calling her even "Miss"? Nerving herself to the performanceof her duty she falteringly made her way between the crowded benches, past the reporters' table, and round back of the jury box. The judge, apparently a pleasant-faced, rather elderly man, bowed gravely to her, indicated where she should sit and administered the oath to her himself, subtly dwelling upon the phrase "the whole truth, " and raising his eyesheavenward as he solemnly pronounced the words "so help you God!"

"I do!" declared Miss Beekman primly but decidedly. 

Behind her upon the court-room wall towered in its flowing draperies themajestic figure of the Goddess of the Law, blindfolded and holding aloftthe scales of justice. Beside her sat in the silken robes of his sacredoffice a judge who cleverly administered that law to advance his owninterests and those of his political associates. In front of her, treacherously smiling, stood the cynical, bullet-headed O'Brien. At agreat distance Mr. Tutt leaned on his elbows at a table beside ShaneO'Connell. To them she directed her gaze and faintly smiled. 

"Miss Beekman, " began O'Brien as courteously as he knew how, "youreside, do you not, at Number 1000 Fifth Avenue, in this city andcounty?"

"I do, " she answered with resolution. 

"Your family have always lived in New York, have they not?"

"Since 1630, " she replied deprecatingly and with more confidence. 

"You are prominent in various philanthropic, religious and civicactivities?"

"Not prominent; interested, " she corrected him. 

"And you make a practise of visiting prisoners in the Tombs?"

She hesitated. What could this be leading to?

"Occasionally, " she admitted. 

"Do you know this defendant, Shane O'Connell?"

"Yes. "

"Did you see him on the twenty-third day of last month?"

"I think so--if that was the day. "

"What day do you refer to?"

"The day I had the talk with him. "

"Oh, you had a talk with him?"

"Yes. "

"Where did you have that talk with him?"

"In the counsel room of the Tombs. "

O'Brien paused. Even his miserable soul revolted at what he was about todo. 

"What did he say?" he asked, nervously looking away. 

Something in his hangdog look warned Miss Beekman that she was beingbetrayed, but before she could answer Mr. Tutt was on his feet. 

"One moment!" he cried. "May I ask a preliminary question?"

The court signified acquiescence. 

"Was that conversation which you had with the defendant a confidentialone?"

"I object to the question!" snapped O'Brien. "The law recognizes noconfidential communications as privileged except those made to a priest, a physician or an attorney. The witness is none of these. The questionis immaterial and irrelevant. "

"That is the law, " announced the judge, "but under all the circumstancesI will permit the witness to answer. "

Miss Beekman paused. 

"Why, " she began, "of course it was confidential, Mr. Tutt. O'Connellwouldn't have told me anything if he had supposed for one moment I wasgoing to repeat what he said. Besides, I suggested that I might be ableto help him. Yes, certainly our talk was confidential. "

"I am sorry, " gloated O'Brien, "but I shall have to ask you what itwas. "

"That is not a question, " said Mr. Tutt calmly. 

"What did the defendant say to you in the counsel room of the Tombs onthe twenty-third of last month?" cautiously revised O'Brien. 

"I object!" thundered Mr. Tutt, his form towering until seemingly itmatched that of the blind goddess in height. "I object to the answer asrequiring a breach of confidence which the law could not tolerate. "

Judge Babson turned politely to Miss Beekman. 

"I regret very much that I shall be obliged to ask you to state whatthe defendant said to you. You will recall that you yourself volunteeredthe information that you had had the talk in question. Otherwise"--hecoughed and put up his hand--"we might possibly never have learned ofit. A defendant cannot deprive the people of the right to prove what hemay have divulged respecting his offense merely by claiming that it wasin confidence. Public policy could never allow that. It may beunpleasant for you to answer the question but I must ask you to do so. "

"But, " she protested, "you certainly cannot expect me to betray aconfidence! I asked O'Connell to tell me what he had done so that Icould help him--and he trusted me!"

"But you are not responsible for the law! He took his chance!"admonished the judge. 

Slowly Miss Althea's indignation rose as she perceived the dastardlytrick which O'Brien had played upon her. Already she suspected that thejudge was only masquerading in the clothing of a gentleman. With a whiteface she turned to Mr. Tutt. 

"Does the law require me to answer, Mr. Tutt?" she inquired. 

"Do not ask questions--answer them, " ordered Babson brusquely, feelingthe change in her manner. "You are a witness for the people--not thedefendant. "

"I am not a witness against O'Connell!" she declared. "Thisman"--indicating O'Brien scornfully--"has in some way found out thatI--Oh, surely the law doesn't demand anything so base as that!"

There was silence. The wheels of justice hung on a dead center. 

"Answer the question, " remarked His Honor tartly. 

All Miss Beekman's long line of ancestors turned in their graves. In herBeekman blood the chief justice, the ambassador, the great editor, thesigner of the Declaration of Independence, stirred, awoke, rubbed theireyes and sternly reared themselves. And that blood--blue though it wasinstead of scarlet like the O'Connells'--boiled in her veins and burnedthrough the delicate tissue of her cheeks. 

"My conscience will not permit me to betray a confidence!" she criedangrily. 

"I direct you to answer!" ordered the judge. 

"I object to the court's threatening the witness!" interjected Mr. Tutt. "I wish it to appear upon the record that the manner of the court ismost unjudicial and damaging to the defendant. "

"Take your seat, sir!" barked Babson, his features swelling with anger. "Your language is contemptuous!"

The jury were leaning forward intently. Trained militiamen of thegibbet, they nevertheless admired this little woman's fearlessness andthe old lawyer's pugnacity. On the rear wall the yellow face of the oldself-regulating clock, that had gayly ticked so many men into theelectric chair, leered shamelessly across at the blind goddess. 

"Answer the question, madam! If, as you claim, you are a patrioticcitizen of this commonwealth, having due respect for its institutionsand for the statutes, you will not set up your own ideas of what the lawought to be in defiance of the law as it stands. I order you to answer!If you do not I shall be obliged to take steps to compel you to do so. "

In the dead silence that followed, the stones in the edifice of MissBeekman's inherited complacency, with each beat of the clock, fell oneby one to the ground until it was entirely demolished. Vainly shestruggled to test her conscience by her loyalty to her country's laws. But the task was beyond her. 

Tightly compressing her lips she sat silent in the chair, while thedelighted reporters scribbled furious messages to their city editorsthat Miss Althea Beekman, one of the Four Hundred, was defying JudgeBabson, and to rush up a camera man right off in a taxi, and to look herup in the morgue for a front-page story. O'Brien glanced uneasily atBabson. Possible defiance on the part of this usually unassuming ladyhad not entered into his calculations. The judge took a new tack. 

"You probably do not fully understand the situation in which you areplaced, " he explained. "You are not responsible for the law. Neither areyou responsible in any way for the consequences to this defendant, whatever they may be. The matter is entirely out of your hands. You arecompelled to do as the court orders. As a law-abiding citizen you haveno choice in the matter. "

Miss Althea's modest intellect reeled, but she stood her ground, theghost of the Signer at her elbow. 

"I am sorry, " she replied, "but my own self-respect will not allow me toanswer. "

"In that case, " declared Babson, playing his trump card, "it will be myunpleasant duty to commit you for contempt. "

There was a bustle of excitement about the reporters' table. Here was astory!

"Very well, " answered Miss Beekman proudly. "Do as you see fit, and asyour own duty and conscience demand. "

The judge could not conceal his annoyance. The last thing in the worldthat he wished to do was to send Miss Althea to jail. But havingthreatened her he must carry out his threat or forever lose face. 

"I will give the witness until tomorrow morning at half after teno'clock to make up her mind what she will do, " he announced after ahurried conference with O'Brien. "Adjourn court!"

Miss Beekman did not go to bed at all that night. Until a late hour sheconferred in the secrecy of her Fifth Avenue library with hergray-haired solicitor, who, in some mysterious way, merely over thetelephone, managed to induce the newspapers to omit any reference to hisclient's contemptuous conduct in their morning editions. 

"There's no way out of it, my dear, " he said finally as he took hisleave--he was her father's cousin and very fond of her--"this judge hasthe power to send you to jail if he wants to--and dares to! It's an evenchance whether he will dare to or not. It depends on whether he prefersto stand well with the McGurks or with the general public. Of course Irespect your attitude, but really I think you are a little quixotic. Points of honor are too ephemeral to be debated in courts of justice. Todo so would be to open the door to all kinds of abuses. Dishonestwitnesses would constantly avail themselves of the opportunity to avoidgiving evidence. "

"Dishonest witnesses would probably lie in the first place!" shequavered. 

"True! I quite overlooked that!" he smiled, gazing down at her in anavuncular manner. "But to-day the question isn't open. It is settled, whether we like it or not. No pledge of privacy, no oath of secrecy--canavail against demand in a court of justice. Even confessions obtained byfraud are admissible--though we might wish otherwise. "

Miss Beekman shrugged her shoulders. 

"Nothing you have said seems to me to alter the situation. "

"Very well, " he replied. "I guess that settles it. Knowing you and theBeekman breed! There's one thing I must say, " he added as he stood inthe doorway after bidding her good night--"that old fellow Tutt hasbehaved pretty well, leaving you entirely alone this way. I always hadan idea he was a sort of shyster. Most attorneys of that class wouldhave been sitting on your doorstep all the evening trying to persuadeyou to stick to your resolution not to give their client away, and to dothe square thing. But he's done nothing of the sort. Rather decent onthe whole!"

"Perhaps he recognizes a woman of honor when he sees one!" she retorted. 

"Honor!" he muttered as he closed the door. "What crimes are sometimescommitted in thy name!"

But on the steps he stopped and looked back affectionately at thelibrary window. 

"After all, Althea's a good sport!" he remarked to himself. 

 * * * * *

At or about the same moment a quite dissimilar conference was being heldbetween Judge Babson and Assistant District Attorney O'Brien in thecafé of the Passamaquoddy Club. 

"She'll cave!" declared O'Brien, draining his glass. "Holy Mike! Nowoman like her is going to stay in jail! Besides, if you don't commither everybody will say that you were scared to--yielded to influence. You're in the right and it will be a big card for you to show that youaren't afraid of anybody!"

Babson pulled nervously on his cigar. 

"Maybe that's so, " he said, "but I don't much fancy an appellate courtsustaining me on the law and at the same time roasting hell out of me asa man!"

"Oh, they won't do that!" protested O'Brien. "How could they? Allthey're interested in is the law!"

"I've known those fellows to do queer things sometimes, " answered thelearned judge. "And the Beekmans are pretty powerful people. "

"Well, so are the McGurks!" warned O'Brien. 

 * * * * *

"Now, Miss Beekman, " said Judge Babson most genially the next morning, after that lady had taken her seat in the witness chair and the jury hadanswered to their names, "I hope you feel differently to-day aboutgiving your testimony. Don't you think that after all it would be morefitting if you answered the question?"

Miss Althea firmly compressed her lips. 

"At least let me read you some of the law on the subject, " continued HisHonor patiently. "Originally many people, like yourself, had themistaken idea that what they called their honor should be allowed tointervene between them and their duty. And even the courts sometimes soheld. But that was long ago--in the sixteenth and seventeenthcenturies. To-day the law wisely recognizes no such thing. Let me readyou what Baron Hotham said, in Hill's Trial in 1777, respecting thetestimony of a witness who very properly told the court what the accusedhad said to him. It is very clearly put:

"'The defendant certainly thought him his friend, and he'--thedefendant--'therefore did disclose all this to him. Gentlemen, one hasonly to say further that if this point of honor was to be so sacred asthat a man who comes by knowledge of this sort from an offender was notto be at liberty to disclose it the most atrocious criminals would everyday escape punishment; and therefore it is that the wisdom of the lawknows nothing of that point of honor. '"

Miss Beekman listened politely. 

"I am sorry, " she replied with dignity. "I shall not change my mind. Irefuse to answer the question, and--and you can do whatever you likewith me. "

"Do you understand that you are in contempt of this court? Do you intendto show contempt for this court?" he demanded wrathfully. 

"I do, " answered Miss Althea. "I have contempt for this court. "

A titter danced along the benches and some fool in the back of the roomclapped his hands. 

Judge Babson's face grew hard and his eyes narrowed to steel points. 

"The witness stands committed for contempt, " he announced bitingly. "Idirect that she be confined in the city prison for thirty days and pay afine of two hundred and fifty dollars. Madam, you will go with theofficer. "

Miss Althea rose while the ghost of the Signer encircled her with hisarm. 

Mr. Tutt was already upon his feet. He knew that the ghost of the Signerwas there. 

"May I ask the court if the witness, having been committed for thecontemptuous conduct of which she is obviously guilty, may remain inyour chambers until adjournment, in order that she may arrange herprivate affairs?"

"I will grant her that privilege, " agreed Judge Babson with internalrelief. "The request is quite reasonable. Captain Phelan, you may takethe witness into my robing room and keep her there for the present. "

With her small head erect, her narrow shoulders thrown back, and with aresolute step as befitted the descendant of a long line of ancestorsMiss Althea passed behind the jury box and disappeared. 

The twelve looked at one another dubiously. Both Babson and O'Brienseemed nervous and undecided. 

"Well, call your next witness, " remarked the judge finally. 

"But I haven't any more witnesses!" growled O'Brien. "And you know italmighty well, you idiot!" he muttered under his breath. 

"If that is the people's case I move for the defendant's immediatedischarge, " cried Mr. Tutt, jumping to his feet. "There is no evidenceconnecting him with the crime. "

McGurk, furious, sprang toward the bar. 

"See here! Wait a minute! Hold on, judge! I can get a hundredwitnesses--"

"Sit down!" shouted one of the officers, thrusting him back. "Keepquiet!"

Babson looked at O'Brien and elevated his forehead. Then as O'Briengave a shrug the judge turned to the expectant jury and said inapologetic tones:

"Gentlemen of the jury, where the people have failed to prove thedefendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt it is the duty of the courtto direct a verdict. In this case, though by inference the testimonypoints strongly toward the prisoner, there is no direct proof againsthim and I am accordingly constrained--much as I regret it--to instructyou to return a verdict of not guilty. "

In the confusion which followed the rendition of the verdict a messengerentered breathlessly and forcing his way through the crowd delivered afolded paper to Mr. Tutt, who immediately rose and handed it to theclerk; and that official, having hurriedly perused it and pursed hislips in surprise, passed it over the top of the bench to the judge. 

"What's this?" demanded Babson. "Don't bother me now with trifles!"

"But it's a writ of habeas corpus, Your Honor, signed by Judge Winthrop, requiring the warden to produce Miss Beekman in Part I of the SupremeCourt, and returnable forthwith, " whispered Mr. McGuire in anawe-stricken voice. "I can't disregard that, you know!"

"What!" cried Babson. "How on earth could he have issued a writ in thisspace of time? The thing's impossible!"

"If Your Honor please, " urbanely explained Mr. Tutt, "as--having knownMiss Beekman's father--I anticipated that the witness would pursue thecourse of conduct which, in fact, she has, I prepared the necessarypapers early this morning and as soon as you ordered her into custody mypartner, who was waiting in Judge Winthrop's chambers, presented them toHis Honor, secured his signature and brought the writ here in ataxicab. "

Nobody seemed to be any longer interested in O'Connell. The reportershad left their places and pushed their way into the inclosure before thedais. In the rear of the room O'Brien was vainly engaged in trying toplacate the Pearl Button Kids, who were loudly swearing vengeance uponboth him and Peckham. It was a scene as nearly turbulent as the oldyellow clock had ever witnessed. Even the court officers abandoned anyeffort to maintain order and joined the excited group about Mr. Tuttbefore the bench. 

"Does Your Honor desire that this matter be argued before the SupremeCourt?" inquired Mr. Tutt suavely. "If so I will ask that the prisonerbe paroled in my custody. Judge Winthrop is waiting. "

Babson had turned pale. Facing a dozen newspapermen, pencils in hand, hequailed. To hell with "face. " Why, if he went on any longer with thefarce the papers would roast the life out of him. With an apology for asmile that was, in fact, a ghastly grin, he addressed himself to thewaiting group of jurymen, lawyers and reporters. 

"Of course, gentlemen, " he said, "I never had any real intention ofdealing harshly with Miss Beekman. Undoubtedly she acted quite honestlyand according to her best lights. She is a very estimable member ofsociety. It will be unnecessary, Mr. Tutt, for you to argue the writbefore Judge Winthrop. The relator, Althea Beekman, is discharged. "

"Thank you, Your Honor!" returned Mr. Tutt, bowing profoundly, andlowering an eyelid in the direction of the gentlemen of the press. "Youare indeed a wise and upright judge!"

The wise and upright judge rose grandly and gathered his robes about thejudicial legs. 

"Good morning, gentlemen, " he remarked from his altitude to thereporters. 

"Good morning, judge, " they replied in chorus. "May we say anythingabout the writ?"

Judge Babson paused momentarily in his flight. 

"Oh! Perhaps you might as well let the whole thing go, " he answeredcarelessly. "On the whole I think it better that you should. "

As they fought their way out of the doorway Charley Still, of the _Sun_, grinned at "Deacon" Terry, of the _Tribune_, and jocosely inquired:"Say, Deac. , did you ever think why one calls a judge 'Your Honor'?"

The Deacon momentarily removed his elbow from the abdomen of thegentleman beside him and replied sincerely though breathlessly, "No! Youcan search me!"

And "Cap. " Phelan, who happened to be setting his watch at just thatinstant, affirms that he will make affidavit that the old yellow clockwinked across the room at the Goddess of Justice, and that beneath herbandages she unmistakably smiled. 

By Advice of Counsel

 "Kotow! Kotow! To the great Yen-How, And wish him the longest of lives! With his one-little, two-little, three-little, four-little, Five-little, six-little wives!"

"The fact is I've been arrested for bigamy, " said Mr. Higgleby in apained and slightly resentful manner. He was an ample flabby person, built like an isosceles triangle with a smallish head for the apex, slightly expanded in the gangliar region just above the nape of theneck--medical students and phrenologists please note--and habituallywearing an expression of helpless pathos. Instinctively you felt thatyou wanted to do something for Mr. Higgleby--to mother him, maybe. 

"Then you should see my partner, Mr. Tutt, " said Mr. Tutt severely. "He's the matrimonial specialist. "

"I want to see Mr. Tutt, the celebrated divorce lawyer, " explained Mr. Higgleby. 

"You mean my partner, Mr. Tutt, " said Mr. Tutt. "Willie, show thegentleman in to Mr. Tutt. "

"Thank you, sir, " said Mr. Higgleby, and followed Willie. 

"Is this Mr. Higgleby?" chirped Tutt as Higgleby entered the adjoiningoffice. "Delighted to see you, sir! What can we--I--do for you?"

"The fact is, I've been arrested for bigamy, " repeated Mr. Higgleby. 

Now the Tutt system--demonstrated effective by years of experience--forputting a client in a properly grateful and hence liberal frame of mindwas, like the method of some physicians, first to scare said client, orpatient, out of his seven senses; second, to admit reluctantly, uponreflection, that in view of the fact that he had wisely come to Tutt &Tutt there might still be some hope for him; and third, to exculpate himwith such a flourish of congratulation upon his escape that he was gladto pay the modest little fee of which he was then and there relieved. Tutt & Tutt had only two classes of clients: those who paid as they camein, and those who paid as they went out. 

Therefore upon hearing Mr. Higgleby's announcement as to the nature ofhis trouble Tutt registered horror. 

"What? What did you say?" he demanded. 

"I said, " repeated Mr. Higgleby with a shade of annoyance, "'the factis, I've been arrested for bigamy. ' I don't see any reason for makingsuch a touse about it, " he added plaintively. 

"Who's making a--a--a touse about it?" inquired Tutt, perceiving that hehad taken the wrong tack. "I'm not. I was just a little surprised at aman of your genteel appearance--"

"Oh, rot!" expostulated Mr. Higgleby weakly. "You're just like all of'em! I suppose you were going to say I didn't look like a bigamist--andall that. Well, cut it! Let's start fair. I _am_ a bigamist!"

Tutt regarded him with obvious curiosity. "You don't say!" heejaculated, much as if he wished to add: "How does it feel?"

"I do say!" retorted Mr. Higgleby. 

"Well, " exclaimed Tutt cheerily, passing into the second phase of theTutt-Tutt treatment, "after all, bigamy isn't so bad! It's only fiveyears at the worst. Generally it's not more than six months. "

"Get wise!" snapped Mr. Higgleby. "I didn't come here to have you throwcold chills into me. I came here to find out how to beat it!"

"Why, certainly! Of course!" protested Tutt hastily. 

"I was--"

"And I expect you to get me off!"

"Yes, yes!" murmured Tutt, his usual style completely cramped. 

"No matter what!"

"Yes, " faintly tuttered Tutt. 

"Well, " continued Higgleby, taking out a cigar that in shape andlooseness of wrapping closely resembled its owner, "now that's settled, let's get down to brass tacks. Here's a copy of the indictment. "

He produced a document bearing a large gold seal. 

"Those robbers made me pay a dollar-sixty for certification!" heremarked peevishly, indicating the ornament. "What good is certificationto me? As if I wanted to pay to make sure I was accused in exactlanguage! Anybody can draw an indictment for bigamy!"

 COURT OF GENERAL SESSIONS OF THE PEACE IN AND FOR THE COUNTY OF NEW YORK

 The People of the State of New York against

 THEOPHILUS HIGGLEBY

 The Grand Jury of the County of New York, by this indictment, accuse Theophilus Higgleby of the crime of bigamy, committed as follows:

 The said Theophilus Higgleby, late of the borough of Manhattan of the city of New York in the county of New York, aforesaid, on the eleventh day of May in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and nineteen, at Cook County and the city of Chicago in the state of Illinois, did marry one Tomascene Startup, and her, the said Tomascene Startup, did then and there have for his wife;

 And afterward, to wit, on the seventeenth day of December in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and nineteen, at the borough of Manhattan of the city of New York in the county of New York aforesaid, did feloniously marry and take as his wife one Alvina Woodcock, and to the said Alvina Woodcock was then and there married, the said Tomascene Startup being then and there living and in full life, against the form of the statute in such case made and provided, and against the peace of the people of the state of New York and their dignity. 

 JEREMIAH PECKHAM, District Attorney. 

Such was the precise accusation against the isosceles-triangular client, who now sat so limply and disjointedly on the opposite side of Tutt'sdesk with a certain peculiar air of assurance all his own, as if, thoughsurprised and somewhat annoyed at the grand jury's interference with hisprivate affairs, he was nevertheless--being captain of his own soul--notparticularly disturbed about the matter. 

"And--er--did you marry these two ladies?" inquired Tuttapologetically. 

"Sure!" responded Higgleby without hesitation. 

"May I ask why?"

"Why not?" returned Higgleby. "I'm a traveling man. "

"Look here, " suddenly demanded Tutt. "Were you ever a lawyer?"

"Sure I was!" responded Mr. Higgleby. "I was a member of the bar ofOsceola County, Florida. "

"You don't say!" gasped Tutt. 

"And what, may I ask, are you now?"

"Now I'm a bigamist!" answered Mr. Higgleby. 

We forget precisely who it was that so observantly said to another, "Much learning doth make thee mad. " At any rate the point to be noted isthat overindulgence in erudition has always been known to have anunfortunate effect upon the intellectual faculty. Too much wine--thoughit must have required an inordinate quantity in certain mendaciousperiods--was regarded as provocative of truth; and too many books asclearly put bats in a man's belfry. The explanation is of course simpleenough. If one overweights the head the whole structure is apt to becomeunbalanced. This is the reason why we hold scholars in such lightesteem. They are an unbalanced lot. And after all, why should they getpaid more than half the wage of plumbers or locomotive firemen? What iseasier than sitting before a comfortable steam radiator and reading anetymological dictionary or the Laws of Hammurabi? They toil not even iftheir heads spin. Only in Germany has the pedagogue ever received fullmeed of gold and of honor--and look at Germany!

Pedants have never been much considered by men of action. They neverwill be. Experience is the only teacher, which, in the language of AmosEno, who left two millions to the Institute of Mechanics and Tradesmen, is "worth a damn. " We Americans abhor any affectation of learning; henceour weakness for slang. I should apologize for the word "weakness. " Onthe contrary it is a token of our virile independence, our scorn for thedelicatessen of education, mere dilettanteism. And this has itspractical side, for if we don't know how to pronounce the words"evanescent persiflage" we can call it "bunk" or "rot. " We suspect allcollege graduates. We don't want them in our business. They slinkthrough our lives like pickpockets fearful of detection. 

What has all this to do with anything? It has to do, dear reader, withMr. Caput Magnus, the assistant of the district attorney of the countyof New York, whose duty it was to present the evidence in all criminalcases to the grand jury and make ready the instruments of torture knownas bills of indictment for that august body's action thereon. 

For by all the lights of the Five Points, Chinatown--Mulberry, Canal, Franklin, Lafayette and Centre streets--Pontin's Restaurant, Moe Levy'sOne Price Tailoring Establishment, and even by those of the gloriousdays of Howe & Hummel, by the Nine Gods of Law--and more--Caput Magnuswas a learned savant. He and he alone of all the members of the bar onthe pay roll of the prosecutor's office, housed in their smoke-hungcubicles in the Criminal Courts Building, knew how to draw up thosecomplicated and awful things with their barbed-wire entanglements of"saids, " "then and there beings, " "with intents, " "dids, " "to wits, " and"aforesaids" in all the verbal chaos with which the law requires thoseaccused of crime to be "simply, clearly and directly" informed of thenature of the offense charged against them, in order that they may knowwhat to do about it and prepare their defense. 

And while we are on it--and in order that the reader may be fullyinstructed and qualified to pursue Tutt & Tutt through their variousadventures hereafter--we may as well add that herein lies one of thepitfalls of crime; for the simple-minded burglar or embezzler mayblithely make way with a silver service or bundle of bank notes only tofind himself floundering, horse, foot and dragoons, in a quagmire ofphraseology from which he cannot escape, wriggle as he will. Many such aone has thrown up his hands--and with them silver service, bank notesand all--in horror at what the grand jury has alleged against him. 

Indeed there is a well-authenticated tradition that a certain gentlemanof color who had inadvertently acquired some poultry belonging toanother, when brought to the bar and informed that he theretofore, towit, in a specified year of our Lord in the night time of the dayaforesaid, the outhouse of one Jones then and there situate, feloniously, burglariously did break into and enter with intent tocommit a crime therein, to wit, the goods, chattels and personalproperty of the said Jones then and there being found, then and therefeloniously and burglariously by force of arms and against the peace ofthe people to seize, appropriate and carry away, raised his voice inanguish and cried:

"Fo de Lawd sake, jedge, Ah didn't do none ob dem tings--all Ah done wasto take a couple ob chickens!"

Thus to annihilate a man by pad and pencil is indeed an art worthy ofadmiration. The pen of an indictment clerk is oft mightier than thesword of a Lionheart, the brain behind the subtle quill far defter thansaid swordsman's skill. Moreover, the ingenuity necessary to draft oneof these documents is not confined to its mere successful composition, for having achieved the miraculous feat of alleging in fourteen wayswithout punctuation that the defendant did something, and with a finalfanfare of "saids" and "to wits" inserted his verb where no one willever find it, the indicter must then be able to unwind himself, rollingin and out among the "dids" and "thens" and "theres" until he is oncemore safely upon the terra firma of foolscap at the head of the firstpage. 

Mr. Caput Magnus could do it--with the aid of a volume of printed formsdevised in the days of Jeremy Bentham. In fact, like a camel who smellswater afar off, he could in a desert of verbal sand unerringly find anoasis of meaning. Therefore was Caput Magnus held in high honor amongthe pack of human hounds who bayed at the call of Huntsman Peckham'shorn. Others might lose the scent of what it was all about in thetropical jungle of an indictment eleven pages long, but not he. Like theold dog in Masefield's "Reynard the Fox, " Mr. Magnus would work throughditches full of legal slime, nose through thorn thickets of confusion, dash through copses and spinneys of words and phrases, until he snappedclose at the heels of intelligibility. The Honorable Peckham couldn'thave drawn an indictment to save his legal life. Neither could any ofthe rest. Neither could Caput without his book of ancient forms--thoughhe didn't let anybody know it. 

Shrouded in mystery on a salary of five thousand dollars a year, Caputsat in the shrine of his inner office producing literature of a clarityequaled only by that of George Meredith or Mr. Henry James. He was theGreat Accuser. He could call a man a thief in more different ways thanany deputy assistant district attorney known to memory--with the aid ofhis little book. He could lasso and throw any galloping criminal, however fierce, with a gracefully uncoiling rope of deadly adjectives. On all of which he properly prided himself until he became unendurableto his fellows and insufferable to Peckham, who would have cheerfullyfired him months gone by had he had a reason or had there been any otherlegal esoteric to take his place. 

Yet pride goeth before a fall. And I am glad of it, for Magnus was aconceited little ass. This yarn is about the fall of Caput Magnus almostas much as it is about the uxorious Higgleby, though the two areinextricably entwined together. 

 * * * * *

"Mr. Tutt, " remarked Tutt after Higgleby's departure, "that new clientof ours is certainly _sui generis_. "

"That's no crime, " smiled the senior partner, reaching for themalt-extract bottle. 

"His knowledge of matrimony and the laws governing the domesticrelations is certainly exhaustive--not to say exhausting. I look like apiker beside him. "

"For which, " replied Mr. Tutt, "you may well be thankful. "

"I am, " replied Tutt devoutly. "But you could put what I know aboutbigamy in that malt-extract bottle. "

"I prefer the present contents!" retorted Mr. Tutt. "Bigamy is afascinating crime, involving as it does such complicated subjects as thehistory of the institution of marriage, the ecclesiastical or canonicallaw governing divorce and annulment, the interesting doctrines ofaffinity and consanguinity, suits for alienation of affection andcriminal conversation, the conflict of laws, the White Slave Act--"

"Interstate commerce, so to speak?" suggested Tutt mischievously. 

"Condonation, collusion and connivance, " continued Mr. Tutt, brushinghim aside, "reinstitution of conjugal rights, the law of feme sole, TheMarried Woman's Act, separation _a mensa et thoro_, abandonment, jurisdiction, alimony, custody of children, precontract--"

"Help! You're breaking my heart!" cried Tutt. "No little lawyer couldknow all about such things. It would take a big lawyer. "

"Not at all! Not at all!" soothed Mr. Tutt, sipping his eleven-o'clocknourishment and fingering for a stogy. "When it comes to divorce onelawyer knows as much about the law as another. Not even the SupremeCourt is able to tell whether a man and woman are really married or notwithout calling in outside assistance. "

"Well, who can?" asked Tutt anxiously. 

"Nobody, " replied his partner with gravity, biting off the end of alast year's stogy salvaged from the bottom of the letter basket. "Once aman's married his troubles not only begin but never end. "

"By the way, " said Tutt, "speaking of this sort of thing, I see thatthat Frenchman whom we referred to our Paris correspondent has just beengranted a divorce from his American wife. "

"You mean the French diplomat who married the Yankee vaudeville artistin China?"

"Yes, " answered Tutt. "You recall they met in Shanghai and took a flyingtrip to Mongolia, where they were married by a Belgian missionary. Thecourt held that the marriage was invalid, as the French statutes requirea native of that country marrying abroad to have the ceremony performedeither before a French diplomatic official or 'according to the usagesof the country in which the marriage is performed. '"

"Wasn't the Belgian missionary a diplomatic official?" asked Mr. Tutt. 

"Evidently not sufficiently so, " replied his partner. "Anyhow, inMongolia there are only two methods sanctified by tradition by which aman may secure a wife--capture or purchase. "

"Well, didn't our client capture the actress?"

"Only with her consent--which I assume would be collusion under theFrench law, " said Tutt. "And he certainly didn't buy her--though hemight have. It appears that in that happy land a wife costs from fivecamels up; five camels for a flapper and so on up to thirty or fortycamels for an old widow, who invariably brings the highest quotation. "

"In Mongolia age evidently ripens and mellows women as it does wine inother countries, " reflected Mr. Tutt. 

"But you can buy some women for five pounds of rice, " added Tutt. "Queercountry, isn't it?"

"Not at all!" declared his senior. "Even in America every man pays andpays and pays for his wife--through the nose!"

Tutt grinned appreciatively. 

"However that may be, " he ventured, "a man who enters into a marriagecontract--"

"Marriage isn't a contract, " interrupted Mr. Tutt. 

"What is it?"

"It's a status--something entirely different--like slavery. "

"It's like slavery all right!" agreed Tutt. "But we always speak of acontract of marriage, don't we?"

"Quite inaccurately. The only contract in a marriage is what we commonlyrefer to as the engagement; that is a real contract and is governed bythe laws of contracts. The marriage itself is an entirely differentthing. When a marriage is performed and consummated the parties havechanged their condition; they bear an entirely new relationship tosociety, which, as represented by the state, acquires an interest in thetransaction, and all you can say about it is that whereas they were bothsingle before, they are married now, and that in the eyes of the lawtheir status has been altered to one as distinct and clearly defined asthat which exists between father and son, guardian and ward or masterand slave. "

"Hear! Hear!" remarked Tutt. "But I don't see why it isn't acontract--or very much like one, " he persisted. 

"It is like one in that its validity, like that of civil contractsgenerally, is determined by the law governing the place where it wasentered into, " went on Mr. Tutt oracularly, as if addressing the courtof appeals. "But it differs from a contract for the reason that theparties are not free to fix its terms, which are determined for them bythe state; that they cannot modify or rescind it by mutual consent; thatthe nature of the marriage status changes with the state and the laws ofthe state where the parties happen to be domiciled; and that damagescannot be recovered for a breach of marital duty. "

"Do you know I never thought of that before, " admitted Tutt. "But it'sperfectly true. "

"It is to the interest of society to have the relationship orderly andpermanent, " continued his partner. "That is why the state is so alertwith regard to divorce proceedings and vigilant to prevent fraud orcollusion. You may say that the state is always a party to everymatrimonial action--even if it is not actually interpleaded--and thatsuch proceedings are triangular and minus many of the characteristics ofthe ordinary civil suit. "

"I suppose another reason for that is that originally marriage anddivorce were entirely in the hands of the church, weren't they?"ruminated Tutt. 

"Exactly. From very early days in England the church claimedjurisdiction of all matters pertaining to marriage, on the ground thatit was a sacrament. "

"Did the ecclesiastical courts take the position that all marriages weremade in heaven?"

Mr. Tutt shrugged his shoulders. 

"'Once married, always married, ' was their doctrine. "

"Then how did people who were unhappily married get rid of one another?"

"They didn't--if the courts ruled that they had actually beenmarried--but that left a loophole. When was a marriage not a marriage?Answer: When the parties were closely enough related by blood ormarriage, or either of them was mentally incapable, under age, victimsof duress, fraud, mistake, previously contracted for, or--alreadymarried. "

"Ah!" breathed Tutt, thinking of Mr. Higgleby. 

"The ecclesiastical law remained without any particular variation untilafter the American Revolution and the colonies separated from GreatBritain, and as there was no union of church and state on this side ofthe water, and so no church to take control of the subject orecclesiastical courts to put its doctrines into effect, for a whilethere was no divorce law at all over here, and then one by one thestates took the matter up and began to make such laws about it as eachsaw fit. Hence the jolly old mess we are in now!"

"Jolly for us, " commented Tutt. "It means dollars per year to us. Well, "he remarked, stretching his legs and yawning, "divorce is sure an evil. "

"That's no news, " countered Mr. Tutt. "It was just as much of an evil inthe time of Moses, of Julius Caesar, and of Edward the Confessor as itis now. There hasn't been anything approaching the flagrancy of Romandivorce in modern history. "

"Thank heaven there's still enough to pay our office rent--anyhow!" saidTutt contentedly. "I hope they won't do anything so foolish as to passa national divorce law. "

"They won't, " Mr. Tutt assured him. "Most Congressmen are lawyers andare not going to take the bread out of their children's mouths. Besides, the power to regulate the domestic relations of the United States, notbeing delegated under the Constitution to the Federal Government, isexpressly retained by the states themselves. "

"You've given me a whole lot of ideas, " admitted Tutt. "If I get yourightly, as each state is governed by its own independent laws, thestatus of married persons must be governed by the law of the state wherethey are; otherwise if every couple on some theory of exterritorialitycarried the law of the state where they happened to have been joinedtogether round with them we would have the spectacle of every state inthe union interpreting the divorce laws of every other state--confusionworse confounded. "

"On the other hand, " returned Mr. Tutt, "the law is settled that amarriage valid when made is valid everywhere; and conversely, if invalidwhere made is invalid everywhere--like our Mongolian case. If that werenot so every couple in order to continue legally married would have togo through a new ceremony in every state through which they traveled. "

"Right-o!" whistled Tutt. "A parson on every Pullman!"

"It follows, " continued Mr. Tutt, lighting a fresh stogy and warming tohis subject, "that as each state has the right to regulate the status ofits own citizens it has jurisdiction to act in a divorce proceedingprovided one of the parties is actually domiciled within its borders. Naturally this action must be determined by its own laws and not bythose of any other state. The great divergence of these laws makesextraordinary complications. "

"Hallelujah!" cried Tutt. "Now, in the words of the psalmist, you'vesaid a mouthful! I know a man who at one and the same time is legallymarried to one woman in England, to another in Nevada, is a bigamist inNew York, and--"

"What else could he be except a widower in Pittsburgh?" pondered theelder Tutt. "But it's quite possible. There's a case going on now wherea woman in New York City is suing her ex-husband for a divorce on theusual statutory ground, and naming his present wife as co-respondent, though the plaintiff herself divorced him ten years ago in Reno, and hemarried again immediately after on the strength of it. "

"I'm feeling stronger every minute!" exclaimed Tutt. "Surely in all thisbedlam we ought to be able to acquit our new client Mr. Higgleby of thecharge of bigamy. At least _you_ ought to be able to. I couldn't. "

"What's the difficulty?" queried Mr. Tutt. 

"The difficulty simply is that he married the present Mrs. Higgleby onthe seventeenth of last December here in the city of New York, when hehad a perfectly good wife, whom he had married on the eleventh of thepreceding May, living in Chicago. "

"What on earth is the matter with him?" inquired Mr. Tutt. 

"He simply says he's a traveling man, " replied his partner, "and--hehappened to be in New York. "

"Well, the next time he calls, you send him in to see me, " directed Mr. Tutt. "What was the present lady's name?"

"Woodcock, " answered Tutt. "Alvina Woodcock. "

"And she wanted to change to Higgleby?" muttered his partner. "I wonderwhy. "

"Oh, there's something sort of appealing about him, " acknowledged Tutt. "But he don't look like a bigamist, " he concluded. "What does a bigamistlook like?" meditated Mr. Tutt as he lit another stogy. 

 * * * * *

"Good morning, Mr. Tutt, " muttered the Honorable Peckham from behind theimitation rubber plant in his office, where he was engaged insurreptitiously consuming an apple. "Um--be with you in a minute. What'son your mind?"

Mr. Tutt simultaneously removed his stogy with one hand and hisstovepipe with the other. 

"I thought we might as well run over my list of cases, " he replied. "Ican offer you a plea or two if you wish. "

"Do I!" ejaculated the D. A. , rolling his eyes heavenward. "Let's hearthe Roll of Honor. "

Mr. Tutt placed his hat, bottom side up, on the carpet and loweredhimself into a huge leather armchair, furnished to the county by apolitical friend of Mr. Peckham and billed at four hundred per cent ofthe regular retail price. Then he reinserted the stogy between his lipsand produced from his inside pocket a typewritten sheet. 

"There's Watkins--murdered his stepmother--indicted seven months ago. Give you murder in the second?"

"I'll take it, " assented Peckham, lighting a cigar in a businesslikemanner. "What else you got?"

"Joseph Goldstein--burglary. Will you give him grand larceny in thesecond?"

The Honorable Peckham shook his head. 

"Sorry I can't oblige you, old top, " he said regretfully. "He's calledthe King of the Fences. If I did, the papers would holler like hell. I'll make it any degree of burglary, though. "

"Very well. Burglary in the third, " agreed Mr. Tutt, jotting it down. "Then here's a whole bunch--five--indicted together for assault on abartender. "

"What degree?"

"Second--brass knuckles. "

"You can have third degree for the lot, " grunted Peckham laconically. 

"All right, " said Mr. Tutt. "Now for the ones that are going to trial. Here's Jennie Smith, indicted for stealing a mandarin chain valued atsixty-five dollars up at Monahaka's. The chain's only worth aboutsix-fifty and I can prove it. Monahaka don't want to go to trial becausehe knows I'll show him up for the Oriental flimflammer that he is. Butof course she took it. What do you say? I'll plead her to petty and yougive her a suspended sentence? That's a fair trade. "

Peckham pondered. 

"Sure, " he said finally. "I'm agreeable. Only tell Jennie that next timeI'll have her run out of town. "

Mr. Tutt nodded. 

"I'll whisper it to her. Now then, here's Higgleby--"

"Higgle who?" inquired Peckham dreamily. 

"Bee--by--Higgleby, " explained Mr. Tutt. "For bigamy. I want you todismiss the indictment for me. "

"What for?"

"You'll never convict him. "

"Why not?"

"Just because you never will!" Mr. Tutt assured him with earnestness. "And you might as well wipe him off the list. "

"Anything the matter with the indictment?" asked the D. A. "Caput Magnusdrew it. He's a good man, you know. "

Mr. Tutt drew sententiously on his stogy. 

"I would like to tell you all my secrets, " he replied after a pause, "but I can't afford to. The indictment is in the usual form. But justbetween you and me, you'll never convict Higgleby as long as you live. "

"Didn't he marry two joint and several ladies?"

"He did. "

"And one of 'em right here in New York County?"

"He did. "

"Well, how in hell can I dismiss the indictment?"

"Oh, easily enough. Lack of proof as to the first marriage in Chicago, for instance. How are you going to prove he wasn't divorced?"

"That's matter of defense, " retorted Peckham. 

"What's a little bigamy between friends, anyway?" ruminated the oldlawyer. "It's a kind of sumptuary offense. People will marry. And it'sgood policy to have 'em. If they happen to overdo it a little--"

"Well, if I do chuck the darn thing out what will you give me inreturn?" asked Peckham. "Of course, bigamy isn't my favorite crime oranything like that. I'm no bloodhound on matrimonial offenses. How'llyou trade?"

"If you'll throw out Higgleby I'll plead Angelo Ferrero tomanslaughter, " announced Mr. Tutt with a grand air of bestowing largessupon an unworthy recipient. 

"Cock-a-doodle-do!" chortled Peckham. "A lot you will! Angelo's halfwayto the chair already yet!"

"That's the best I'll do, " replied Mr. Tutt, feeling for his hat. 

Peckham hesitated. Mr. Tutt was a fair dealer. And he wanted to get ridof Angelo. 

"Give you murder in the second, " he urged. 

"Manslaughter. "

"Nothing doing, " answered the D. A. Definitely. "Your Mr. Higglebigamy'llhave to stand trial. "

"Oh, very well!" replied Mr. Tutt, unjointing himself. "We'reready--whenever you are. "

The old lawyer's lank figure had hardly disappeared out of the frontoffice when Peckham rang for Caput Magnus. 

"Look here, Caput, " he remarked suspiciously to the indictment clerk, "is there anything wrong with that Higgledy indictment?"

"Higgleby, you mean, I guess, " replied Mr. Magnus, regarding the D. A. Ina superior manner over the tops of his horn-rimmed spectacles. "Nothingis the matter with the indictment. I have followed my customary form. Ithas stood every test over and over again. Why do you ask?"

The Honorable Peckham turned away impatiently. 

"Oh--nothing. Look here, " he added unexpectedly, "I think I'll have youtry that indictment yourself. "

"Me!" ejaculated Caput in horror. "Why, I never tried a case in mylife!"

"Well, 's time you began!" growled the D. A. 

"I--I--shouldn't know what to do!" protested Mr. Magnus in agony at themere suggestion. 

"Where the devil would we be if everybody felt like that?" demanded hismaster. "You're supposed to be a lawyer, aren't you?"

"But I--I--can't! I--don't know how!"

"Hang it all, " cried Peckham furiously, "you go ahead and do as I say. You indicted Higgledy; now you can try Higgledy!"

He was utterly unreasonable, but his anger was genuine if baseless. 

"Oh, very well, sir, " stammered Mr. Magnus. "Of course I'll--I must--dowhatever you say. "

"You better!" shouted Peckham after his retreating figure. "You littleblathering shrimp!"

Then he threw himself down in his swivel chair with a bang. 

"Judas H. Priest!" he roared at the rubber plant. "I'd give a good dealfor a decent excuse to fire that blooming nincompoop!"

Meantime, as the object of his ire slunk down the corridor darknessdescended upon the soul of Caput Magnus. For Caput was what is known asan office lawyer and had never gone into court save as an onlookeror--as he would have phrased it--an _amicus curiae_. He was a perfectpundit--"a hellion on law, " according to the Honorable Peckham--astrutting little cock on his own particular dunghill, but, stripped ofhis goggles, books, forms and foolscap, as far as his equanimity wasconcerned he might as well have been in face, figure and generalobjectionability. No longer could he be heard roaring for hisstenographer. Instead, those of his colleagues who paused stealthilyoutside his door on their way over to Pont's for "five-o'clock tea"heard dulcet tones floating forth from the transom in varyingfluctuations:

"Ahem! H'm! Gentlemen of the jury--h'm! The defendant is indicted forthe outrageous crime of bigamy! No, that won't do! Gentlemen of thejury, the defendant is indicted for the crime of bigamy! H'm! The crimeof bigamy is one of those atrocious offenses against the moral law--"

"Oh! Oh!" choked the legal assistants as they embraced themselveswildly. "Oh! Oh! Caput's practisin'! Just listen to 'im! Ain't he thelittle cuckoo! Bet he's takin' lessons in elocution! But won't old Tuttjust eat him alive!"

And in the stilly hours of the early dawn those sleeping in tenementsand extensions adjacent to the hall bedroom occupied by Caput wereroused by a trembling voice that sought vainly to imitate thenonchalance of experience, declaiming: "Gentlemen of the jury, thedefendant is indicted for the crime of bigamy! This offense is onerepugnant to the instincts of civilization and odious to the tenets ofreligion!" And thereafter they tossed until breakfast time, bigamybecoming more and more odious to them every minute. 

No form of diet, no physical exercise, no "reducicle" could haveachieved the extraordinary alteration in Mr. Magnus' appearance that wasin fact induced by his anxiety over his prospective prosecution ofHiggleby. Whereas erstwhile he had been smug and condescending, complacent, lethargic and ponderous, he now became drawn, nervous, apprehensive and obsequious. Moreover, he was markedly thinner. He wasobviously on a decline, caused by sheer funk. Speak sharply to him andhe would shy like a frightened pony. The Honorable Peckham wasenraptured, claiming now to have a system of getting even with peoplethat beat the invention of Torquemada. When it was represented to himthat Caput might die, fade away entirely, in which case the office wouldbe left without any indictment clerk, the Honorable Peckham profanelydeclared that he didn't care a damn. Caput Magnus was going to tryHiggleby, that was all there was to it! And at last the day came. 

Gathered in Judge Russell's courtroom were as many of the officeassistants as could escape from their duties, anxious to officiate atthe legal demise of Caput Magnus. Even the Honorable Peckham could notrefrain from having business there at the call of the calendar. Itresembled a regular monthly conference of the D. A. 's professional staff, which for some reason Tutt and Mr. Tutt had also been invited to attend. Yea, the spectators were all there in the legal colosseum waitingeagerly to see Caput Magnus enter the arena to be gobbled up by Tutt &Tutt. They thirsted for his blood, having been for years bored by hisbrains. They would rather see Caput Magnus made mincemeat of thanninety-nine criminals convicted, even were they guilty of bigamy. 

But as yet Caput Magnus was not there. It was ten-twenty-nine. The clerkwas there; Mr. Higgleby, isosceles, flabby and acephalous as ever, wasthere; Tutt and Mr. Tutt were there; and Bonnie Doon, and thestenographer and the jury. And on the front bench the two wives ofHiggleby sat, side by side, so frigidly that had that gentlemanpossessed the gift of prevision he would never have married either ofthem; Mrs. Tomascene Startup Higgleby and Mrs. --or Miss--Alvina Woodcock(Higgleby)--depending upon the action of the jury. The entire cast inthe eternal matrimonial triangular drama was there except the judge andthe prosecutor in the form of Caput Magnus. 

And then, preceding the judge by half a minute only, his entrance timedhistrionically to the second, he came, like Eudoxia, like a flame out ofthe east. In swept Caput Magnus with all the dignity and grace of anIrving playing Cardinal Wolsey. Haggard, yes; pale, yes; tremulous, perhaps; but nevertheless glorious in a new cutaway coat, patent-leathershoes, green tie, a rosebud blushing from his lapel, his hair newly cutand laid down in beautiful little wavelets with pomatum, his figureerect, his chin in air, a book beneath his arm, his right hand waving ina delicate gesture of greeting; for Caput had taken O'Leary's suggestionseriously, and had purchased that widely known and authoritative work towhich so many eminent barristers owe their entire success--"How to Try aCase"--and in it he had learned that in order to win the hearts of thejury one should make oneself beautiful. 

"What in hell's he done to himself?" gasped O'Leary to O'Brien. 

"He'll make a wonderful corpse!" whispered the latter in response. 

"Order in the court! His Honor the Judge of General Sessions!" bellowedan officer at this moment, and the judge came in. 

Everybody got up. He bowed. Everybody bowed. Everybody sat down again. A few, deeply affected, blew their noses. Then His Honor smiled geniallyand asked what business there was before the court, and the clerk toldhim that they were all there to try a man named Higgleby for bigamy, andthe judge, nodding at Caput, said to go ahead and try him. 

In the bottom of his peritoneum Mr. Magnus felt that he carried a coldstone the size of a grapefruit. His hands were ice, his lips bloodless. And there was a Niagara where his hearing should have been. But he rose, just as the book told him to do, in all his beauty, and enunciated inthe crystal tones he had learned during the last few weeks at MadamWinterbottom's school of acting and elocution--in syllables chiseledfrom the stone of eloquence by the lapidary of culture:

"If Your Honor please, I move the cause of the People of the state ofNew York against Theophilus Higgleby, indicted for bigamy. "

Peckham and the rest couldn't believe their ears. It wasn't possible!That perfect specimen of tonsorial and sartorial art, warbling like alegal Caruso, conducting himself so naturally, easily and casually, couldn't be old Caput Magnus! They pinched themselves. 

"Say!" ejaculated Peckham. "What's happened to him? When did Sir Henrysign up with us?"

Mr. Tutt across the inclosure in front of the jury box raised his bushyeyebrows and looked whimsically at the D. A. Over his spectacles. 

"Are you ready, Mr. Tutt?" inquired the judge. 

"Entirely so, Your Honor, " responded the lawyer. 

"Then impanel a jury. "

The jury was impaneled, Mr. Caput Magnus passing through that tryingordeal with great éclat. 

"You may proceed to open your case, " directed the judge. 

The staff saw a very white Caput Magnus rise and bow in the direction ofthe bench. Then he stepped to the jury box and cleared his throat. Hisofficial associates held their breath expectantly. Would he--or wouldn'the? There was a pause. 

Then: "Mister Foreman and gentlemen of the jury, " declaimed Caput influtelike tones: "The defendant is indicted for the crime of bigamy, anoffense alike repugnant to religion, civilization and to the law. "

The words flowed from him like a rippling sunlit stream; encircled himlike a necklace of verbal jewels, a rosary, each word a pearl or a beador whatever it is. With perfect articulation, enunciation andgesticulation Mr. Caput Magnus went on to inform his hearers that Mr. Higgleby was a bigamist of the deepest dye, that he had feloniously, wilfully and knowingly married two several females, and by everystandard of conduct was utterly and entirely detestable. 

Mr. Higgleby, flanked by Tutt and Mr. Tutt, listened calmly. Caputwarmed to his task. 

The said Higgleby, said he, had as aforesaid in the indictment committedthe act of bigamy, to wit, of marriage when he had one legal wifealready, in New York City on the seventeenth of last December, bymarrying in Grace Church Chantry the lady whom they saw sitting by theother lady--he meant the one with the red feather in her bonnet--that isto say, her hat, whereas the other lady, as he had said aforesaid, hadbeen lawfully and properly married to the defendant the preceding May, to wit, in Chicago as aforesaid--

"Pardon me!" interrupted the foreman petulantly. "Which is the lady youmean was married to the defendant in New York? You said she was sittingby the other lady and that you meant the one with the red feather, butyou didn't say whether the one with the red feather was the other ladyor the one you were talking about. "

Caput gagged and turned pink. 

"I--I--" he stammered. "The lady in the red bonnet is--the--New Yorklady. "

"You mean she isn't his wife although the defendant went through theform of marriage with her, because he was already married to another, "suggested His Honor. "You might, I think, put things a little moresimply. However, do it your own way. "

"Ye-es, Your Honor. "

"Go on. "

But Caput was lost--hopelessly. Every vestige of the composure solaboriously acquired at Madam Winterbottom's salon had evaporated. Hefelt as if he were swinging in midair hitched to a scudding aeroplane bya rope about his middle. The mucous membranes of his throat were as dryand as full of dust as the entrails of a carpet sweeper. His vision wasblurred and he had no control over his muscles. Weakly he leaned againstthe table in front of the jury, the room swaying about him. The pains ofhell gat hold upon him. He was dying. Even the staff feltcompunction--all but the Honorable Peckham. 

Judge Russell quickly sensed the situation. He was a kindly man, who hadpulled many an ass out of the mire of confusion. So with a glance atMr. Tutt he came to Caput's rescue. 

"Let us see, Mr. Magnus, " he remarked pleasantly; "suppose you prove theIllinois marriage first. Is Mrs. Higgleby in court?"

Both ladies started from their seats. 

"Mrs. Tomascene Higgleby, " corrected His Honor. "Step this way, please, madam!"

The former Miss Startup made her way diffidently to the witness chairand in a faint voice answered the questions relative to her marriage ofthe preceding spring as put to her by the judge. Mr. Tutt waved heraside and Caput Magnus felt returning strength. He had expected andprepared for a highly technical assault upon the legality of theceremony performed in Cook County. He had anticipated every variety andform of question. But Mr. Tutt put none. He merely smiled benignly uponCaput in an avuncular fashion. 

"Have you no questions, Mr. Tutt?" inquired His Honor. 

"None, " answered the lawyer. 

"Then prove the bigamous marriage, " directed Judge Russell. 

Then rose at the call of justice, militantly and with a curious air ofproprietorship in the overmarried defendant, the wife or maiden who inearlier days had answered to the name of Alvina Woodcock. Though she wasthe injured party and though the blame for her unfortunate state restedentirely upon Higgleby, her resentment seemed less directed toward theoffending male than toward the Chicago lady who was his lawful wife. There was no question as to the circumstances to which she so definitelyand aggressively testified. No one could gainsay the deplorable factthat she had, as she supposed, been linked in lawful wedlock to Mr. Tutt's isosceles client. But there was that in her manner whichsuggested that she felt that being the last she should be first, thatfinding was keeping, and that possession was nine points of matrimoniallaw. 

And, as before, Mr. Tutt said nothing. Neither he nor Tutt nor BonnieDoon nor yet Higgleby showed any the least sign of concern. Caput'smomentarily returning self-possession forsook him. What portended hisominous silence? Had he made some horrible mistake? Had he overlookedsome important jurisdictional fact? Was he now to be hoist for someunknown reason by his own petard? He was, poor innocent--he was!

"That is the case, " he announced faintly. "The People rest. "

Judge Russell looked down curiously at Mr. Tutt. 

"Well, " he remarked, "how about it, Mr. Tutt?"

But the old lawyer only smiled. 

"Come here a minute, " directed His Honor. 

And when Mr. Tutt reached the bench the judge said: "Have you anydefense in this case? If not, why don't you plead guilty and let medispose of the matter?"

"But, Your Honor, " protested Mr. Tutt, "of course I have a defense--anda most excellent one!"

"You have?"

"Certainly. "

The judged elevated his forehead. 

"Very well, " he remarked; "if you really have one you had better go onwith it. And, " he added beneath his breath, but in a tone clearlyaudible to the clerk, "the Lord have mercy on your soul!"

The assistants saw Caput subside into his chair and simultaneously Mr. Tutt slowly raise his lank form toward the ceiling. 

"Gentlemen of the jury, " said he benignly: "My client, Mr. Higgleby, ischarged in this indictment with the crime of bigamy committed here inNew York, in marrying Alvina Woodcock--the strong-minded lady on thefront row of benches there--when he already had a lawful wife living inChicago. The indictment alleges no other offense and the districtattorney has not sought to prove any, my learned and eloquent adversary, Mr. Magnus, having a proper regard for the constitutional rights ofevery unfortunate whom he brings to the bar of justice. If therefore Ican prove to you that Mr. Higgleby was never lawfully married toTomascene Startup in Chicago on the eleventh of last May or at any othertime, the allegation of bigamy falls to the ground; at any rate so faras this indictment is concerned. For unless the indictment sets forth avalid prior marriage it is obvious that the subsequent marriage cannotbe bigamous. Am I clear? I perceive by your very intelligent facialexpressions that I am. Well, my friends, Mr. Higgleby never was lawfullymarried to Tomascene Startup last May in Chicago, and you will thereforebe obliged to acquit him! Come here, Mr. Smithers. "

Caput Magnus suddenly experienced the throes of dissolution. Who wasSmithers? What could old Tutt be driving at? But Smithers--evidently theReverend Sanctimonious Smithers--was already placidly seated in thewitness chair, his limp hands folded across his stomach and his thinnose looking interrogatively toward Mr. Tutt. 

"What is your name?" asked the lawyer dramatically. 

"My name is Oswald Garrison Smithers, " replied the reverend gentleman inCanton-flannel accents, "and I reside in Pantuck, Iowa, where I ampastor of the Reformed Lutheran Church. "

"Do you know the defendant?"

"Indeed I do, " sighed the Reverend Smithers. "I remember him very well. I solemnized his marriage to a widow of my congregation on July 4, 1917;in fact to the relict of our late senior warden, Deacon PellatiahHiggins. Sarah Maria Higgins was the lady's name, and she is alive andwell at the present time. "

He gazed deprecatingly at the jury. If meekness had efficacy he wouldhave inherited the earth. 

"What?" ejaculated the foreman. "You say this man is married to _three_women?"

"Trigamy--not bigamy!" muttered the clerk, _sotto voce_. 

"You have put your finger upon the precise point, Mister Foreman!"exclaimed Mr. Tutt admiringly. "If Mr. Higgleby was already lawfullymarried to a lady in Iowa when he married Miss--or Mrs. --Startup inChicago last May, his marriage to the latter was not a legal marriage;it was in fact no marriage at all. You can't charge a man with bigamyunless you recite a legal marriage followed by an illegal one. Therefore, since the indictment fails to set forth a legal marriageanywhere followed by a marriage, legal or otherwise, in New York County, it recites no crime, and my client must be acquitted. Is not that thelaw, Your Honor?"

Judge Russell quickly hid a smile and turned to the moribund Caput. 

"Mr. Magnus, have you anything to say in reply to Mr. Tutt's argument?"he asked. "If not--"

But no response came from Caput Magnus. He was past all hearing, understanding or answering. He was ready to be carried out and buried. 

"Well, all I have got to say is--" began the foreman disgustedly. 

"You do not have to say anything!" admonished the judge severely. "Iwill do whatever talking is necessary. A little more care in thepreparation of the indictment might have rendered this rather absurdsituation impossible. As it is, I must direct an acquittal. Thedefendant is discharged upon this indictment. But I will hold him inbail for the action of another grand jury. "

"In which event we shall have another equally good defense, Your Honor, "Mr. Tutt assured him. 

"I don't doubt it, Mr. Tutt, " returned the judge good-naturedly. "Yourclient seems to have loved not wisely but too well. " And they all pouredout happily into the corridor--that is, all of them except Caput and thetwo ladies, who remained seated upon their bench gazing fiercely anddisdainfully at each other like two tabby cats on a fence. 

"So you're not married to him, either!" sneered Miss Woodcock. 

"Well, I'm as much married to him as you are!" retorted Miss Startupwith her nose in the air. 

Then instinctively they both turned and with one accord lookedmalevolently at Caput, who, seeing in their glance something which hedid not like, slipped stealthily from his chair and out of the room, leaving ignominiously behind him upon the floor his precious volumeentitled "How to Try a Case"!

"That Sort of Woman"

 "Judge not according to the appearance. "--John VII: 24. 

"Tutt, " said Mr. Tutt, entering the offices of Tutt & Tutt and hanginghis antediluvian stovepipe on the hat-tree in the corner, "I see by themorning paper that Payson Clifford has departed this life. "

"You don't say!" replied the junior Tutt, glancing up from the letter hewas writing. "Which one, --Payson, Senior, or Payson, Junior?"

"Payson, Senior, " answered Mr. Tutt as he snipped off the end of a stogywith the pair of nail scissors which he always carried in his vestpocket. 

"In that case, it's too bad, " remarked Tutt regretfully. 

"Why 'in that case'?" queried his partner. 

"Oh, the son isn't so much of a much!" replied the smaller Tutt. "Idon't say the father was so much of a much, either. Payson Clifford wasa good fellow--even if he wasn't our First Citizen--or likely to be acandidate for that position in the Hereafter. But that boy--"

"Shh!" reproved Mr. Tutt, slowly shaking his head so that the smoke fromhis rat-tailed cigar wove a gray scroll in the air before his face. "Remember that there's one thing worse than to speak ill of the dead, and that's to speak ill of a client!"

Mr. Payson Clifford, the client in question, was a commonplace youngman who had been carefully prepared for the changes and chances of thismortal life first at a Fifth Avenue day school in New York City, afterwards at a select boarding school among the rock-ribbed hills ofthe Granite State, and finally at Cambridge, Massachusetts, in thecultured atmosphere of Harvard College, through whose precincts, in thedim, almost forgotten past, we are urged to believe that the good andthe great trod musingly in their beautiful prime. He emerged with aperhaps almost prudish distaste for the ugly, the vulgar, and theunclean, --and with distinct delusions of grandeur. He was still in thatstate not badly described by the old saw--"You can always tell a Harvardman, --but you can't tell him much. "

His mother had died when he was still a child and he preserved hermemory as the most sacred treasure of his inner shrine. He could justrecall her as a gentle and dignified presence, in contrast with whom hisburly, loud-voiced father had always seemed crass and ordinary. Andalthough it was that same father who had, for as long as he couldremember, supplied him with a substantial check upon the first day ofevery month and thus enabled him to achieve that exalted state ofintellectual and spiritual superiority which he had in fact attained, nevertheless, putting it frankly in the vernacular, Payson rather lookeddown on the old man, who palpably suffered from lack of the advantageswhich he had furnished to his son. 

Payson, Sr. , had never taken any particular pains to alter his son'sopinion of himself. On the whole he was more proud of him thanotherwise, recognizing that while he obviously suffered from anoverdevelopment of the ego and an excessive fastidiousness in dress, hewas, at bottom, clearly all right and a good sort. Still, he was forcedto confess that there wasn't much between them. His son expressed thesame thought by regretting that his father "did not speak his language. "

So, in the winter vacation when Payson, Sr. , fagged from his long day atthe office sought the "Frolics" or the "Folies, " Payson, Jr. , might beseen at a concert for the harpsichord and viola, or at an evening ofPalestrina or the Earlier Gregorian Chants. Had he been lesssupercilious about it this story would never have been written--anddoubtless no great loss at that. But it is the prerogative of youth tobe arrogantly merciless in its judgment of the old. Its bright lexiconhas no verdict "with mitigating circumstances. " Youth is just when it isright; it is cruel when it is wrong; and it is inexorable in any case. If we are ever to be tried for our crimes let us have juries of whitewhiskered old boys who like tobacco, crab flakes, light wines andmusical comedy. 

All of which leads up to the sad admission upon our part that Payson, Jr. , was a prig. And in the very middle of his son's priggishnessPayson, Sr. , up and died, and Tutt and Mr. Tutt were called upon toadminister his estate. 

There may be concealed somewhere a few rare human beings who can lookback upon their treatment of their parents with honest satisfaction. Ihave never met any. It is the fate of those who bring others into theworld to be chided for their manners, abused for their mistakes, andpilloried for their faults. Twenty years difference in age turns manyan elegance into a barbarism; many a virtue into a vice-versa. I do notperform at breakfast for the edification of my offspring upon themustache cup, but I chew my strawberry seeds, which they claim is worse. My grandpapa and grandmama used to pour the coffee from their cups anddrink it from their saucers and they were--nevertheless--rated AA1 inBoston's Back Bay Blue Book. And now my daughters, who smoke cigarettes, object loudly to my pipe smoke! _Autre temps autres manières_. And noman is a hero to his children. He has a hanged-sight more chance withhis valet--if in these days he can afford to keep one. 

His father's death was a shock to Payson, Jr. , because he had notsupposed that people in active business like that ever did die, --they"retired" instead, and after a discreet period of semi-seclusiongradually disintegrated by appropriate stages. But Payson, Sr. , simplydied right in the middle of everything--without any chance of aspiritual understanding--"reconciliation" would be inaccurate--with hisson. So, Payson, Jr. , protestingly acquired by part cash and balancecredit a complete suit of what he scathingly described as "the barbarouspanoply of death" and, turning himself into what he similarly called a"human catafalque, " followed Payson, Sr. , to the grave. 

Perhaps, after all, we have been a bit hard on Payson, Jr. He wasfundamentally, as his father had perceived, good stuff, and wanted to dothe right thing. But what is the right thing? Really it isn't half ashard to be good as to know how. 

As the orphaned Payson, ensconced in lonely state in one of the funeralhacks, was carried at a fast trot down Broadway towards the offices ofTutt & Tutt, he consoled himself for his loss with the reflection thatthis was, probably, the last time he would ever have to see any of hisrelatives. Never in his short life had he been face to face with such agathering of unattractive human beings. He hadn't imagined that suchpeople existed. They oughtn't to exist. The earth should be a lovelyplace, its real estate occupied only by cultured and lovely people. These aesthetic considerations reminded him with a shock that, just ashe had been an utter stranger to them, so he had been a stranger to hisfather--his poor, old, widowed father. What did he really know abouthim?--not one thing! And he had never tried to find out anything abouthim, --about his friends, his thoughts, his manner of life, --contentmerely to cash his checks, under the unconscious assumption that the manwho drew them ought to be equally content to be the father of such ayouth as himself. But those rusty relatives! They must have been hisfather's! Certainly his mother's wouldn't have been like that, --and hefelt confident he took after his mother. Still, those relatives worriedhim! Up at Harvard he had stood rather grandly on his name--"PaysonClifford, Jr. , "--with no questions asked about the "Senior" or anybodyelse. He now perceived that he was to be thrown out into the world offact where who and what his father had been might make a lot ofdifference. Rather anxiously he hoped the old gentleman would turn outto have been all right;--and would have left enough of an estate so thathe could still go on cashing checks upon the first day of every month!

It was one of the unwritten laws of the office of Tutt & Tutt that Mr. Tutt was never to be bothered about the details of a probate matter, andit is more than doubtful whether, even if he had tried, he could havecorrectly made out the inventory of an estate for filing in theSurrogate's Court. For be it known that, while the senior member of thefirm was long on the philosophy of the law and the subtleties of"restraints on alienation, " "powers, " "perpetuities" and the mysteriesof "the next eventual estate, " he was frankly short on the patience toadd and subtract. So while Mr. Tutt drew their clients' wills, it wasTutt who attempted to probate and execute them. Then, if by any chance, there was any trouble or some ungrateful relative thought he hadn't gotenough, it was Mr. Tutt who reluctantly tossed away his stogy, strolledover to court and defended the will which he had drawn, --usually withsuccess. 

So it was the lesser Tutt who wrung the hand of Payson Clifford and gavehim the leathern armchair by the window. 

"And now about the will!" chirped Tutt, as after a labored encomium uponthe virtues of Payson, Senior, deceased, he took the liberty of lightinga cigarette before he commenced to read the instrument which lay in abrown envelope upon the desk before him. "And now about the will! Isuppose you are already aware that your father has made you his executorand, after a few minor legacies, the residuary legatee of his entireestate?"

Payson shook his head mutely. He felt it more becoming to pretend to beignorant of these things under the circumstances. 

"Yes, " continued Tutt cheerfully, taking up the envelope, "Mr. Tuttdrew the will--nearly fifteen years ago--and your father never thoughtnecessary to change it. It's lain right there in our 'Will Box' withoutbeing disturbed more than once, --and that was seven or eight years agowhen he came in one day and asked to be allowed to look at it, --I thinkhe put an envelope containing a letter in with it. I found one there theother day. "

Payson languidly took the will in his hand. 

"How large an estate did he leave?" he inquired. 

"As near as I can figure out about seventy thousand dollars, " answeredTutt. "But the transfer tax will not be heavy, and the legacies do notaggregate more than ten thousand. "

The instrument was a short one, --drawn with all Mr. Tutt's ability forcompression--and filling only a single sheet. Payson's father hadbequeathed seventy-six hundred dollars to his three cousins and theirchildren, and everything else he had left to his son. Payson rapidlycomputed that after settling the bills against the estate, includingthat of Tutt & Tutt, he would probably get at least sixty thousand outof it. At the current rate he would continue to be quitecomfortable, --more so in fact than heretofore. Still, it was less thanhe had expected. Perhaps his father had had expensive habits. 

"Here's the letter, " went on Tutt, handing it to Payson who took out hispen-knife to open it the more neatly. "Probably a suggestion as to thedisposal of personal effects--remembrances or something of the sort. It's often done. "

The envelope was a cheap one, ornamented in the upper left hand cornerwith a wood cut showing a stout goddess in a night dress, evidentlymeant for Proserpina--pouring a Niagara of grain out of a cornucopia ofplenty over a farmland stacked high with apples, corn, and pumpkins, andflooded by the beams of a rising sun with a real face. Beneath were thewords:

 "If not delivered in five days return to

 Clifford, Cobb & Weng, Grain Dealers and Produce 597 Water Street, N. Y. City, N. Y. "

Even as his eye fell upon it Payson was conscious of its coarsevulgarity. And "Weng"! Whoever heard of such a name? He certainly hadnot, --hadn't even known that his father had a partner with such anabsurd cognomen! "--& Weng!" There was something terribly plebeian aboutit. As well as about the obvious desire for symmetry which had led tothe addition of that superfluous "N. Y. " below the entirely adequate"N. Y. City. " But, of course, he'd be glad to do anything his fatherrequested in a letter. 

He forced the edge of the blade through the tough fiber of the envelope, drew forth the enclosed sheet and unfolded it. In the middle of the topwas a replica of the wood cut upon the outside, only minus the "If notdelivered in five days return to. " Then Payson read in his father'scustomary bold scrawl the simple inscription, doomed to haunt himsleeping and waking for many moons:--

 "In case of my sudden death I wish my executor to give twenty-five thousand dollars to my very dear friend Sadie Burch, of Hoboken, N. J. 

 "PAYSON CLIFFORD. "

For a brief--very brief--moment, a mist gathered over the letter in theson's hand. "My dear friend Sadie Burch!" He choked back the exclamationof surprise that rose unconsciously to his lips and endeavored tosuppress any facial evidence of his inner feelings. "Twenty-fivethousand!" Then he held out the letter more or less casually to Tutt. 

"Wee-e-ll!" whistled the lawyer softly, with a quick glance from underhis eyebrows. 

"Oh, it isn't the money!" remarked Payson in a sickly tone--although ofcourse he was lying. It _was_ the money. 

The idea of surrendering nearly half his father's estate to a strangerstaggered him; yet to his eternal credit, in that first instant ofbewildered agony no thought of disregarding his father's wishes enteredhis mind. It was a hard wallop, but he'd got to stand it. 

"Oh, that's nothing!" remarked Tutt. "It's not binding. You don't needto pay any attention to it. "

"Do you really mean that that paper hasn't any legal effect?" exclaimedthe boy with such a reaction of relief that for the moment the ethicalaspect of the case was entirely obscured by the legal. 

"None whatever!" returned Tutt definitely. 

"But it's part of the will!" protested Payson. "It's in my father's ownhandwriting. "

"That doesn't make any difference, " declared the lawyer. "Not beingwitnessed in the manner required by law it's not of the slightestsignificance. "

"Not even if it is put right in with the will?"

"Not a particle. "

"But I've often heard of letters being put with wills. "

"No doubt. But I'll wager you never heard of any one of them beingprobated. "

Payson's legal experience in fact did not reach to this technical point. 

"Look here!" he returned obstinately. "I'll be hanged if I understand. You say this paper has no legal value and yet it is in my father's ownhand and practically attached to his will. Now, apart fromany--er--moral question involved, just why isn't this letter binding onme?"

Tutt smiled leniently. 

"Have a cigarette?" he asked, and when Payson took one, he addedsympathetically as he held a match for him, "Your attitude, my dear sir, does you credit. It is wholly right and natural that you shouldinstinctively desire to uphold that which on its face appears to be awish of your father. But all the same that letter isn't worth the paperit's written on--as matter of law. "

"But why not?" demanded Payson. "What better evidence could the courtsdesire of the wishes of a testator than such a letter?"

"The reason is simple enough!" replied Tutt, settling himself in acomfortable position. "In the eye of the law no property is ever withoutan owner. It is always owned by somebody, although the ownership may bein dispute. When a man dies his real property instantly passes to hisheirs and his personal property descends in accordance to the localstatute of distributions or, if there isn't any, to his next of kin; butif he leaves a will, to the extent to which it is valid, it diverts theproperty from its natural legal destination. Thus, in effect, the realpurpose of a will is to prevent the laws operating on one's estate afterdeath. If your father had died intestate, you would have instantlybecome, in contemplation of law, the owner of all his property. Hiswill--his legal will--deprives you of a small part of it for the benefitof others. But the law is exceedingly careful about recognizing such anintention of a testator to prevent the operation of the statutes andrequires him to demonstrate the sincerity and fixity of that intentionby going through various established formalities, such as putting hisintention in due form in a written instrument which he must sign anddeclare to be his last will before a certain number of competentwitnesses whom he requests to sign as such and who actually do sign assuch in his presence and in the presence of each other. Your fatherobviously did none of these things when he placed this letter with hiswill. "

"But isn't a letter ever enough--under any circumstances?" inquiredPayson. 

"Well, " said Tutt. "It is true that under certain exceptionalcircumstances a man may make what is known as a nuncupative will. "

"What is a--a--nuncupative will?" asked his client. 

"Technically it is an oral will, operating on personality only, made inextremis--that is, actually in fear of death--and under our statuteslimited to soldiers in active military service or to mariners at sea. Under the old common law it was just as effective to pass personalestate as a written instrument. "

"But father wasn't either a soldier or a sailor, " commented Payson, "andanyhow a letter isn't an oral will; if it's anything at all, it's awritten one, isn't it?"

"That is the attitude the law takes, " nodded Tutt. "Of course, one couldargue that it made no difference whether a man uttered his wishes orallyin the presence of witnesses or reduced them to writing and signed them, but the law is very technical in such matters and it has been held thata will reduced to writing and signed by the testator, or a memorandum ofinstructions for making a will, cannot be treated as a nuncupative will;nor is a written will, drawn up by an attorney, but not signed, owing tothe sickness of the testator to be treated as a nuncupative will; butupon requisite proof--in a proper case--a paper, not perfected as awritten will, may be established as a nuncupative will when itscompletion is prevented by act of God, or any other cause than anintention to abandon or postpone its consummation. The presumption ofthe law is against validity of a testamentary paper not completed. Theremust be in the testator the _animus testandi_, which is sometimespresumed from circumstances in such cases and in such places asnuncupative wills are recognized. Now, your father being as you pointout, neither a soldier nor a sailor, couldn't have made a nuncupativewill under any circumstances, even if a letter would legally be treatedas such a will instead of as an ineffectual attempt to make a writtenone--upon which point I confess myself ignorant. Therefore"--and hetossed away his cigarette butt with an air of finality--"this letterbequeathing twenty-five thousand dollars to Sadie Burch--whoever andwhatever she may be--is either an attempt to make a will or a codicil toa will in a way not recognized by the statute, or it is an attempt toadd to, alter or vary a will already properly executed and witnessed byarbitrarily affixing to or placing within it an extraneous writtenpaper. "

"Well, " commented Payson, "I understand what you've said aboutnun--nuncupative wills, all right, --that is, I think I do. But leavingthem out of consideration I still don't see why this letter can't beregarded as _part_ of the original will. "

"For the reason that when your father executed the original document hewent through every form required by the statute for making a will. If hehadn't, it wouldn't have been a will at all. If this paper, which neverwas witnessed by a single person, could be treated as a supplement oraddition to the will, there would have been no use requiring theoriginal will to be witnessed, either. "

"That seems logical, " agreed Payson. "But isn't it often customary toincorporate other papers by referring to them in a will?"

"It is sometimes done, and usually results in nothing but litigation. You see for yourself how absurd it would be to treat a paper drawn orexecuted after a will was made as part of it, for that would render therequirements of the statute nugatory. "

"But suppose the letter was already in existence or was written at thesame time as the will, --wouldn't that make a difference?" hesitatedPayson. 

"Not a bit! Not one bit!" chirped Tutt. "The law is settled that such apaper writing can be given effect only under certain very specialconditions and only to a limited extent. Anyhow that question doesn'tarise here. "

"Why not?" queried the residuary legatee. "How do you know this letterwasn't written and placed inside the will when it was made?--And that myfather supposed that of course it would be given effect?"

"In that case why shouldn't he have incorporated the legacy in thewill?" countered Tutt sharply. 

"He--er--may not have wished Mr. Tutt to know about it, " murmuredPayson, dropping his eyes. 

"Oh, --hardly!" protested Tutt. "We can be morally certain that thisletter was written and placed with the will that time your father camein here and asked to be allowed to see it, seven odd years ago. Mr. Tuttwould have noticed it if your father had placed it with the will in thefirst instance and would have warned him that nothing of the sort couldpossibly be effective. "

"But, " insisted Payson, "assuming for argument's sake that this letterwas in fact written at the time the will was originally executed, whatis the reason the law won't recognize it as a valid bequest?"

Tutt smiled and fumbled in an open box for another cigarette. 

"My dear sir, " he replied, "no paper could possibly be treated as partof a will--even if extant at the time the will was executed--unlessdistinctly referred to in the will itself. In a word, there must be aclear and unmistakable intention on the part of the testator to attemptto incorporate the extraneous paper by reference. Now, here, there is noreference to the paper in the will at all. "

"That is true!" admitted Payson. "But--"

"But even if there were, " went on Tutt, eagerly, "the law is settled inthis state that where a testator--either through carelessness or adesire to economize space or effort, has referred in his will toextraneous papers or memoranda, either as fixing the names ofbeneficiaries of particular devises or bequests, or as fixing the amountor the manner in which the amount of such devises or bequests is to beascertained, such a paper must not contain any testamentary dispositionof property. In a word the testator having willed something can_identify_ it by means of an extraneous paper if properly designated, but he cannot _will_ the thing away by an extraneous paper no matter howreferred to. For example, if A wills to B 'all the stock covered by myagreement of May 1, with X' it merely describes and identifies the thingbequeathed, --and that is all right. The law will give effect to theidentifying agreement, although it is separate from the will andunattested. But, if A's will read 'and I give such further bequests asappear in a paper filed herewith' and the paper contained a bequest to Bof 'all the stock covered by my agreement of May 1, with X' it would bean attempted bequest outside of the will and so have no legal effect. "

"Thanks, " said Payson. "I understand. So in no event whatever could thisletter have any legal effect?"

"Absolutely none whatever!--You're perfectly safe!" And Tutt leaned backwith a comfortable smile. 

But Payson did not smile in return. Neither was he comfortable. Be itsaid for him that, however many kinds of a fool he may have been, whilemomentarily relieved at knowing that he had no legal obligation tocarry out his father's wishes so far as Sadie Burch was concerned, hisconscience was by no means easy and he had not liked at all the tone inwhich the paunchy little lawyer had used the phrase "you're perfectlysafe. "

"What do you mean by 'perfectly safe', " he inquired rather coldly. 

"Why, that Sadie Burch could never make you pay her the legacy--becauseit isn't a legal legacy. You can safely keep it. It's yours, legally andmorally. "

"Well, is it?" asked Payson slowly. "Morally, isn't it my duty to payover the money, no matter who she is?"

Tutt, who had tilted backward in his swivel chair, brought both his feetto the floor with a bang. 

"Of course it isn't!" he cried. "You'd be crazy to pay the slightestattention to any such vague and unexplained scrawl. Listen, young man!In the first place you haven't any idea when your father wrote thatpaper--except that it was at least seven years ago. He may have changedhis mind a dozen times since he wrote it. It may have been a merepassing whim or fancy, done in a moment of weakness or emotion ortemporary irrationality. Indeed, it may have been made under duress. Nobody but a lawyer who has the most intimate knowledge of his clients'daily life and affairs has the remotest suspicion of--Oh, well, we won'tgo into that! But, the first proposition is that in no event is itpossible for you to say that the request in that letter was the actualwish of your father at the time of his death. All you can say is that atsome time or other it may have been his wish. "

"I see!" agreed Payson. "Well, what other points are there?"

"Secondly, " continued Tutt, "it must be presumed that if your fathertook the trouble to retain a lawyer to have his will properly drawn andexecuted he must have known first, that it was necessary to do so inorder to have his wishes carried out, and second, that no wish notproperly incorporated in the will itself could have any legal effect. Inother words, inferentially, he knew that this paper had no force andtherefore it must be assumed that if he made it that way he intendedthat it should have no legal effect and did not intend that it should becarried out. Get me?"

"Why, yes, I think I do. Your point is that if a man knows the law anddoes a thing so it has no legal effect he should be assumed to intendthat it have no legal effect. "

"Exactly, " Tutt nodded with satisfaction. "The law is wise, based ongenerations of experience. It realizes the uncertainties, vagaries, andvacillations of the human mind--and the opportunities afforded todesigning people to take advantage of the momentary weaknesses ofothers--and hence to prevent fraud and insure that only the actual finalwishes of a man shall be carried out it requires that those wishes shallbe expressed in a particular, definite and formal way--in writing, signed and published before witnesses. "

"You certainly make it very clear!" assented Payson. "What do executorsusually do under such circumstances?"

"If they have sense they leave matters alone and let the law take itscourse, " answered Tutt with conviction. "I've known of more trouble--!Several instances right here in this office. A widow found a paper withher husband's will expressing a wish that a certain amount of moneyshould be given to a married woman living out in Duluth. There wasnothing to indicate when the paper was written, although the will wasexecuted only a month before he died. Apparently the deceased hadn'tseen the lady in question for years. I told her to forget it, butnothing would suit her but that she should send the woman a money orderfor the full amount--ten thousand dollars. She kept it, all right! Well, the widow found out afterwards that her husband had written that paperthirty years before at a time when he was engaged to be married to thatwoman, that they had changed their minds and each had married happilyand that the paper with some old love letters had, as usually happens, got mixed up with the will instead of having been destroyed as it shouldhave been. You know, it's astonishing, the junk people keep in theirsafe deposit boxes! I'll bet that ninety-nine out of a hundred are halffull of valueless and useless stuff, like old watches, grandpa's jetcuff buttons, the letters Uncle William wrote from the Holy Land, outlawed fire insurance and correspondence that nobody will everread, --everything always gets mixed up together, --and yet every paper aman leaves after his death is a possible source of confusion or trouble. And one can't tell how or why a person at a particular time may come toexpress a wish in writing. It would be most dangerous to pay attentionto it. Suppose it was _not_ in writing. Morally, a wish is just asbinding if spoken as if incorporated in a letter. Would you waste anytime on Sadie Burch if she came in here and told you that your fatherhad expressed the desire that she should have twenty-five thousanddollars? Not much!"

"I don't suppose so!" admitted Payson. 

"Another thing!" said Tutt. "Remember this, the law would not _permit_you as executor of your father's will to pay over this money, if anyother than yourself were the residuary legatee. You'd have no right totake twenty-five thousand dollars out of the estate and give it to MissBurch at the expense of anybody else!"

"Then you say the law won't let me pay this money to Sadie Burch whetherI am willing to or not?" asked Payson. 

"Not as executor. As executor you're absolutely obliged to carry out theterms of the will and disregard anything else. You must preserve theestate intact and turn it over unimpaired to the residuary legatee!"repeated Tutt. 

"But I am the residuary legatee!" said Payson. 

"As executor you've got to pay it over in full to yourself as residuarylegatee!" repeated Tutt stubbornly, evading the issue. 

"Well, where does that leave me?" asked his client. 

"It gets you out of your difficulty, doesn't it?" asked Tutt. "Don'tborrow trouble! Don't--if you'll pardon my saying so--be an idiot!"

There was silence for several minutes, finally broken by the lawyer whocame back again to the charge with renewed vigor. 

"Why, this sort of thing comes up all the time. Take this sort of acase, for instance. The law only lets a man will away a certainproportion of his property to charity--says it isn't right for him to doso, if he leaves a family. Now suppose your father had given all hisproperty to charity, would you feel obliged to impoverish yourself forthe benefit of a Home for Aged Mariners?"

"Really, " replied the bewildered Payson. "I don't know. But anyway I'msatisfied you're quite right and I'm tremendously obliged. However, " headded musingly, "I'd rather like to know who this Sadie Burch is!"

"If I were you, young man, " advised the lawyer sagely, "I wouldn't tryto find out!"

Mr. Payson Clifford left the offices of Tutt & Tutt more recalcitrantagainst fate and irritated with his family than when he had enteredthem. He had found himself much less comfortably provided for than hehad expected, and the unpleasant impression created by the supposedpaternal relatives at his father's funeral had been heightened by theletter regarding Sadie Burch. There was something even more offensivelyplebeian about them than that of the vulgar Weng. It would have been badenough to have had to consider the propriety of paying over a large sumto a lady calling herself by an elegant or at least debonair name likeClaire Desmond or Lillian Lamar, --but Sadie! And Burch! Ye gods! It wasignoble, sordid. That was a fine discovery to make about one's father!

As he walked slowly up Fifth Avenue to his hotel it must be confessedthat his reflections upon that father's memory were far from filial. Hetold himself that he'd always suspected something furtive about the oldman, who must have been under most unusual and extraordinary obligationsto a woman to whom he desired his son to turn over twenty-five thousanddollars. It was pretty nearly half of his entire fortune! Would cut downhis income from around four thousand to nearly two thousand! The more hepondered upon the matter the more the lawyer's arguments seemedabsolutely convincing. Lawyers knew more than other people about suchthings, anyway. You paid them for their advice, and he would doubtlesshave to pay Tutt for his upon this very subject, which, somehow, seemedto be rather a good reason for following it. No, he would dismiss SadieBurch and the letter forever from his mind. Very likely she was deadanyway, whoever she was. Four thousand a year! Not a bad income for abachelor!

And while our innocent young Launcelot trudging uptown hardened hisheart against Sadie Burch, by chance that lady figured in a short butpoignant conversation between Mr. Ephraim Tutt and Miss Minerva Wigginon the threshold of the room from which he had just departed. 

Miss Wiggin never trusted anybody but herself to lock up the offices, not even Mr. Tutt, and upon this particular evening she had made this anexcuse to linger on after the others had gone home and waylay him. Suchencounters were by no means infrequent and usually had a bearing uponthe ethical aspect of some proposed course of legal procedure on thepart of the firm. 

Miss Minerva regarded Samuel Tutt as morally an abandoned and hopelesscreature. Mr. Ephraim Tutt she loved with a devotion rare among a sexwith whom devotion is happily a common trait, but there was a maternalquality in her affection accounted for by the fact that although Mr. Tutt was, to be sure, an old man in years, he had occasionally anelfin, Puck-like perversity which was singularly boyish, at which timesshe felt it obligatory for her own self-respect to call him to order. Thus, whenever Tutt seemed to be incubating some evasion of law whichseemed more subtly plausible than ordinary she made it a point to callit to Mr. Tutt's attention. Also, whenever, as in the present case, shefelt that by following the advice given by the junior member of the firma client was about to embark upon some dubious enterprise orquestionable course of conduct she endeavored to counteract hisinfluence by appealing to the head of the firm. 

During the interview between Tutt and Payson Clifford the door had beenopen and she had heard all of it; moreover, after Payson had gone awayTutt had called her in and gone over the situation with her. And sheregarded Tutt's advice to his client, --not the purely legal aspect ofit, but the personal and persuasive part of it, --as an interference withthat young gentleman's freedom of conscience. 

"Dear me!--I didn't know you were still here, Minerva!" exclaimed heremployer as she confronted him in the outer office. "Is anythingworrying you?"

"Not dangerously!" she replied with a smile. "And perhaps it's none ofmy business--"

"My business is thy business, my dear!" he answered. "Without you Tutt &Tutt would not be Tutt & Tutt. My junior partner may be the eyes andlegs of the firm and I may be some other portion of its anatomy, but youare its heart and its conscience. Out with it! What rascality portends?What bird of evil omen hovers above the offices of Tutt & Tutt? Sparenot an old man bowed down with the sorrows of this world! Has my shrewdassociate counseled the robbing of a bank or the kidnapping from awidowed mother of her orphaned child?"

"Nothing quite so bad as that!" she retorted. "It's merely that Mr. Samuel Tutt used his influence this afternoon to try to persuade a youngman not to carry out his father's wishes--expressed in a legallyineffective way--and I think he succeeded--although I'm not quite sure. "

"That must have been Payson Clifford, " answered Mr. Tutt. "What were thepaternal wishes?"

"Mr. Tutt found a letter with the will in which the father asked the sonto give twenty-five thousand dollars to a Miss Sadie Burch. "

"Miss Sadie Burch!" repeated Mr. Tutt. "And who is she?"

"Nobody knows, " said Miss Wiggin. "But whoever she is, ourresponsibility stops with advising Mr. Payson Clifford that the letterhas no legal effect. Mr. Tutt went further and tried to induce Mr. Clifford not to respect the request contained in it. That, it seems tome, is going too far. Don't you think so?"

"Are you certain you never heard of this Miss Burch?" suddenly asked Mr. Tutt, peering at her sharply from beneath his shaggy eyebrows. 

"Never, " she replied. 

"H'm!" ejaculated Mr. Tutt. "A woman in the case!"

"What sort of a young fellow is this Payson Clifford?" inquired MissWiggin after a moment. 

"Oh, not so much of a much!" answered Mr. Tutt whimsically. 

"And what was the father like?" she continued with a woman's curiosity. 

"He wasn't so much of a much, either, evidently, " answered Mr. Tutt. 

We have previously had occasion to comment upon the fact that no client, male or female, consults a lawyer with regard to what he ought to do. Women, often having decided to do that which they ought not to do, attempt to secure counsel's approval of the contemplated sin; but whilea lawyer is sometimes called upon to bolster up a guilty conscience, rarely is he sincerely invited to act as spiritual adviser. Most menbeing worse than their lawyers, prefer not to have the latter find themout. If they have made up their minds to do a mean thing they do notwish to run the chance of having their lawyer shame them out of it. Thatis their own business. And it should be! The law presents sufficientlyperplexing problems for the lawyer without his seeking trouble in thedubious complexities of his client's morals! Anyhow, that is theregulation way a lawyer looks at it and that is the way to hold one'sclients. Do what you are instructed to do--so long as it isn't too raw!Question the propriety of his course and while your client may followyour advice in this single instance he probably will not return again. 

The paradoxical aspect of the matter with Mr. Tutt was that while he wasknown as a criminal lawyer whenever he was asked for advice he concernedhimself quite as much with his client's moral as his legal duty. Therather subtle reason for this was probably to be found in the fact thatsince he found the law so easy to circumvent he preferred to disregardit entirely as a sanction of conduct and merely to ask himself "Now isthis what a sportsman and a gentleman would do?" The fact that a man wasa technical criminal meant nothing to him at all; what interested himwas whether the man was or was not a "mean" man. If he was, to hell withhim! In a word, he applied to any given situation the law as it ought tobe and not the law as it was. A very easy and flexible test! say you, sarcastically. Do you really think so? There may be forty different lawsupon the same subject in as many different states of our politicalunion, but how many differing points of view upon any single moralquestion would you find among as many citizens? The moral code of decentpeople is practically the same all over the terrestrial ball, andfundamentally it has not changed since the days of Hammurabi. The ideasof gentlemen and sportsmen as to what "is done" and "isn't done" haven'tchanged since Fabius Tullius caught snipe in the Pontine marshes. 

Mr. Tutt was a crank on this general subject and he carried hisenthusiasm so far that he was always tilting like Don Quixote at someimaginary windmill, dragging a very unwilling Sancho Panza after him inthe form of his reluctant partner. Moreover, he had a very keen sympathyfor all kinds of outcasts, deeming most of them victims of the sins oftheir own or somebody's else fathers. So when he learned from MissWiggin that Tutt had presumed to interfere with the financial prospectsof the unknown Miss Sadie Burch he was distinctly aggrieved, less on heraccount to be sure than upon that of his client's whom he regarded moreor less in his keeping. And, as luck would have it, the object of hisgrievance, having forgotten something, at that moment unexpectedlyreentered the office to retrieve it. 

"Hello, Mr. Tutt!" he exclaimed. "Not gone yet!"

His senior partner glanced at him sharply, while Miss Wiggin hastilysidestepped into the corridor. 

"Look here, Tutt!" said Mr. Tutt. "I don't know just what you've beentelling young Clifford, or how you've been interfering in his privateaffairs, but if you've been persuading him to disregard any wish of hisfather plainly expressed in his own handwriting and incorporated withhis will you've gone further than you've any right to go. "

"But, " expostulated Tutt, "you know how dangerous it is to meddle withthings like that. Our experience certainly shows that it's far wiser tolet the law settle all doubtful questions than to try to guess what thefinal testamentary intention of a dead testator really was. Don't youremember the Dodworth case? A hypersensitive conscience cost our widowedclient ten thousand dollars! I say, leave well enough alone. "

"'Well enough'! 'Well enough'!" snarled Mr. Tutt. "Are you going toconstitute yourself the judge of what is well enough for a young man'ssoul? I give you fair warning, Tutt: he's heard your side of it, butbefore he gets through he's going to hear mine as well!"

Samuel Tutt turned a faint pink in the region of his collar. 

"Why, certainly, Mr. Tutt!" he stammered. "Do so, by all means!"

"You jolly well bet I will!" replied Mr. Tutt, jamming on his stovepipe. 

Several days passed, however, without the subject being mentionedfurther, while the proper steps to probate the will were taken as usual. Payson Clifford's dilemma had no legal reaction. He had made up his mindand he was going to stick to it. He had taken the opinion of counsel andwas fully satisfied with what he had done. Nobody was going to knowanything about it, anyway. When the proper time came he would burn theSadie Burch letter and forget Sadie Burch. That is, he thought he wasgoing to and that he could. But--as Plautus says: "_Nihil est miseriusquam animus hominis conscius_. "

You see, Payson Clifford, having been sent to a decent school and adecent college, irrespective of whether his father was a rotter or not, had imbibed something of a sense of honor. Struggle as he would againstit, the shadow of Sadie Burch kept creeping athwart his mind. There wereso many possibilities! Suppose she was in desperate straits? Hadn't hebetter look her up, anyhow? No, he most definitely didn't want to knowanything about her! Supposing she really had rendered some service tohis father for which she ought to be repaid as he had sought to repayher? These thoughts obtruded themselves upon Payson's attention when heleast desired it, but they did not cause him to alter his intention toget his hooks into his father's whole residuary estate and keep it forhimself. He had, you observe, a conscience, but it couldn't stand upagainst twenty-five thousand dollars reinforced by perfectly sound legalarguments. 

No, he had a good excuse for not being a gentleman and a sportsman andhe did not purpose to look for any reasons for doing differently. Thenunexpectedly he was invited to dinner by Mr. Ephraim Tutt in a funnyold ramshackle house on West Twenty-third Street with ornamented ironpiazza railings all covered with the withered stalks of long deadwistarias, and something happened to him. "Payson Clifford's Twenty-fiveThousand Dollar Dinner. " He had no suspicion, of course, what was comingto him when he went there, --went, merely because Mr. Tutt was one of thevery few friends of his father that he knew. And he held towards the oldlawyer rather the same sort of patronizing attitude that he had hadtowards the old man. It would be a rotten dinner probably followed by adeadly dull evening with a snuffy old fossil who would tell himlong-winded, rambling anecdotes of what New York had been like whenthere were wild goats in Central Park. 

The snuffy old fossil, however, made no reference whatever to either oldNew York or wild goats, --the nearest he came to it being wild oats. Instead he began the dreary evening by opening a cupboard on his librarywall and disclosing three long bottles, from which he partially filled ashining silver receptacle containing cracked ice. This he shook withastonishing skill and vigor, meantime uttering loud outcries of"Miranda! Fetch up the mint!" Then a buxom colored lady in calico--witha grin like that which made Aunt Sallie famous--having appeared, panting, with two large glasses and a bundle of green herbage upon asilver salver, the old fossil poured out a seething decoction--of whichlike only the memory remains--performed an incantation over each glasswith the odoriferous greens, smiled fondly upon the work of his handsand remarked with amiable hospitality, "Well, my son! Glad to seeyou!--Here's how!"

Almost immediately a benign animal magnetism pervaded the bosom ofPayson Clifford, and from his bosom reached out through his arteries andveins, his arterioles and venioles, to the uttermost ends of his being. He perceived in an instant that Mr. Tutt was no ordinary man and hishouse no ordinary house; and this impression was intensified when, seated at his host's shining mahogany table with its heavy cut glass andqueer old silver, he discovered that Miranda was no ordinary cook. Hebegan to be inflated over having discovered this Mr. Tutt, who pressedsucculent oysters and terrapin stew upon him, accompanied by a foamingbottle of Krug '98. He found himself possessed of an astounding appetiteand a prodigious thirst. The gas lights in the old bronze chandeliershone like a galaxy of radiant suns above his head and warmed himthrough and through. And after the terrapin Miranda brought in a smokingwild turkey with two quail roasted inside of it, and served with currantjelly, rice cakes, and sweet potatoes fried in melted sugar. Then, as ina dream, he heard a soul-satisfying pop and Miranda placed a tall, amberglass at his wrist and filled it with the creaming redrose wine ofancient Burgundy. He heard himself telling Mr. Tutt all abouthimself, --the most intimate secrets of his heart, --and saw Mr. Tuttlistening attentively, almost reverently. He perceived that he wasmaking an astonishing impression upon Mr. Tutt who obviously thought hima great man; and after keeping him in reasonable doubt about it forawhile he modestly admitted to Mr. Tutt that this was so. Then he drankseveral more glasses of Burgundy and ate an enormous pile of wafflescovered with maple syrup. "I'se in town, honey!" Mr. Tutt had grownseveral sizes larger--the whole room was full of him. Lastly he hadblack coffee and some port. It was an occasion, he asserted, --er--alwaysgoo' weather, --or somethin'--when goo' fellows got together! He declaredwith an emphasis which was quite unnecessary, but which, however, didnot disturb him, that there were too few men like themselves in theworld, --men with the advantage of education, --men of ideals. He told Mr. Tutt that he loved him. He no longer had a father, and, evidentlyrelying on further similar entertainments, he wanted Mr. Tutt for one. Mr. Tutt generously assented to act in that capacity and as the firststep assisted his guest upstairs to the library where he opened thewindow a few inches. 

Presently, Payson did not know how exactly, they got talking all aboutlife, --and Mr. Tutt said ruminatively that after all the only thingsthat really counted were loyalty and courage and kindness, --and that alittle human sympathy extended even in what sometimes seemed at firstglance the wrong direction often did more good--made more for realhappiness--than the most efficient organized charity. He spoke of theloneliness of age--the inevitable loneliness of the human soul, --thethirst for daily affection. And then they drifted off to college, andMr. Tutt inquired casually if Payson had seen much of his father, who, he took occasion to remark, had been a good type of straightforward, honest, hard-working business man. 

Payson, smoking his third cigar, and taking now and then a dash ofcognac, began to think better of his old dad. He really hadn't paid himquite the proper attention. He admitted it to Mr. Tutt--with the firstgenuine tears in his eyes since he had left Cambridge;--perhaps, if hehad been more to him--. But Mr. Tutt veered off again--this time onuniversity education; the invaluable function of the university being, he said, to preserve intact and untarnished in a materialistic age thespiritual ideals inherited from the past. 

In this rather commonplace sentiment Payson agreed with himpassionately. He further agreed with equal enthusiasm when his hostadvanced the doctrine that after all to preserve one's honor stainlesswas the only thing that much mattered. Absolutely! declared Payson, ashe allowed Mr. Tutt to press another glass of port upon him. 

Payson, in spite of the slight beading of his forehead and the blurrabout the gas jets, began to feel very much the man of the world, --not a"six bottle man" perhaps, but--and he laughed complacently--a "twobottle man. " If he'd lived back in the good old sporting days verylikely he could have done better. But he's taken care of two fullbottles, hadn't he? Mr. Tutt replied that he'd taken care of them verywell indeed. And with this opening the old lawyer launched into hisfavorite topic, --to wit, that there were only two sorts of men in theworld--gentlemen, and those who were not. What made a man a gentlemanwas gallantry and loyalty, --the readiness to sacrifice everything--evenlife--to an ideal. The hero was the chap who never counted the cost tohimself. That was why people revered the saints, acclaimed the cavalier, and admired the big-hearted gambler who was ready to stake his fortuneon the turn of a card. There was even, he averred, an element ofspirituality in the gambler's carelessness about money. 

This theory greatly interested Payson, who held strongly with it, havingalways had a secret, sneaking fondness for gamblers. On the strength ofit he mentioned Charles James Fox--there was a true gentleman andsportsman for you! No mollycoddle--but a roaring, six bottlefellow--with a big brain and a scrupulous sense of honor. Yes, sir!Charley Fox was the right sort! He managed to intimate successfully thatCharley and he were very much the same breed of pup. At this point Mr. Tutt, having carefully committed his guest to an ethical standard as farremoved as possible from one based upon self-interest, opened the windowa few more inches, sauntered over to the mantel, lit a fresh stogy andspread his long legs in front of the sea-coal fire like an elongatedColossus of Rhodes. He commenced his dastardly countermining of hispartner's advice by complimenting Payson on being a man whose words, manner and appearance proclaimed him to the world a true sport and aregular fellow. From which flattering prologue he slid naturally intosaid regular fellow's prospects and aims in life. He trusted that PaysonClifford, Senior, had left a sufficient estate to enable Payson, Junior, to complete his education at Harvard?--He forgot, he confessed just whatthe residue amounted to. Then he turned to the fire, kicked it, knockedthe ash off the end of his stogy and waited--in order to give his guesta chance to come to himself, --for Mr. Payson Clifford had suddenlyturned a curious color, due to the fact that he was unexpectedlyconfronted with the necessity of definitely deciding then and therewhether he was going to line up with the regular fellows or the secondraters, the gentlemen or the cads, the C. J. Foxes or the BenedictArnolds of mankind. He wasn't wholly the real thing, a conceited youngass, if you choose, but on the other hand he wasn't by any means a badsort. In short, he was very much like all the rest of us. And he wasn'tready to sign the pledge just yet. He realized that he had put himselfat a disadvantage, but he wasn't going to commit himself until he hadhad a good chance to think it all over carefully. In thirty seconds hewas sober as a judge--and a sober judge at that. 

"Mr. Tutt, " he said in quite a different tone of voice. "I've beentalking pretty big, I guess, --bigger than I really am. The fact is I'vegot a problem of my own that's bothering me a lot. "

Mr. Tutt nodded understandingly. 

"You mean Sadie Burch. "

"Yes. "

"Well, what's the problem? Your father wanted you to give her the money, didn't he?"

Payson hesitated. What he was about to say seemed so disingenuous, eventhough it had originated with Tutt & Tutt. 

"How do I know really what he wanted? He may have changed his mind adozen times since he put it with his will. "

"If he had he wouldn't have left it there, would he?" asked Mr. Tuttwith a smile. 

"But perhaps he forgot all about it, --didn't remember that it wasthere, " persisted the youth, still clinging desperately to the lesserTutt. "And, if he hadn't would have torn it up. "

"That might be equally true of the provisions of his will, might itnot?" countered the lawyer. 

"But, " squirmed Payson, struggling to recall Tutt's arguments, previously so convincing, "he knew how a will ought to be executed andas he deliberately neglected to execute the paper in a legal fashion, isn't it fair to presume that he did not intend it to have any legalforce?"

"Yes, " replied Mr. Tutt with entire equanimity, "I agree with you thatit is fair to assume that he did not intend it to have any legaleffect. "

"Well, then!" exclaimed Payson exultantly. 

"But, " continued the lawyer, "that does not prove that he did not intendit to have a moral effect, --and expect you to honor and respect hiswishes, just as if he had whispered them to you with his dying breath. "

There was something in his demeanor which, while courteous, had a touchof severity, that made Payson feel abashed. He perceived that he couldnot afford to let Mr. Tutt think him a cad, --when he was really a C. J. Fox. And in his mental floundering his brain came into contact with theonly logical straw in the entire controversy. 

"Ah!" he said with an assumption of candor. "In that case I should knowpositively that they were in fact my father's wishes. "

"Exactly!" replied Mr. Tutt. "And you'd carry them out without amoment's hesitation. "

"Of course!" yielded Payson. 

"Then the whole question is whether or not this paper does express awish of his. That problem is a real problem, and it is for you alone tosolve, --and, of course, you're under the disadvantage of having afinancial interest in the result, which makes it doubly hard. "

"All the same, " maintained the boy, "I want to be fair to myself. "

"--And to him, " added Mr. Tutt solemnly. "The fact that this wish is notexpressed in such a way as to be legally obligatory makes it all themore binding. In a way, I suppose, that is your hard luck. You might, perhaps, fight a provision in the will. You can't fight this--ordisregard it, either. "

"I don't exactly see why this is any _more_ binding than a provision inthe will itself!" protested Payson. 

Mr. Tutt threw his stogy into the fire and fumbled for another in thelong box on the library table. 

"Maybe it isn't, " he conceded, "but I've always liked that speciousanecdote attributed to Sheridan who paid his gambling debts and let histailor wait. You remember it, of course? When the tailor demanded thereason for this Sheridan told him that a gambling debt was a debt ofhonor and a tailor's bill was not, since his fortunate adversary at thecard table had only his promise to pay, whereas the tailor possessed anaction for an account which he could prosecute in the courts. 

"'In that case!' declared the tailor, 'I'll tear up my bill!' which hedid, and Sheridan thereupon promptly paid him. Have another nip ofbrandy?"

"No, thank you!" answered Payson. "It's getting late and I must begoing. I've--I've had a perfectly--er--ripping time!"

"You must come again soon!" said Mr. Tutt warmly, from the top of thesteps outside. 

As Payson reached the sidewalk he looked back somewhat shamefacedly andsaid:

"Do you think it makes any difference what sort of a person this SadieBurch is?"

In the yellow light of the street lamp it seemed to the collegian as ifthe face of the old man bore for an instant a fleeting resemblance tothat of his father. 

"Not one particle!" he answered. "Good night, my boy!"

But Payson Clifford did not have a good night by any manner of means. Instead of returning to his hotel he wandered aimless and miserablealong the river front. He no longer had any doubt as to his duty. Mr. Tutt had demolished Tutt in a breath, --and put the whole propositionclearly. Tutt had given, as it were, and Mr. Tutt had taken away. However, he told himself, that wasn't all there was to it; the money washis in law and no one could deprive him of it. Why not sit tight and letMr. Tutt go to the devil? He need never see him again! And no one elsewould ever know! Twenty-five thousand dollars? It would take him yearsto earn such a staggering sum! Besides, there were two distinct sides tothe question. Wasn't Tutt just as good a lawyer as Mr. Tutt? Couldn't heproperly decide in favor of himself when the court was equally divided?And Tutt had said emphatically that he would be a fool to surrender themoney. As Payson Clifford trudged along the shadows of the docks hebecame obsessed with a curious feeling that Tutt and Mr. Tutt were boththere before him; Mr. Tutt--a tall, benevolent figure carrying a torchin the shape of a huge, black, blazing stogy that beckoned him onwardthrough the darkness; and behind him Tutt--a little paunchy red devilwith horns and a tail--who tweaked him by the coat and twittered, "Don'tthrow away twenty-five thousand dollars! The best way is to leavematters as they are and let the law settle everything. Then you take nochances!"

But in the end--along about a quarter to seven A. M. --Mr. Tutt won. Exhausted, but at peace with himself, Payson Clifford stumbled into theHarvard Club on Forty-fourth Street, ordered three fried eggs done onone side, two orders of bacon and a pot of coffee, and then wrote aletter which he dispatched by a messenger to Tutt & Tutt. 

"Gentlemen, " it read: "Will you kindly take immediate steps to find MissSarah Burch and pay over to her twenty-five thousand dollars from myfather's residuary estate. I am entirely satisfied that this was hiswish. I am returning to Cambridge to-day. If necessary you cancommunicate with me there. 

"Yours very truly, "PAYSON CLIFFORD. "

 * * * * *

One might suppose that a legatee to twenty-five thousand dollars couldbe readily found; but Miss Sadie Burch proved a most elusive person. NoBurches grew in Hoboken--according to either the telephone or thebusiness directory--and Mr. Tutt's repeated advertisements in thenewspapers of that city elicited no response. Three months went by andit began to look as if the lady had either died or permanently absentedherself--and that Payson Clifford might be able to keep his twenty-fivethousand with a clear conscience. Then one day in May came a letter froma small town in the central part of New Jersey from Sadie Burch. Shehad, she said, only just learned entirely by accident that she was anobject of interest to Messrs. Tutt & Tutt. Unfortunately, it was notconvenient for her to come to New York City, but if she could be of anyservice to them she would be pleased, etc. 

"I think I'll give the lady the once-over!" remarked Mr. Tutt, as helooked across the glittering bay to the shadowy hills of New Jersey. "It's a wonderful day, and there isn't much to do here. .. . "

 * * * * *

"Sadie Burch? Sadie Burch? Sure, I know her!" answered the lanky mandriving the flivver tractor nearby, as he inspected the motor carryingMr. Tutt. "She lives in the second house beyond the big elm--" and hestarted plowing again with a great clatter. 

The road glared white in the late afternoon sun. On either sidestretched miles of carefully cultivated fields, the country drowsed, theair hot, but sweet with magnolia, lilac and apple blossoms. Miss Burchhad obviously determined that when she retired from the world of men shewould make a thorough job of it and expose herself to no temptation toreturn--eight miles from the nearest railroad. Just beyond the elms theyslowed up alongside a white picket fence enclosing an old-fashionedgarden whence came to Mr. Tutt the busy murmur of bees. Then they cameto a gate that opened upon a red-tiled, box-bordered, moss-grown walk, leading to a small white house with blue and white striped awnings. Agreen and gold lizard poked its head out of the hedge and eyed Mr. Tuttrather with curiosity than hostility. 

"Does Miss Sadie Burch live here?" asked Mr. Tutt of the lizard. 

"Yes!" answered a cheerful female voice from the veranda. "Won't youcome up on the piazza?"

The voice was not the kind of voice Mr. Tutt had imagined as belongingto Sadie Burch. But neither was the lady on the piazza that kind oflady. In the shadow of the awning in a comfortable rocking chair sat awhite-haired, kindly-faced woman, knitting a baby jacket. She looked upat him with a friendly smile. 

"I'm Miss Burch, " she said. "I suppose you're that lawyer I wrote to?Won't you come up and sit down?"

"Thanks, " he replied, drawing nearer with an answering smile. "I canonly stay a few moments and I've been sitting in the motor most of theday. I might as well come to the point at once. You have doubtless heardof the death of Mr. Payson Clifford, Senior?"

Miss Burch laid down the baby-jacket and her lips quivered. Then thetears welled in her faded blue eyes and she fumbled hastily in her bosomfor her handkerchief. 

"You must excuse me!" she said in a choked voice. "--Yes, I read aboutit. He was the best friend I had in the world, --except my brother John. The kindest, truest friend that ever lived!"

She looked out across the little garden and wiped her eyes again. 

Mr. Tutt sat down upon the moss-covered door-step beside her. 

"I always thought he was a good man, " he returned quietly. "He was anold client of mine--although I didn't know him very well. "

"I owe this house to him, " continued Miss Burch tenderly. "If it hadn'tbeen for Mr. Clifford I don't know what would have become of me. Nowthat John is dead and I'm all alone in the world this littleplace--with the flowers and the bees--is all I've got. "

They were silent for several moments. Then Mr. Tutt said:

"No, it isn't all. Mr. Clifford left a letter with his will in which heinstructed his son to pay you twenty-five thousand dollars. I'm here togive it to you. "

A puzzled look came over her face, and then she smiled again and shookher head. 

"That was just like him!" she remarked. "But it's all a mistake. He paidme back that money five years ago. You see he persuaded John to go intosome kind of a business scheme with him and they lost all they put intoit--twenty-five thousand apiece. It was all we had. It wasn't his fault, but after John died Mr. Clifford made me--simply made me--let him givethe money back. He must have written the letter before that andforgotten all about it!"

You're Another!

 "We have strict statutes, and most biting laws. " Measure for Measure, Act I, Scene 4. 

 "I am further of opinion that it would be better for us to have [no laws] at all than to have them in so prodigious numbers as we have. "

 Montaigne. Of Experience, Chapter XIII. 

Mrs. Pierpont Pumpelly, lawful spouse of Vice President Pumpelly, ofCuban Crucible, erstwhile of Athens, Ohio, was fully conscious that evenif she wasn't the smartest thing on Fifth Avenue, her snappy little carwas. It was, as she said, a "perfec' beejew!" The two robes of silverfox alone had cost eighty-five hundred dollars, but that was nothing;Mrs. Pumpelly--in her stockings--cost Pierpont at least ten times thatevery year. But he could afford it with Cruce at 791. So, having movedfrom Athens to the metropolis, they had a glorious time. Out home thePierpont had been simply a P. And no questions asked as to what it stoodfor; P. Pumpelly. But whatever its past the P. Had now blossomeddefinitely into Pierpont. 

Though the said Pierpont produced the wherewithal, it was his wife, Edna, who attended to the disbursing of it. She loved her husband, butregarded him socially as somewhat of a liability, and Society was now, as she informed everybody, her "meal yure. "

She had eaten her way straight through the meal--opera box, pew at St. Simeon Stylites, Crystal Room, musicales, Carusals, hospitalentertainments, Malted Milk for Freezing France, Inns for IndigentItalians, Biscuits for Bereft Belgians, dinner parties, lunch parties, supper parties, the whole thing; and a lot of the right people had come, too. 

The fly in the ointment of her social happiness--and unfortunately ithappened to be an extremely gaudy butterfly indeed--was her next-doorneighbor, Mrs. Rutherford Wells, who obstinately refused to recognizeher existence. 

At home, in Athens, Edna would have resorted to the simple expedient ofsending over the hired girl to borrow something. But here there wasnothing doing. Mrs. Rutherford had probably never seen her own chef andMrs. Pumpelly was afraid of hers. Besides, even Edna recognized thelamentable fact that it was up to Mrs. Wells to call first, which shedidn't. Once when the ladies had emerged simultaneously from theirdomiciles Mrs. Pumpelly had smilingly waddled forward a few steps withan ingratiating bow, but Mrs. Wells had looked over her head and hadn'tseen her. 

Thereupon the iron had entered into Mrs. Pumpelly's soul and her lifehad become wormwood and gall, ashes in her mouth and all the rest of it. She proposed to get even with the cat at the very first chance, butsomehow the chance never seemed to come. She hated to be living on thesame street with that kind of nasty person. And who was this Wellswoman? Her husband never did a thing except play croquet or something ata club! He probably was a drunkard--and a roo-ay. Mrs. Pumpelly soonconvinced herself that Mrs. Wells also must be a very undesirable, ifnot hopelessly immoral lady. Anyhow, she made up her mind that she wouldcertainly take nothing further from her. Even if Mrs. Wells should havea change of heart and see fit to call, she just wouldn't return it! Sowhen she rolled up in the diminutive car and found Mrs. Wells' lumberinglimousine blocking the doorway she was simply furious. 

"Make that man move along!" she directed, and Jules honked and honked, but the limousine did not budge. 

Then Mrs. Pumpelly gave way to a fit of indignation that would have doneher proud even in Athens, Ohio. Fire-breathing, she descended from hercar and, approaching the limousine, told the imperturbable chauffeurthat even if he did work for Mrs. Rutherford Wells, Mrs. RutherfordWells was no better than anybody else, and that gave him no right toblock up the whole street. She spoke loudly, emphatically, angrily, andright in the middle of it the chauffeur, who had not deigned to look inher direction, slyly pressed the electric button of his horn and causedit to emit a low scornful grunt. Then a footman opened the door of theWells mansion and Mrs. Rutherford Wells herself came down the steps, andMrs. Pumpelly told her to her face exactly what she thought of her andordered her to move her car along so her own could get in front of thevestibule. 

Mrs. Wells ignored her. Deliberately--and as if there were no suchperson as Mrs. Pumpelly upon the sidewalk--she stepped into her motorand, the chauffeur having adjusted the robe, she remarked in a casual, almost indifferent manner that nevertheless made Mrs. Pumpelly squirm, "Go to Mr. Hepplewhite's, William. Pay no attention to that woman. Ifshe makes any further disturbance call a policeman. "

And the limousine rolled away with a sneer at Mrs. Pumpelly from theexhaust. More than one king has been dethroned for far less cause!

 * * * * *

"You telephone Mr. Edgerton, " she almost shrieked at Simmons, thebutler, "that he should come right up here as fast as he can. I've gotto see him at once!"

"Very good, madam, " answered Simmons obsequiously. 

And without more ado, in less than forty minutes, the distinguished Mr. Wilfred Edgerton, of Edgerton & Edgerton, attorneys for Cuban Crucibleand hence alert to obey the behests of the wives of the officersthereof, had deposited his tall silk hat on the marble Renaissance tablein the front hall and was entering Mrs. Pumpelly's Louis Quinzedrawing-room with the air of a Sir Walter Raleigh approaching his QueenElizabeth. 

"Sit down, Mr. Edgerton!" directed the lady impressively. "No, you'llfind that other chair more comfortable; the one you're in's got a humpin the seat. As I was saying to the butler before you came, I've beeninsulted and I propose to teach that woman she can't make small of me nomatter what it costs--and Pierpont says you're no slouch of a charger atthat. "

"My dear madam!" stammered the embarrassed attorney. "Of course, thereare lawyers and lawyers. But if you wish the best I feel sure my firmcharges no more than others of equal standing. In any event you can beassured of our devotion to your interests. Now what, may I ask, are thecircumstances of the case?"

"Mr. Edgerton, " she began, "I just want you should listen carefully towhat I have to say. This woman next door to me here has--"

At this point, as paper is precious and the lady voluble, we will dropthe curtain upon the first act of our legal comedy. 

 * * * * *

"I suppose we'll have to do it for her!" growled Mr. Wilfred Edgerton tohis brother on his return to their office. "She's a crazy idiot and I'mvery much afraid we'll all get involved in a good deal of undesirablepublicity. Still, she's the wife of the vice president of our bestpaying client!"

"What does she want us to do?" asked Mr. Winfred, the other Edgerton. "We can't afford to be made ridiculous--for anybody. "

This was quite true since dignity was Edgerton & Edgerton's long suit, they being the variety of Wall Street lawyers who are said to sleep intheir tall hats and cutaways. 

"If you can imagine it, " replied his brother irritably, "she insists onour having Mrs. Wells arrested for obstructing the street in front ofher house. She asked me if it wasn't against the law, and I took achance and told her it was. Then she wanted to start for the policecourt at once, but as I'd never been in one I said we'd have to preparethe papers; I didn't know what papers. "

"But we can't arrest Mrs. Wells!" expostulated Mr. Winfred Edgerton. "She's socially one of our most prominent people. I dined with her onlylast week!"

"That's why Mrs. Pumpelly wants to have her arrested, I fancy!" repliedMr. Wilfred gloomily. "Mrs. Wells has given her the cold shoulder. It'sno use; I tried to argue the old girl out of it, but I couldn't. Sheknows what she wants and she jolly well intends to have it. "

"I wish you joy of her!" mournfully rejoined the younger Edgerton. "Butit's your funeral. I can't help you. I never got anybody arrested and Ihaven't the least idea how to go about it. "

"Neither have I, " admitted his brother. "Luckily my practise has notbeen of that sort. However, it can't be a difficult matter. The mainthing is to know exactly what we are trying to arrest Mrs. Wells for. "

"Why don't you retain Tutt & Tutt to do it for us?" suggested Winfred. "Criminal attorneys are used to all that sort of rotten business. "

"Oh, it wouldn't do to let Pumpelly suspect we couldn't handle itourselves. Besides, the lady wants distinguished counsel to representher. No, for once we've got to lay dignity aside. I think I'll sendMaddox up to the Criminal Courts Building and have him find out justwhat to do. "

It may seem remarkable that neither of the members of a high-class lawfirm in New York City should ever have been in a police court, but sucha situation is by no means infrequent. The county or small-town attorneyknows his business from the ground up. He starts with assault andbattery, petty larceny and collection cases and gradually works his wayup, so to speak, to murder and corporate reorganizations. But in WallStreet the young student whose ambition is to appear before the SupremeCourt of the United States in some constitutional matter as soon aspossible is apt to spend his early years in brief writing and thenbecome a specialist in real estate, corporation, admiralty or probatelaw and perhaps never see the inside of a trial court at all, much lessa police court, which, to the poor and ignorant, at any rate, is themost important court of any of them, since it is here that the citizenmust go to enforce his everyday rights. 

Mr. Wilfred Edgerton suspected that a magistrate's court was a dirtysort of hole, full of brawling shyster lawyers, and he didn't want toknow any more about such places than he could help. Theoretically he wasaware that on a proper complaint sworn to by a person supposing himselfor herself criminally aggrieved the judge would issue a warrant to anofficer, who would execute it on the person of the criminal and hale himor her to jail. The idea of Mrs. Wells being dragged shrieking downFifth Avenue or being carted away from her house in a Black Maria filledhim with dismay. 

Yet that was what Mrs. Pumpelly proposed to have done, and unfortunatelyhe had to do exactly what Mrs. Pumpelly said; quickly too. 

"Maddox, " he called to a timid youth in a green eye-shade sitting inlonely grandeur in the spacious library, "just run up tothe--er--magistrate's court on Blank Street and ascertain the properprocedure for punishing a person for obstructing the highway. If youfind an appropriate statute or ordinance you may lay an informationagainst Mrs. Rutherford Wells for violating it this afternoon in frontof the residence next to hers; and see that the proper process issues inthe regular way. "

To hear him one would have thought he did things like that daily beforebreakfast--such is the effect of legal jargon. 

"Yes, sir, " answered Maddox respectfully, making a note. "Do you wish tohave the warrant held or executed?"

Mr. Wilfred Edgerton bit his mustache doubtfully. 

"We-ell, " he answered at length, perceiving that he stood upon the brinkof a legal Rubicon, "you may do whatever seems advisable under all thecircumstances. "

In his nervous condition he did not recall what, had he stopped calmlyto consider the matter, he must have known very well--namely, that nowarrant could possibly issue unless Mrs. Pumpelly, as complainant, signed and swore to the information herself. 

"Very well, sir, " answered Maddox, in the same tone and manner that hewould have used had he been a second footman at Mrs. Pumpelly's. 

Thereafter both Edgertons, but particularly Wilfred, passed a miserablehour. They realized that they had started something and they had no ideaof where, how or when what they had started would stop. Indeed they hadterrifying visions of Mrs. Wells being beaten into insensibility, if notinto a pulp, by a cohort of brutal police officers, and of their beingheld personally responsible. But before anything of that sort actuallyhappened Maddox returned. 

"Well, " inquired Wilfred with an assumption of nonchalance, "what didyou find out?"

"The magistrate said that we would have to apply at the court in thedistrict where the offense occurred and that Mrs. Pumpelly would have toappear there in person. Obstructing a highway is a violation of SectionTwo of Article Two of the Police Department Regulations for StreetTraffic, which reads: 'A vehicle waiting at the curb shall promptly giveway to a vehicle arriving to take up or set down passengers. ' It is notusual to issue a warrant in such cases, but a summons merely. "

"Ah!" sighed both Edgertons in great relief. 

"Upon which the defendant must appear in default of fine orimprisonment, " continued Maddox. 

The two lawyers looked at one another inquiringly. 

"Did they treat you--er--with politeness?" asked Wilfred curiously. 

"Oh, well enough, " answered the clerk. "I can't say it's a place Ihanker to have much to do with. It's not like an afternoon tea party. But it's all right. Do you wish me to do anything further?"

"Yes!" replied Wilfred with emphasis, "I do. I wish you would go rightup to Mrs. Pumpelly's house, conduct that lady to the nearest policecourt and have her swear out the summons for Mrs. Wells herself. I'lltelephone her that you are coming. "

Which was a wise conclusion, in view of the fact that Edna Pumpelly, néeHaskins, was much better equipped by nature to take care of Mr. WilfredEdgerton in the hectic environs of a police court than he was qualifiedto take care of her. And so it was that just as Mrs. Rutherford Wellswas about to sit down to tea with several fashionable friends her butlerentered, bearing upon a salver a printed paper, which he presented toher, in manner and form the following:

 CITY MAGISTRATE'S COURT, CITY OF NEW YORK

 In the name of the people of the State of New York To "Jane" Wells, the name "Jane" being fictitious:

 You are hereby summoned to appear before the ------ District Magistrate's Court, Borough of Manhattan, City of New York, on the eighth day of May, 1920, at ten o'clock in the forenoon, to answer the charge made against you by Edna Pumpelly for violation of Section Two, Article Two of the Traffic Regulations providing that a vehicle waiting at the curb shall promptly give way to a vehicle arriving to take up or set down passengers, and upon your failure to appear at the time and place herein mentioned you are liable to a fine of not exceeding fifty dollars or to imprisonment of not exceeding ten days or both. 

 Dated 6th day of May, 1920. 

 JAMES CUDDAHEY, Police Officer, Police Precinct ------, New York City. 

 Attest: JOHN J. JONES, Chief City Magistrate. 

"Heavens!" cried Mrs. Wells as she read this formidable document. "Whata horrible woman! What shall I do?"

Mr. John De Puyster Hepplewhite, one of the nicest men in New York, whohad himself once had a somewhat interesting experience in the criminalcourts in connection with the arrest of a tramp who had gone to sleep ina pink silk bed in the Hepplewhite mansion on Fifth Avenue, smileddeprecatingly, set down his Dresden-china cup and dabbed his mustachedecorously with a filigree napkin. 

"Dear lady, " he remarked with conviction, "in such distressingcircumstances I have no hesitation whatever in advising you to consultMr. Ephraim Tutt. "

 * * * * *

"I have been thinking over what you said the other day regarding therelationship of crime to progress, Mr. Tutt, and I'm rather of theopinion that it's rot, " announced Tutt as he strolled across from hisown office to that of his senior partner for a cup of tea at practicallythe very moment when Mr. Hepplewhite was advising Mrs. Wells. "In thevernacular--bunk. "

"What did he say?" asked Miss Wiggin, rinsing out with hot water Tutt'sspecial blue-china cup, in the bottom of which had accumulated somereddish-brown dust from Mason & Welsby's Admiralty and Divorce Reportsupon the adjacent shelf. 

"He made the point, " answered Tutt, helping himself to a piece of toast, "that crime was--if I may be permitted to use the figure--part of theonward urge of humanity toward a new and perhaps better social order; anatural impulse to rebel against existing abuses; and he made the claimthat though an unsuccessful revolutionary was of course regarded as acriminal, on the other hand, if successful he at once became a patriot, a hero, a statesman or a saint. "

"A very dangerous general doctrine, I should say, " remarked Miss Wiggin. "I should think it all depended on what sort of laws he was rebellingagainst. I don't see how a murderer could ever be regarded as assistingin the onward urge toward sweetness and light, exactly. "

"Wouldn't it depend somewhat on whom you were murdering?" inquired Mr. Tutt, finally succeeding in his attempt to make a damp stogy continuein a state of combustion. "If you murdered a tyrant wouldn't you becontributing toward progress?"

"No, " retorted Miss Wiggin, "you wouldn't; and you know it. In certaincases where the laws are manifestly unjust, antiquated or perhaps do notreally represent the moral sense of the community their violation mayoccasionally call attention to their absurdity, like the famous bluelaws of Connecticut, for example; but as the laws as a whole docrystallize the general opinion of what is right and desirable inmatters of conduct a movement toward progress would be exhibited not bybreaking laws but by making laws. "

"But, " argued Mr. Tutt, abandoning his stogy, "isn't the making of a newlaw the same thing as changing an old law? And isn't changing a lawessentially the same thing as breaking it?"

"It isn't, " replied Miss Wiggin tartly. "For the obvious and simplereason that the legislators who change the laws have the right to do so, while the man who breaks them has not. "

"All the same, " admitted Tutt, slightly wavering, "I see what Mr. Tuttmeans. "

"Oh, I see what he means!" sniffed Miss Wiggin. "I was only combatingwhat he said!"

"But the making of laws does not demonstrate progress, " perverselyinsisted Mr. Tutt. "The more statutes you pass the more it indicatesthat you need 'em. An ideal community would have no laws at all. "

"There's a thought!" interjected Tutt. "And there wouldn't be anylawyers either!"

"As King Hal said: 'The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers, '"commented Mr. Tutt. 

"Awful vision!" ejaculated Miss Wiggin. "Luckily for us, that day hasnot yet dawned. However, Mr. Tutt's argument is blatantly fallacious. Ofcourse, the making of new laws indicates an impulse toward socialbetterment--and therefore toward progress. "

"It seems to me, " ventured Tutt, "that this conversation is more thanusually theoretical--not to say specious! The fact of the matter is thatthe law is a part of our civilization and the state of the law marks thestage of our development--more or less. "

Mr. Tutt smiled sardonically. 

"You have enunciated two great truths, " said he. "First, that it is a'part'; and second, 'more or less. ' The law is a very small part of ourprotection against what is harmful to us. It is only one of oursanctions of conduct, and a very crude one at that. Did you ever stop tothink that compared with religion the efficacy of the law was almost_nil_? The law deals with conduct, but only at a certain point. We areapt to find fault with it because it makes what appear to us to bearbitrary and unreasonable distinctions. That in large measure isbecause law is only supplementary. "

"How do you mean--supplementary?" queried Tutt. 

"Why, " answered his partner, "as James C. Carter pointed out, ninety-nine per cent of all law is unwritten. What keeps most peoplestraight is not criminal statutes but their own sense of decency, conscience or whatever you may choose to call it. Doubtless you recallthe famous saying of Diogenes Laertius: 'There is a written and anunwritten law. The one by which we regulate our constitutions in ourcities is the written law; that which arises from custom is theunwritten law. ' I see that, of course you do! As I was saying only theother day, infractions of good taste and of manners, civil wrongs, sins, crimes--are in essence one and the same, differing only in degree. Thusthe man who goes out to dinner without a collar violates the laws ofsocial usage; if he takes all his clothes off and walks the streets hecommits a crime. In a measure it simply depends on how many clothes hehas on what grade of offense he commits. From that point of view the manwho is not a gentleman is in a sense a criminal. But the law can't makea man a gentleman. "

"I should say not!" murmured Miss Wiggin. 

"Well, " continued Mr. Tutt, "we have various ways of dealing with theseoutlaws. The man who violates our ideas of good taste or good manners issent to Coventry; the man who does you a wrong is mulcted in damages;the sinner is held under the town pump and ridden out of town on a rail, or the church takes a hand and threatens him with the hereafter; but ifhe crosses a certain line we arrest him and lock him up--either frompublic spirit or for our own private ends. "

"Hear! Hear!" cried Tutt admiringly. 

"Fundamentally there is only an arbitrary distinction between wrongs, sins and crimes. The meanest and most detestable of men, beside whom anhonest burglar is a sympathetic human being, may yet never violate acriminal statute. "

"That's so!" said Tutt. "Take Badger, for instance. "

"How often we defend cases, " ruminated his partner, "where thecomplainant is just as bad as the prisoner at the bar--if not worse. "

"And of course, " added Tutt, "you must admit there are a lot ofcriminals who are criminals from perfectly good motives. Take the man, for instance, who thrashes a bystander who insults his wife--the man'swife, I mean, naturally. "

"Only in those cases where we elect to take the law into our own handswe ought to be willing to accept the consequences like gentlemen andsportsmen, " commented the senior partner. 

"This is all very interesting, no doubt, " remarked Miss Wiggin, "but asa matter of general information I should like to know why the criminallaw doesn't punish the sinners--as well as the criminals. "

"I guess one reason, " replied Tutt, "is that people don't wish to bekept from sinning. "

"Thou hast spoken!" agreed Mr. Tutt. "And another reason is that thecriminal law was not originally devised for the purpose of eradicatingsin--which, after all, is the state into which it is said man wasborn--but was only intended to prevent certain kinds of physicalviolence and lawlessness--murder, highway robbery, assault, and so on. The church was supposed to take care of sin, and there was an elaboratesystem of ecclesiastical courts. In point of fact, though there is agreat deal of misconception on the subject, the criminal law does notdeal with sin as sin at all, or even with wrongs merely as wrongs. Ithas a precise and limited purpose--namely, to prevent certain kinds ofacts and to compel the performance of other acts. 

"The state relies on the good taste and sense of decency, duty andjustice of the individual citizen to keep him in order most of the time. It doesn't, or anyhow it shouldn't, attempt to deal with triflingpeccadillos; it generally couldn't. It merely says that if a man'sconscience and idea of fair play aren't enough to make him behavehimself, why, then, when he gets too obstreperous we'll lock him up. Anddifferent generations have had entirely different ideas about what wastoo obstreperous to be overlooked. In the early days the law onlypunished bloodshed and violence. Later on, its scope was increased, until thousands of acts and omissions are now made criminal by statute. But that explains why the fact that something is a sin doesn'tnecessarily mean that it is a crime. The law is artificial and notfounded on any general attempt to prohibit what is unethical, but simplyto prevent what is immediately dangerous to life, limb and property. "

"Which, after all, is a good thing--for it leaves us free to do as wechoose so long as we don't harm anybody else, " said Miss Wiggin. 

"Yet, " her employer continued, "unfortunately--or perhaps fortunatelyfrom our professional point of view--our lawmakers from time to time getrather hysterical and pass such a multiplicity of statutes that nobodyknows whether he is committing crime or not. "

"In this enlightened state, " interposed Tutt, "it's a crime to advertiseas a divorce lawyer; to attach a corpse for payment of debt; to board atrain while it is in motion; to plant oysters without permission; orwithout authority wear the badge of the Patrons of Husbandry. "

"Really, one would have to be a student to avoid becoming a criminal, "commented Miss Wiggin. 

Mr. Tutt rose and, looking along one of the shelves, took down a volumewhich he opened at a point marked by a burned match thrust between theleaves. 

"My old friend Joseph H. Choate, " he remarked, "in his memorial of hispartner, Charles H. Southmayde, who was generally regarded as one of thegreatest lawyers of our own or any other generation, says, 'Theever-growing list of misdemeanors, created by statute, disturbed him, and he even employed counsel to watch for such statutes introduced intothe legislature--mantraps, as he called them--lest he might, withoutknowing it, commit offenses which might involve the penalty ofimprisonment. '"

"We certainly riot in the printed word, " said Miss Wiggin. "Do you knowthat last year alone to interpret all those statutes and decide therespective rights of our citizens the Supreme Court of this state wrotefive thousand eight hundred pages of opinion?"

"Good Lord!" ejaculated Tutt. "Is that really so?"

"Of course it is!" she answered. 

"But who reads the stuff?" demanded the junior partner. "I don't!"

"The real lawyers, " replied Miss Wiggin innocently. 

"The judges who write them probably read them, " declared Mr. Tutt. "Andthe defeated litigants; the successful ones merely read the finalparagraphs. "

"But coming back to crime for a moment, " said Miss Wiggin, pouringherself out a second cup of tea; "I had almost forgotten that thecriminal law was originally intended only to keep down violence. Thatexplains a lot of things. I confess to being one of those whounconsciously assumed that the law is a sort of official Mrs. Grundy. "

"Not at all! Not at all!" corrected Mr. Tutt. "The law makes no pretenseof being an arbiter of morals. Even where justice is concerned itexpects the mere sentiment of the community to be capable of dealingwith trifling offenses. The laws of etiquette and manners, devised for'the purpose of keeping fools at a distance, ' are reasonably adapted toenforcing the dictates of good taste and to dealing with minor offensesagainst our ideas of propriety. "

"I wonder, " hazarded Miss Wiggin thoughtfully, "if there isn't somesociological law about crimes, like the law of diminishing returns inphysics?"

"The law of what?"

"Why, the law that the greater the force or effort applied to anything, "she explained a little vaguely, "the greater the resistance becomes, until the effort doesn't accomplish anything; increased speed in awarship, for instance. "

"What's that got to do with crime?"

"Why, the more statutes you pass and more new crimes you create theharder it becomes to enforce obedience to them, until finally you can'tenforce them at all. "

"That is rather a profound analogy, " observed Mr. Tutt. "It might wellrepay study. "

"Miss Wiggin has no corner on analogies, " chirped Tutt. "Passingstatutes creating new crimes is like printing paper money withoutanything back of it; in the one case there isn't really any more moneythan there was before and in the other there isn't really any more crimeeither. "

"Only it makes more business for us. "

"I've got another idea, " continued Tutt airily, "and that is that crimeis a good thing. Not because it means progress or any bunk like that, but because unless you had a certain amount of crime, and also criminallawyers to attack the law, the state would never find out the weaknessesin its statutes. Therefore the more crime there is the more theprotective power of the state is built up, just as the fever engenderedby vaccine renders the human body immune from smallpox! Eh, what?"

"I never heard such nonsense!" exclaimed Miss Wiggin. "Do let me giveyou some more tea! Eh, what?"

But at that moment Willie announced that Mr. Rutherford Wells wascalling to see Mr. Tutt and tea was hastily adjourned. Half an hourlater the old lawyer rang for Bonnie Doon. 

"Bonnie, " he said, "one of our clients has been complained against byher next-door neighbor, a got-rich-quick lady, for obstructing thestreet with her motor. It's obviously a case of social envy, hatred andmalice. Just take a run up there in the morning, give Mrs. PierpontPumpelly and her premises the once-over and let me know of anyviolations you happen to observe. I don't care how technical they are, either. "

"All right, Mr. Tutt, " answered Bonnie. "I get you. Isn't there a newordinance governing the filling of garbage cans?"

"I think there is, " nodded Mr. Tutt. "And meantime I think I'll dropover and see Judge O'Hare. "

 * * * * *

"I'll settle her hash for her, the hussy!" declared Mrs. Pumpelly toher husband at dinner the following evening. "I'll teach her to insultdecent people and violate the law. Just because her husband belongs to aswell club she thinks she can do as she likes! But I'll show her! Waittill I get her in court to-morrow!"

"Well, of course, Edna, I'll stand back of you and all that, " Pierpontassured her. "No, thank you, Simmons, I don't wish any more 'voly vong. 'But I'd hate to see you get all messed up in a police court!"

"Me--messed up!" she exclaimed haughtily. "I guess I can take care ofmyself most anywheres--good and plenty!"

"Of course you can, dearie!" he protested in a soothing tone. "But theseshyster lawyers who hang around those places--you 'member Jim O'Learyout home to Athens? Well, they don't know a lady when they see one, andthey wouldn't care if they did; and they'll try and pry into your pastlife--"

"I haven't got any past life, and you know it too, Pierpont Pumpelly!"she retorted hotly. "I'm a respectable, law-abidin' woman, I am. I neverbroke a law in all my days--"

"Excuse me, madam, " interposed Simmons, with whom the second footman hadjust held a whispered conference behind the screen, "but James informsme that there is a police hofficer awaiting to see you in the front'all. "

"To see me?" ejaculated Mrs. Pumpelly. 

"Yes, madam. "

"I suppose it's about to-morrow. Tell him to call round about nineo'clock in the morning. "

"'E says 'e must see you to-night, ma'am, " annotated James excitedly. "And 'e acted most hobnoxious to me!"

"Oh, he acted obnoxious, did he?" remarked Mrs. Pumpelly airily. "Whatwas he obnoxious about?"

"'E 'as a paper 'e says 'e wants to serve on you personal, " answeredJames in agitation. "'E says if you will hallow 'm to step into thedining-room 'e won't take a minute. "

"Perhaps we'd better let him come in, " mildly suggested Pierpont. "It'salways best to keep on good terms with the police. "

"But I haven't broken any law, " repeated Mrs. Pumpelly blankly. 

"Maybe you have without knowin' it, " commented her husband. 

"Why, Pierpont Pumpelly, you know I never did such a thing!" sheretorted. 

"Well, let's have him in, anyway, " he urged. "I can't digest my foodwith him sitting out there in the hall. "

Mrs. Pumpelly took control of the situation. 

"Have the man in, Simmons!" she directed grandly. 

And thereupon entered Officer Patrick Roony. Politely Officer Roonyremoved his cap, politely he unbuttoned several yards of blue overcoatand fumbled in the caverns beneath. Eventually he brought forth a squaresheet of paper--it had a certain familiarity of aspect for Mrs. Pumpelly--and handed it to her. 

"Sorry to disturb you, ma'am, " he apologized, "but I was instructed tomake sure and serve you personal. "

"That's all right! That's all right!" said Pierpont with an effort atbonhomie. "The--er--butler will give you a highball if you say so. "

"Oh, boy, lead me to it!" murmured Roony in the most approved manner ofEast Fourteenth Street. "Which way?"

"Come with me!" intoned Simmons with the exalted gesture of anarchbishop conducting an ecclesiastical ceremonial. 

"What does it say?" asked her husband hurriedly as the butler led thecop to it. 

"Sh-h!" warned Mrs. Pumpelly. "James, kindly retire!"

James retired, and the lady examined the paper by the tempered light ofthe shaded candles surrounding what was left of the "voly vong. "

"Who ever heard of such a thing?" she cried. "Just listen here, Pierpont!"

"CITY MAGISTRATE'S COURT, CITY OF NEW YORK

"In the name of the people of the State of New York

"To 'Maggie' Pumpelly, the name 'Maggie' being fictitious:

"You are hereby summoned to appear before the ------ DistrictMagistrate's Court, Borough of Manhattan, City of New York, on the tenthday of May, 1920, at ten o'clock in the forenoon, to answer to thecharge made against you by William Mulcahy for violation of Section One, Article Two, of the Police Traffic Regulations in that on May 7, 1920, you permitted a vehicle owned or controlled by you to stop with its leftside to the curb on a street other than a one-way traffic street; andalso for violation of Section Seventeen, Article Two of ChapterTwenty-four of the Code of Ordinances of the City of New York in that onthe date aforesaid, being the owner of a vehicle subject to SubdivisionOne of said section and riding therein, you caused or permitted the sameto proceed at a rate of speed greater than four miles an hour in turningcorner of intersecting highways, to wit, Park Avenue and Seventy-thirdStreet; and upon your failure to appear at the time and place hereinmentioned you are liable to a fine of not exceeding fifty dollars or toimprisonment of not exceeding ten days or both. 

"Dated 7th day of May, 1920. 

"PATRICK ROONY, Police Officer, "Police Precinct ----, "New York City. 

"Attest: JOHN J. JONES, "Chief City Magistrate. "

"Well, I never!" she exploded. "What rubbish! Four miles an hour! And'Maggie'--as if everybody didn't know my name was Edna!"

"The whole thing looks a bit phony to me!" muttered Pierpont, worriedover the possibility of having wasted a slug of the real thing on anunreal police officer. "Perhaps that feller wasn't a cop at all!"

"And who's William Mul-kay-hay?" she continued. "I don't know any suchperson! You better call up Mr. Edgerton right away and see what the lawis. "

"I hope he knows!" countered Mr. Pumpelly. "Four miles an hour--that's ajoke! A baby carriage goes faster than four miles an hour. You wouldn'tarrest a baby!"

"Well, call him up!" directed Mrs. Pumpelly. "Tell him he should comeright round over here. "

The summons from his client interrupted Mr. Edgerton in the middle of anexpensive dinner at his club and he left it in no good humor. He didn'tlike being ordered round like a servant the way Mrs. Pumpelly wasordering him. It wasn't dignified. Moreover, a lawyer out of his officewas like a snail out of its shell--at a distinct disadvantage. Youcouldn't just make an excuse to step into the next office for a momentand ask somebody what the law was. The Edgertons always kept somebody inan adjoining office who knew the law--many lawyers do. 

On the Pumpelly stoop the attorney found standing an evil-looking andvery shabby person holding a paper in his hand, but he ignored him untilthe grilled iron _cinquecento_ door swung open, revealing James, theretiring second man. 

Then, before he could enter, the shabby person pushed past him and askedin a loud, vulgar tone: "Does Edna Pumpelly live here?"

James stiffened in the approved style of erect vertebrata. 

"This is Madame Pierpont Pumpelly's residence, " he replied with hauteur. 

"Madam or no madam, just slip this to her, " said the shabby one. "Happydays!"

Mr. Wilfred Edgerton beneath the medieval tapestry of the Pumpellymarble hall glanced at the dirty sheet in James' hand and, thoughunfamiliar with the form of the document, perceived it to be a summonsissued on the application of one Henry J. Goldsmith and returnable nextday, for violating Section Two Hundred and Fifteen of Article Twelve ofChapter Twenty of the Municipal Ordinances for keeping and maintaining acertain bird, to wit, a cockatoo, which by its noise did disturb thequiet and repose of a certain person in the vicinity to the detrimentof the health of such person, to wit, Henry J. Goldsmith, aforesaid, andupon her failure to appear, and so on. 

Wilfred had some sort of vague idea of a law about keeping birds, but hecouldn't exactly recall what it was. There was something incongruousabout Mrs. Pierpont Pumpelly keeping a cockatoo. What did anybody wantof a cockatoo? He concluded that it must be an ancestral hereditamentfrom Athens, Ohio. Nervously he ascended the stairs to what Edna calledthe saloon. 

"So you've come at last!" cried she. "Well, what have you got to say tothis? Is it against the law to go round a corner at more than four milesan hour?"

Now, whereas Mr. Wilfred Edgerton could have told Mrs. Pumpelly the"rule in Shelly's case" or explained the doctrine of _cy pres_, he hadnever read the building code or the health ordinances or the trafficregulations, and in the present instance the latter were to the pointwhile the former were not. Thus he was confronted with the disagreeablealternative of admitting his ignorance or bluffing it through. He chosethe latter, unwisely. 

"Of course not! Utter nonsense!" replied he blithely. "The lawful rateof speed is at least fifteen miles an hour. "

"Excuse me, madam, " said James, appearing once more in the doorway. "Aman has just left this--er--paper at the area doorway. "

Mrs. Pumpelly snatched it out of his hand. 

"Well, of all things!" she gasped. 

"To 'Bridget' Pumpelly, " it began, "said first name 'Bridget' beingfictitious:

"You are hereby summoned to appear . .. For violating Section TwoHundred and Forty-eight of Article Twelve of Chapter Twenty of theHealth Ordinances in that you did upon the seventh day of May, 1920, fail to keep a certain tin receptacle used for swill or garbage, inshape and form a barrel, within the building occupied and owned by youuntil proper time for its removal and failed to securely bundle, tie upand pack the newspapers and other light refuse and rubbish containedtherein, and, further, that you caused and permitted certain tinreceptacles, in the shape and form of barrels, containing such swill orgarbage, to be filled to a greater height with such swill or garbagethan a line within such receptacle four inches from the top thereof. "

"Now what do you know about that?" remarked the vice president of CubanCrucible to the senior partner of Edgerton & Edgerton. 

"I don't know anything about it!" answered the elegant Wilfredmiserably. "I don't know the law of garbage, and there's no usepretending that I do. You'd better get a garbage lawyer. "

"I thought all lawyers were supposed to know the law!" sniffed Mrs. Pumpelly. "What's that you got in your hand?"

"It's another summons, for keeping a bird, " answered the attorney. 

"A bird? You don't suppose it's Moses?" she exclaimed indignantly. 

"The name of the bird isn't mentioned, " said Wilfred. "But very likelyit is Moses if Moses belongs to you. "

"But I've had Moses ever since I was a little girl!" she protested. "And no one ever complained of him before. "

"Beg pardon, madam, " interposed Simmons, parting the Flemish arras, uponwhich was depicted the sinking of the Spanish Armada. "Officer Roony isback again with two more papers. 'E says it isn't necessary for him tosee you again, as once is enough, but 'e was wondering whether being asit was rather chilly--"

"Lead him to it!" hastily directed Pierpont, who was beginning to get acertain amount of enjoyment out of the situation. "But tell him heneedn't call again. "

"Give 'em here!" snapped Mrs. Pumpelly, grasping the documents. "This isa little too much! 'Lulu' this time. Fictitious as usual. Who's JuliusAberthaw? He says I caused a certain rug to be shaken in such place andmanner that certain particles of dust passed therefrom into the publicstreet or highway, to wit, East Seventy-third Street, contrary toSection Two Hundred and Fifty-three of Article Twelve of Chapter Twentyof the Municipal Ordinances. Huh!"

"What's the other one?" inquired her husband with a show of sympathy. 

"For violating Section Fifteen of Article Two of Chapter Twenty, in thaton May 7, 1920, I permitted a certain unmuzzled dog, to wit, a Pekingesebrown spaniel dog, to be on a public highway, to wit, East Seventy-thirdStreet in the City of New York. But that was Randolph!"

"Was Randolph muzzled?" inquired Mr. Edgerton maliciously. 

"Of course not! He only weighs two pounds and a quarter!" protested Mrs. Pumpelly. 

"He can bite all right, just the same!" interpolated Pierpont. 

"But what shall I do?" wailed Mrs. Pumpelly, now thoroughly upset. 

"Guess you'll have to take your medicine, same's other violators of thelaw, " commented her husband. 

"I never heard of such ridiculous laws!"

"Ignorance of the law excuses no one!" murmured Wilfred. 

"It don't excuse a lawyer!" she snorted. "I have an idea you don't knowmuch more about the law--this kind of law, anyway--than I do. I bet itis against the law to go round a corner at more than four miles! Do youwant to bet me?"

"No, I don't!" snapped Edgerton. "What you want is a police-courtlawyer--if you're goin' in for this sort of thing. "

"My Lord! What's this now, Simmons?" she raved as the butlerdeprecatingly made his appearance again with another paper. 

"I think, madam, " he answered soothingly, "that it's a summons forallowing the house man to use the hose on the sidewalk after eight A. M. Roony just brought it. "

"H'm!" remarked Mr. Pumpelly. "Don't lead him to it again!"

"But I wouldn't have disturbed you if it hadn't been for a younggentleman who 'as called with another one regardin' the window boxes. "

"What about window boxes?" moaned Mrs. Pumpelly. 

"'E says, " explained Simmons, "'e 'as a summons for you regardin' thewindow boxes, but that if you'd care to speak to him perhaps the mattermight be adjusted--"

"Let's see the summons!" exclaimed Wilfred, coming to life. 

"'To Edna Pumpelly, '" he read. 

"They're gettin' more polite, " she commented ironically. 

"'For violating Section Two Hundred and Fifty of Article Eighteen ofChapter Twenty-three in that you did place, keep and maintain upon acertain window sill of the premises now being occupied by you in theCity of New York a window box for the cultivation or retention offlowers, shrubs, vines or other articles or things without the samebeing firmly protected by iron railings--'"

"Heavens, " ejaculated Mr. Pumpelly, "there'll be somebody here in aminute complaining that I don't use the right length of shaving stick. "

"I understand, " remarked Mr. Edgerton, "that in a certain Western statethey regulate the length of bed sheets!"

"What's that for?" asked Edna with sudden interest. 

"About seeing this feller?" hurriedly continued Mr. Pumpelly. "Seems tome they've rather got you, Edna!"

"But what's the use seein' him?" she asked. "I'm summoned, ain't I?"

"Why not see the man?" advised Mr. Edgerton, gladly seizing thispossibility of a diversion. "It cannot do any harm. "

"What is his name?"

"Mr. Bonright Doon, " answered Simmons encouragingly. "And he is a verypleasant-spoken young man. "

"Very well, " yielded Mrs. Pumpelly. 

Two minutes later, "Mr. Doon!" announced Simmons. 

Though the friends of Tutt & Tutt have made the acquaintance of BonnieDoon only casually, they yet have seen enough of him to realize that heis an up-and-coming sort of young person with an elastic conscience andan ingratiating smile. Indeed the Pumpellys were rather taken with hisbreezy "Well, here we all are again!" manner as well as impressed by thefact that he was arrayed in immaculate evening costume. 

"I represent Mr. Ephraim Tutt, who has been retained by your neighbor, Mrs. Rutherford Wells, in connection with the summons which you causedto be issued against her yesterday, " he announced pleasantly by way ofintroduction. "Mrs. Wells, you see, was a little annoyed by beingreferred to in the papers as Jane when her proper name is Beatrix. Besides, she felt that the offense charged against her was--so tospeak--rather trifling. However--be that as it may--she and her friendsin the block are not inclined to be severe with you if you are disposedto let the matter drop. "

"Inclined to be severe with me!" ejaculated Mrs. Pumpelly, bristling. 

"Edna!" cautioned her husband. "Mr. Doon is not responsible. "

"Exactly. I find after a somewhat casual investigation that you havebeen consistently violating a large number of city ordinances--keepingparrots, beating rugs, allowing unmuzzled dogs at large, overfillingyour garbage cans, disregarding the speed laws and traffic regulations, using improperly secured window boxes--"

"Anything else?" inquired Pierpont jocularly. "Don't mind us. "

Bonnie carelessly removed from the pocket of his dress coat a sheaf ofpapers. 

"One for neglecting to have your chauffeur display his metal badge onthe outside of his coat--Section Ninety-four of Article Eight of ChapterFourteen. 

"One for allowing your drop awnings to extend more than six feet fromthe house line--Section Forty-two of Article Five of Chapter Twenty-two. 

"One for failing to keep your curbstone at a proper level--Section OneHundred and Sixty-four of Article Fourteen of Chapter Twenty-three. 

"One for maintaining an ornamental projection on your house--a statue, Ibelieve, of the Goddess Venus--to project more than five feet beyond thebuilding line--Section One Hundred and Eighty-one of Article Fifteen ofChapter Twenty-three. 

"One for having your area gate open outwardly instead ofinwardly--Section One Hundred and Sixty-four of Article Fourteen ofChapter Twenty-three. 

"And one for failing to affix to the fanlight or door the street numberof your house--Section One Hundred and Ten of Article Ten of ChapterTwenty-three. 

"I dare say there are others. "

"I'd trust you to find 'em!" agreed Mr. Pumpelly. "Now what's yourproposition? What does it cost?"

"It doesn't cost anything at all! Drop your proceedings and we'll dropours, " answered Bonnie genially. 

"What do you say, Edgerton?" said Pumpelly, turning to the disgruntledWilfred and for the first time in years assuming charge of his owndomestic affairs. 

"I should say that it was an excellent compromise!" answered the lawyersoulfully. "There's something in the Bible, isn't there, about pullingthe mote out of your own eye before attempting to remove the beam fromanybody's else?"

"I believe there is, " assented Bonnie politely. "'You're another'certainly isn't a statutory legal plea, but as a practical defense--"

"Tit for tat!" said Mr. Edgerton playfully. "Ha, ha! Ha!"

"Ha, ha! Ha!" mocked Mrs. Pumpelly, her nose high in air. "A lot of goodyou did me!"

"By the way, young man, " asked Mr. Pumpelly, "whom do you say yourepresent?"

"Tutt & Tutt, " cooed Bonnie, instantly flashing one of the firm's cards. 

"Thanks, " said Pumpelly, putting it carefully into his pocket. "I mayneed you sometime--perhaps even sooner. Now, if by any chance you'd carefor a highball--"

"Lead me right to it!" sighed Bonnie ecstatically. 

"Me, too!" echoed Wilfred, to the great astonishment of those assembled. 

Beyond a Reasonable Doubt

 "For twelve honest men have decided the cause, Who are judges alike of the fact and the laws. " --The Honest Jury. 

"Lastly, " says Stevenson in his Letter to a Young Gentleman Who Proposesto Embrace the Career of Art, "we come to those vocations which are atonce decisive and precise; to the men who are born with the love ofpigments, the passion of drawing, the gift of music, or the impulse tocreate with words, just as other and perhaps the same men are born withthe love of hunting, or the sea, or horses, or the turning lathe. Theseare predestined; if a man love the labor of any trade, apart from anyquestion of success or fame, the gods have called him. "

Had anybody told Danny Lowry that the gods had called him he would havestigmatized his informant as a liar--yet they had. For apart from anyquestion of success or fame he had loved horses from the day when as ababy he had first sprawled in the straw of his Uncle Mike Aherne'slivery and hitching stable in Dublin City. He had grown up to the scrapeand whiffle of the currycomb, breathing ammonia, cracking the skin ofhis infantile knuckles with harness soap. Out of the love that he borefor the beautiful dumb brutes grew an understanding that in time becamealmost uncanny. All the jockeys and hostlers said there was magic inthe lad's hands. He could ride anything on hoofs with a slack rein; andthe worst biter in the stable would take a bridle from him as it were anapple. 

"Oft, now, I hear him talkin' to 'em, so I do. " Mike Aherne was wont tosay between spits. "An' they know what he says, I'm tellin' ye. He's acharmer, he is; like the Whisperin' Blacksmith. You've heard tell ofhim, belike? Well, Danny can spake to 'em widout even a whisper, so hecan that!"

That was near seventy years agone, and now Danny was a shrunken littlewhite-haired old wastrel who haunted Mulqueen's Livery over onTwenty-fourth Street near Tenth Avenue, disappearing in and out of thecellar and loft and stalls like a leprechaun haunts a hollow tree. Nobody knew where he had come from or where he lived except that hecould always be found wherever there was a suffering animal, be it dog, cat or squirrel, and the rest of the time at Mulqueen's, with whom hehad an understanding about the telephone. He was short, wiry, unshaven, with the legs of a jockey; and when he could get it he drank. That, however, was not why he had left Ireland, which had had something to dowith Phoenix Park; nor was it the cause of the decline of his fortunes, which had been the coming of the motor. 

Some day a story must be written called The Hitching Post, about thosethousands of little cast-iron negro boys who stand so patiently on thegreen grass strips along village streets waiting to hold long-forgottenbridle reins. They lost their usefulness a decade or more ago, and so, by the same token and at the same time, did all that army of people wholived and moved and had their being by ministering to the needs of thehorse. The gas engine was to them what the mechanical bobbin was to thespinners of Liverpool and Belfast. With the coming of the motor the raceof coachmen, grooms and veterinaries began to perish from the earth. Among the last was Danny Lowry, at the very zenith of his fortunes anunofficial vet to most of the swell stables belonging to the carriagepeople of Fifth Avenue. One by one these stables had been converted intogarages, and the broughams and C-spring victorias, the landaus andbasket phaetons had been dragged to the auction room or shoved into dimcorners to make room for snappy motors; and the horses Danny knew andloved so well had been sold or turned out to grass. 

But there was nobody to turn Danny out to grass. He had to keep going. So he had drifted lower and lower, passing from the private stable tothe trucking stable, and from the trucking stable to the last remainingdecrepit boarding and liveries of the remote West Side. The tragedy ofthe horse is the tragedy of all who loved them. Danny was one of thesetragedies, but he still picked up a precarious living by doing odd jobsat Mulqueen's and acting as a veterinary when called upon, and he couldgenerally be found either loafing in the smelly little office or smokinghis T D pipe on the steps outside. 

He and Mr. Ephraim Tutt, the lawyer, who lived in the rickety old housewith the tall windows and piazzas protected by railings of open ironworkround which twisted the stems of extinct wistarias, had long beenfriends. Many a summer evening the two old men had sat together anddiscoursed of famous jockeys and still more famous horses, of Epsom andAscot, until Mr. Tutt's cellaret was empty and never a stogy left in thebox at all. Probably no one save the odd lanky old attorney, who himselfseemed to belong to a bygone era, knew the story of Danny's gloriouspast--how he had risen from his Uncle Aherne's livery in Dublin first tobeing paddock groom to Lord Ashburnham and then to jockey, finally toride the Derby under the Farringdon gold and crimson, and to carry awayKatherine Brady, the second housemaid, as Mrs. Lowry when he went backto Dublin with a goodly pile of money to take over his uncle's business;and how thereafter had come babies, and fever, and the epizootic, andhard times; and Danny, a heartbroken man, had fled from bereavement andpauperism and possibly from prison to seek his fortune in America. Andthen the motor! Lastly, now, a hand-to-mouth, furtive, ignorant old age, a struggle for bare existence and to keep the tiny flat going for hisseventeen-year-old granddaughter, Katie, who kept house for him and ofwhose existence few, even of Danny's friends, were aware excepting Mr. Tutt. 

There was, in fact, a striking parallel between these two old men, theone so ignorant, the other so essentially a man of culture, in that theywere both humanitarians in a high sense. It is improbable that EphraimTutt was conscious of what drew him to Danny Lowry, but drawn he was;and the reason for it was that the fundamental mainspring of the life ofeach was love--in the case of the man of law for those of his fellow menwho suffered through foolishness or poverty or weaknesses or misfortune;and in that of his more humble counterpart, whose limitations precludedhis understanding of more endowed human beings, for the dumb animals, who must mutely suffer through the foolishness or poverty or weakness ormisfortune of their owners and masters. 

Danny had sat up all night with only a horse blanket drawn over hislegs, taking care of a roan mare with the croup. The helpless thing hadlain flat on her side in the straw struggling for breath, and Danny, hisheart racked with pity, had sat in the stall beside her, every hourgiving her steam and gently pouring his own secret mixture down herthroat. Nobody but Danny cared what became of the mare, left there twoweeks before by a stranger who had not returned for it; stolen, probably. Cramped, stiff with rheumatism, half dead from fatigue andsuffering from a bad cough himself, he left the stable at eight o'clocknext morning, hopeful that the miserable beast would pull through, andstepped round to Salvatore's lunch cart for a bowl of coffee and a hotdog. He was just lighting his pipe preparatory to going back to thestable when a stranger pulled up to the curb in a mud-splashed depotwagon. 

"'Morning, " he remarked pleasantly. "Can you tell me if Mulqueen'slivery stable is anywhere about here?"

Danny removed his pipe and spat politely. 

"Sure, " he replied, taking in the horse, which besides being lame andhaving a glaring spavin on its off hind leg was a mere bone bag fit onlyfor the soap factory. "'Tis just forninst the corner. I'm after goin'there meself. "

The stranger, a heavy-faced man with a thick neck, nodded. 

"All right. You go along and I'll follow. "

Mulqueen was not yet at the stable and Danny helped unharness theanimal, which, as soon as relieved of the shafts, hung its head betweenits legs, evidently all in. The stranger handed Danny a cigar. 

"I'm lookin' for a vet, " said he. "My horse ought to have something donefor him. "

"I can well see that!" agreed Danny. "He needs a poultice and hotbandages. A bit of rest wouldn't do him no harm, neither. "

"Well, I'm no vet, " returned the stranger with an apologetic grin, "butit don't take much to know that he's a sick horse. I'm a doctor, myself, but not a horse doctor. Have you got one here?"

"Some calls me a horse doctor, " modestly answered Danny. "I can treat aspavin and wind a bandage as well as the next. How long will you beleavin' him?"

"Oh, a day or two, I guess. Well, if you're a veterinary I leave him inyour care. My name's Simon--Dr. Joseph R. Simon, of Hempstead, LongIsland. "

Danny worked all the morning over the horse, doing his best to make itcomfortable. Indeed, before he had concluded his treatment the animalwas probably more comfortable than he, for the night in the cold stallhad given him a chill and when he left the stable to go home for lunchhe was in a high fever. Doctor Simon was outside on the sidewalk talkingto Mulqueen. 

"Well, doctor, " said he, "what did you find was the matter with myhorse?"

"Spavin, lame in three legs, sore eyes, underfed, " replied Danny, shivering. "Sure an' he's a sick animal. "

"How much do I owe you?" inquired Doctor Simon. 

Danny was about to answer that a couple of dollars would be all rightwhen the thought occurred to him that here was an opportunity to securemedical treatment for himself. 

"If you'll give me something to stop a fever we'll call it even, " hesuggested. 

"That's easy!" returned Doctor Simon heartily. "Come into the office andI'll take your temperature and write you out a prescription. "

So they sat down by the stove and the doctor took Danny's pulse and puta thermometer under his tongue, chatting amicably meanwhile, and when hehad completed his examination he wrote something on a piece of paper. 

"How long have you been practicing veterinary medicine?" he inquired. 

"All my life, " answered Danny truthfully. "But I don't get near so muchto do as I used. These be hard times for those as have to do withhorses. "

He got up painfully. 

"Well, now, " said Doctor Simon, "I'd feel better if I paid you fortreating my horse. Just put this five-dollar bill in your pocket. Iguess you need it more than I do. "

Danny shook his head. "That's all right!" he said weakly, for he wasfeeling very ill. "It's a stand-off. "

"Oh, go ahead, take it!" urged Doctor Simon, shoving the bill into thepocket of Danny's overcoat. "By the way, have you got your card? I mightbe able to send a little business your way. "

When his magic skill with horses was matter of common knowledge amongthe upper circle of Long Island grooms and coachmen Danny had had a fewcards struck off by a friendly printer. A couple of fly-blown specimensstill lingered in the drawer of Mulqueen's desk. Danny searched until hefound one:

 DANIEL LOWRY VETERINARY 212 WEST 53D STREET NEW YORK CITY

"Here, sor, " said he, his head swimming, "that's my name, but theaddress is wrong. "

Doctor Simon put it in his pocketbook. 

"Thanks, " he remarked. "Much obliged for fixing up my horse. " Then in abusinesslike manner, he threw back his coat and displayed a glitteringbadge. "Now, " he added brusquely, "I must arrest you for practisingveterinary medicine without a license. Just come along with me to thenearest police station. "

 * * * * *

When Mr. Tutt returned home that evening after attending one of theweekly sessions at the Colophon Club, where he had reluctantlycontributed the sum of fifty-seven dollars to relieve the immediateneeds of certain impecunious persons gathered there about agreen-baize-covered table in a remote corner of the card room, heperceived by the light of an adjacent street lamp that someone wassitting upon the top of the steps leading to his front door. 

"Are you Mr. Tutt?" inquired Katie Lowry, getting up and making a timidcurtsy. "The great lawyer?"

"That is my name, child, " he answered. "What do you want of me?"

She was but a wisp of a girl and her eyes shone like a cat's from undera gray shawl gathered over a pair of narrow, pinched shoulders. 

"They've taken grandfather away to prison, " she replied with a catch inher throat. "He didn't come in to lunch nor to supper, and when I wentto the stable Mr. Mulqueen said a detective had arrested grandfather fordoctoring horses without a license and he had pleaded guilty and they'dlocked him up. I went to the police station, but they said he wasn'tthere any more, but that he was in the Tombs. "

"Who is your grandfather?" demanded Mr. Tutt as he unlocked the door. 

"Danny Lowry, " she replied. "Oh, sir, won't you try to do something forhim, sir? He thinks so much of you! He often has told me what a grandman you were and so kind, besides being such a clever lawyer and all thejudges afraid of you!"

"Danny Lowry in the Tombs!" cried Mr. Tutt. "What an outrage! Of courseI'll do what I can for him. But first come inside and warm yourself. Miranda!" he shouted to the colored maid of all work. "Make us some hottoast and tea and bring it up to the library. Now, my dear, take offyour shawl and sit down and tell me all about it. "

So with her frayed kid shoes upturned on the fender, little Katie Lowry, confident that she had found an all-powerful friend in this queer longman who smoked such queer long cigars, sipping her tea only when she hadto pause for breath, poured out the story of her grandfather's fightwith poverty and misfortune, while her auditor's wrinkled face grew softand hard by turns as he watched her through the gray clouds from hisstogy. An hour later he left her at the door of her flat, happy andencouraged, with a twenty-dollar bill crumpled in her hand. 

 * * * * *

"But what do you expect me to do about it?" retorted District AttorneyPeckham in his office next morning when Mr. Tutt had explained to himthe perversion of justice to accomplish which the law had been invoked. "I'm sorry! No doubt he's a good feller. But he's guilty, isn't he?Admitted it in the police court, didn't he?"

"I expect you to temper justice with mercy, " replied Mr. Tutt earnestly. "This old man's whole life has been devoted to relieving the sufferingsof animals. He's a genuine Samaritan. "

"That's like saying that a thief has done good with his plunder, isn'tit?" commented Peckham. "Look here, Tutt, of course I hope you get yourman off and all that, but if I personally threw the case out I'd haveall the vets in the city on my neck. You see the motors have prettynearly put 'em all out of business. There aren't enough sick horses togo round, so they've been conducting a sort of crusade. Tough luck--butthe law is the law. And I have to enforce it--ostensibly, anyway. "

"Very well, " answered the old lawyer amiably but defiantly. "Then ifyou've got to enforce the law against a fine old chap like that I've gotto do my darnedest to smash that law higher than a kite. And I'll tellyou something, Peckham--which is that the human heart is a damn sightbigger than the human conscience. "

 * * * * *

Danny Lowry had lived for years in fear of the blow which had sosuddenly struck him down, for there had never been any blinking of theobvious fact that in acting as an unlicensed veterinary he was brazenlyviolating the law. On the other hand, not being able to read or write, and having no technical knowledge of medicine, all his experience, allhis skill, all his love of animals could avail him nothing so far assecuring a license was concerned. He could not read an examinationpaper, but he could interpret the symptoms seen in a trembling neck anda lack-luster eye. Danny had no choice but to break the law or abandonthe only career for which he had an aptitude, or by which he could hopeto earn a living at his age. His crime was _malum prohibitum_, not_malum in se_, but it was, nevertheless, a violation of a most necessarylaw. Certainly none of us wish to be doctored by tyros or humbugs, or tohave our animals treated by them. Only Danny was neither a tyro nor ahumbug, and had he not been a lawbreaker the world would have been tosome extent the loser. 

Yet by all the canons of ethics and justice it was most improper for Mr. Tutt to hurry off to the Tombs and bail out old Danny Lowry, aself-confessed lawbreaker, giving his own bond and the house onTwenty-third Street as security. Still more so, as more unblushinglyostentatious, was his taking the criminal over to Pont's and giving himthe very best dinner that Signor Faccini, proprietor of that celebratedhostelry, could purvey. 

Hard cases are said to make bad law; I wonder if they make bad people. If "conscience makes cowards of us all" does human sympathy play ducksand drakes with conscience? Does it blind the eye of reason? Rather, does it not illumine and expose the fallacies of logic and the falsitiesof the syllogism? Do two and two make four in human polity as inmathematics? Sometimes it would not seem so. 

Certainly you would have picked Mr. Bently Gibson, of The Gibson WoolenMills, as a model juror. One look at him as a prospective talesman in amurder case and you would have unhesitatingly murmured, "The defensechallenges peremptorily!" His broad forehead, large well-shaped nose, firm chin and clear calm eye evidenced his common sense, hisconscientiousness and his uncompromising adherence to principle. Hiscustoms declarations were complete to the smallest item, his income-taxreturns models of self-sacrifice, he was patriotic and civic, hebelonged to the Welfare League and the Citizens' Union, and--I hesitateto confess it--he subscribed to the annual deficit of the Society forthe Suppression of Sin. On the face of it, he was the kind of man thedistrict attorney tries to select as foreman of a jury when he has toprosecute a woman who had kidnaped her own child out of a foundlingasylum. 

The heelers and hangers-on of the criminal courts would have describedhim as a highbrow and as a holier-than-thou; perhaps he might in amoment of jocularity have even so described himself--for he had hishuman--perhaps I should have said, his weaker--side. Surely he seemedhuman enough when he kissed Eleanor good-by at the door of their countryplace on the Sound the morning he had been subpoenaed to serve as ajuryman in Part Five of the General Sessions. He had planned to take aweek's holiday that spring, and he had gone to infinite trouble toarrange his business in order to have it, for they had become engagedeleven years before at the moment when the apple blossoms and thedogwoods were at the height of their glory, even as they were now. 

When, however, he found the brown subpoena at his office directing himto present himself for service the following Monday he simply gave ahalf sigh, half grunt of disgust, and let the longed-for vacation go;for one of his pet theories was that the jury system was the chiefbulwark of the Constitution, the cornerstone of liberty. Had he onlybeen disingenuous enough he need never have served on any jury, for nolawyer for the defense hearing him enlarge on what he considered theduties of a juryman to be, would ever have allowed him in the box. Butwhen other chaps on the panel presented their excuses to the judge andmanaged to persuade him of the imperative needs of family or business, and slipped--grinning discreetly--out of the court room, he merelyinaudibly called them welshers and pikers. No, he regarded jury serviceas a duty and a privilege, one not to be lightly avoided--the one commongarden governmental function in which Uncle Sam expected every citizento do his duty. 

"I won't let any of the rogues get by me!" he shouted gaily to his wifeover the back of the motor. "And anyhow I shan't be locked up all night. There aren't any murder cases on the calendar. I'll be out on thefive-fifteen as usual. "

Alas, poor Bently! Alas for human frailty and all those splendidvisions in which he pictured himself as the anchor of the ship ofjustice, a prop and stay of the structure of democracy. 

His train was a trifle late and the roll of the jury had already beencalled, and the perennial excuses heard, when he entered the court room;but the clerk, who knew him, nodded in a welcoming manner, checked himoff as present and dropped his name card in the revolving wheel. It wasa well-known scene to Bently, a veteran of fifteen years' service. Eventhe actors were familiar friends--the pink-faced judge with hissnow-white whiskers, who at times suggested to Bently an octogenarianangel, and, at others, a certain ancient baboon once observed in thePrimates cage at the Bronz Zoo; the harried, anxious little clerk withhis paradoxically grandiloquent intonation; the comedy assistantdistrict attorney with his wheezy voice emanating from a Falstaffianbody, who suffered from a soporific malady and was accustomed to open acase and then let it take care of itself while he slumbered audiblybeneath the dais; even Ephraim Tutt, the gaunt, benignlywhimsical-looking attorney, in his rusty-black frock coat andloose-hanging tie; his rotund partner, whose birdlike briskness and fatpaunch inevitably brought to mind a distended robin in specs; and the_dégagé_ Bonnie Doon in his cut-in-at-the-waist checked suit--he knewthem all of old. 

"Well, call your first case, Mister District Attorney!" directed thejudge, nodding encouragingly at Bently, well knowing that in him he hada staunch upholder of the law-as-it-is, who could be depended upon tobolster up his weaker or more sentimental brother talesmen into theproper convicting attitude of mind. 

Then--as per the schedule in force for at least an epoch--good-natured, pot-bellied Tom Hingman, the oldest A. D. A. In the office, rose heavily, fumbled with his stubby fingers among the blue indictments on the table, drew one forth, panted a few times, gasped out "People against DanielLowry, " and looked round in a pseudo-helpless way as if not knowingexactly what to do. 

There was a slight stir, and from the back of the court room cameforward a funny little bow-legged old man, carrying in both hands afunny little flat-topped derby hat, and took his seat timidly at the barof justice beside Mr. Tutt, who smiled down at him affectionately andput his arm about the threadbare shoulders as if to protect him from theevils of the world. They made a quaint and far from unpleasing picture, thought Bently Gibson, the ideal juror, and he wondered what the poorold devil could be up for. 

A jury was impaneled, Bently among them; the balance of the panel wasexcused until two o'clock; the court room was cleared of loafers; thejudge perused the indictment with a practised eye; Tom Hingman roseagain, wheezed and grinned at the embattled jury; and the mill ofjustice began to grind. 

Now the mill of justice, at least in the General Sessions of New YorkCounty, grinds exceeding fine, so far as the number of convictions isconcerned. Of those brought to the bar for trial few escape; for moderntalesmen, being hard-headed men, regard the whole thing as a matter ofbusiness and try to get through with it as quickly and as efficiently aspossible. The bombastic spread-eagle orator, the grandiloquent gas bag, the highfaluting stump speaker gain few verdicts and win small applauseexcept from their clients. And district attorneys who ape the bloodhoundin their mien and tactics win scant approval and less acquiescence fromthe bored gentlemen who are forced to listen to them. Nowadays--whatevermay have been the case two generations ago--each side briefly states itsclaims and tries to win on points. 

People were apt to wonder why each succeeding administration inevitablyretained stuffy old Tom Hingman at seventy-five hundred dollars a yearto handle the calendar in Part Five. Yet those on the inside knew whyvery well. It was because Tom long ago, in his prehistoric youth, hadlearned that the way to secure verdicts was to appear not to care atinker's dam whether the jury found the defendant guilty or not. Hepretended never to know anything about any case in advance, to be incomplete ignorance as to who the witnesses might be and to what theywere going to testify, and to be terribly sorry to have to prosecute theunfortunate at the bar, though he wasn't to blame for that any more thanthe jury were for having to find him guilty if proven to be so, which, it seemed to him, he had been clearly proven to be. I say Tom pretendedall this, yet it was more than half true, for Tom was a kind-hearted oldbird. But the point was that, whether true or not, it got convictions. The jury sucking it all up in its entirety felt sorrier for thesimple-minded old softy of a Tom, which they believed him to be, thanthey did for the defendant, who they concluded was a good deal clevererthan the assistant district attorney. 

In a word, it put them on their honor as public officers not to let theadministration of justice suffer merely because the A. D. A. Was too oldand easy-going and generally slab-sided to be really on his job. Thus, they became prosecuting attorneys themselves--in all, thirteen to one. So Tom, having thus delegated his functions to the jury, calmly left itall to them and went to sleep, which was the best thing that he did. Worth seventy-five hundred a year? Rather, seventy-five thousand!

"Gentlemen of the jury, " he began haltingly, "this defendant seems tohave been indicted for the crime of practising medicine without alicense--a misdemeanor. I don't see exactly how he gets into this court, which is supposed to try only felony cases, but I assume my old friendTutt made a motion to transfer the case from the Special to the GeneralSessions on the theory that he would stand more chance with a jury thanthree--er--hardened judges. Well, maybe he will--I don't know! I gatherfrom the papers that Mr. Lowry here, after holding himself out to be aproperly licensed veterinary, treated a horse belonging to thecomplainant. It is not a very serious offense, and you and I have nogreat interest in the case, but of course the public has got to beprotected from charlatans, and the only way to do it is to brand asguilty those who pretend they are duly licensed to practise medicinewhen they are not. If you had a sick baby, Mr. Foreman, and you saw asign 'A. S. Smith, M. D. , Children's Specialist, ' you would want to besure you were not going to hire a plumber, eh? You see! That's all thereis to this case!"

"All there is to this case!" murmured Mr. Tutt audibly, raising his eyesceilingward. 

"Step up here, Mr. Brown. "

Mr. Brown, the supposed Doctor Simon whose horse Danny had attended, seated himself complacently in the witness chair and bowed to the juryin a professional manner. He had, he told them, been a detectiveemployed by the state board of health for over sixteen years. It was hisduty to go round and arrest people who pretended to be licensedpractitioners of medicine and assumed to doctor other people andanimals. There were a lot of 'em, too; the jury would be surprised--

Mr. Tutt objected to their surprise and it was stricken out by order ofthe court. 

"I'll strike out 'and there are a lot of 'em, too, ' if you say so, Mr. Tutt, " offered the court, smiling, but Mr. Tutt shook his head. 

"No; let it stand!" said he significantly. "Let it stand!"

"Well, anyway, " continued Mr. Brown, "this here defendant Lowry, as hecalls himself, is well known--"

Objected to and struck out. 

"Well, this here defendant makes a practise--"

"Strike it out! What did he do?" snapped the octogenarian baboon on thebench. 

"I'm tellin' you, judge, " protested Brown vigorously. "This heredefendant--"

"You've said that three times!" retorted the baboon. "Get along, can'tyou? What did he do?"

"He treated my horse for spavin here in New York at 500 West 24th Streetat my request on the twentieth of last March and I paid him fivedollars. He said he was a licensed veterinary and he gave me his card. Here it is. "

"Well, why didn't you say so before?" remarked the judge more amiably. "Let me see the card. All right! Anything more, Mr. Hingman?"

But Mr. Hingman had long before this subsided into his chair and wasemitting sounds like those from a saxophone. 

"That is plain, simple testimony, Mr. Tutt, " remarked the judge. "Goahead and cross-examine. "

Ephraim Tutt slowly unjointed himself, the quintessence of affability, though Mr. Brown clearly held him under suspicion. 

"How long have you earned your living, my dear sir, by going roundarresting people?"

"Sixteen years. "

"Under what name--your own?"

"I use any name I feel like. "

Mr. Tutt nodded appreciatively. 

"Let us see, then. You go about pretending to be somebody you are not?"

"Put it that way, if you choose. "

"And pretending to be what you are not?"

Mr. Brown eyed Mr. Tutt savagely. "What do you mean by that?"

"Didn't you tell this old gentleman beside me that you were a doctor ofmedicine but not a doctor of veterinary medicine--and beg him to treatyour horse for that reason?"

"Sure I did. Certainly. "

"Well, are you a licensed medical practitioner?"

"Look here! What's that got to do with it?" snarled Mr. Brown, lookingabout for aid from the sleeping Hingman. 

"The question is a proper one. Answer it, " directed the judge. 

"No, I'm not a licensed doctor. "

"Well, didn't you treat Mr. Lowry?"

The jury by this time had caught the drift of the examination and werelistening with intent appreciation. 

Mr. Brown leaned forward, a sickening smile of sneering superioritycurling about his yellow molars. 

"Ah!" he cried. "That's where I have you, sir! I only pretended to treathim. I didn't really. I only scribbled something on a piece of paper. "

"You knew he couldn't read, of course?"

"Sure. "

Mr. Tutt turned to the uplifted faces of the twelve. "So, " he retorted, pursing his wrinkled lips and placing his fingers together in thatattitude of piety which we frequently observe upon effigies of defunctecclesiastics--"so you did the very thing for which you threw this oldman at my side into jail--and for which he is now on trial! You lied tohim about being a doctor! You deceived him about giving him the medicaltreatment he so much needed! And you arrested him after he had workedfor hours to relieve the sufferings of a sick animal. By the way, it wasa sick animal, wasn't it?"

"The sickest I could find, " replied Brown airily. 

"And he did relieve its sufferings, did he not?" continued Mr. Tuttgently. 

"Very likely. I wasn't particularly interested in that end of it. "

Mr. Tutt's meager frame seemed suddenly to expand until he hung over thewitness chair like the genii who mushroomed so unexpectedly out of thefisherman's bottle in the Arabian Nights Entertainments. 

"You were not interested in ministering to a poor horse, so sick itcould hardly stand! You were only interested in imprisoning anddepriving of his only form of livelihood this old man whose heart wasnot hardened like yours! May I ask at whose instance you went and liedto him?"

"Mr. Tutt! Mr. Tutt!" interjected the octogenarian angel. "Yourexamination is exceeding the bounds of judicial propriety. "

Ephraim Tutt bowed low. 

"A thousand pardons, Your Honor! My emotions swept me away! I mosthumbly apologize! But when this witness so unblushingly confesses how heplayed the scoundrel's part, aged case hardened practitioner as I am, myheart cries out against such infamous treachery--"

Bang! went the judge's gavel. 

"You are only making it worse!" declared the court severely. "Proceedwith your examination. "

"Very well, Your Honor!" replied Mr. Tutt, his lips trembling withwell-simulated indignation. "Now, sir, who instigated this miserabledeception--I beg Your Honor's pardon! Who put you up to this game--Imean, this course of conduct?"

"Nobody, " replied Brown in a surly tone. 

"Did you ever hear of the United Association of Veterinaries of theGreater City of New York--sometimes referred to as The Horse Leeches'Union?" asked Mr. Tutt insinuatingly. 

Mr. Brown hesitated. 

"I've heard of some such organization, " he admitted. "But I never heardit was called a Horse Leeches' Union. "

"Didn't one of its officers come to you and say that unless somethingwas done to reduce competition they'd have to go out of business--owingto the decrease in horses in New York?"

"I don't remember, " answered Brown slowly. "One of 'em may have saidsomething of the sort to me. But that's my business!"

"Yes!" roared Mr. Tutt suddenly. "It's your business to pretend you're adoctor when you're not, and you walk the streets a free man; and youwant to send my client to Sing Sing for the same offense! That is all! Iam done with you! Get down off the stand! Do not let me detain you fromthe practise of your unlicensed profession!"

"Mr. Tutt!" again admonished His Honor as the lawyer threw himselfangrily into his chair. "This really won't do at all!"

"I beg Your Honor's pardon--a thousand times!" said Mr. Tutt in tones sohumble and sincere that he almost made the angel-faced baboon believehim. 

I should like to go on and describe the whole course of Danny Lowry'strial item by item, witness by witness, and tell what Mr. Tutt did toeach. But I can't; there isn't room. I can only dwell upon the tacticsof Mr. Tutt long enough to state that at the conclusion of the caseagainst Daniel Lowry, wherein it was clearly, definitely andconvincingly established that Danny had been practising veterinarymedicine for a long time without the faintest legal right, the lawyerrose and declared emphatically to the jury that his client wasabsolutely, totally and unquestionably innocent, as they would see bygiving proper attention to the evidence he would produce--so that hewould not take up any more of their valuable time in talk. 

And having made this opening statement with all the earnestness andsolemnity of which he was capable Mr. Tutt called to prove thedefendant's good reputation, first, Father Plunkett, the priest to whomDanny made his monthly confession and who told the jury that he knew nobetter man in all his parish; second, Mulqueen, who described Danny'slove of horses, his knowledge of them, his mysterious intuitionconcerning their hidden ailments, which, being as they could not speak, it was given to few to know, and how night after night he would sit upwith a sick or dying animal to relieve its pain without thought ofhimself or of any earthly reward; then, man after man and woman afterwoman from the neighborhood of West Twenty-third Street who gave Dannythe best of characters, including policemen, firemen, delicatessens, hotel keepers, and Salvatore, the proprietor of the night lunchfrequented by Mr. Tutt. 

And last of all little Katie Lowry. It was she who found the crack inBently's moral armor. For Eleanor his wife was of Irish ancestry and ofthe colleen type, like Katie; and Bently had always played up to herIrish side when courting her as a humorous short cut to a quasifamiliarity, for you may call a girl "acushla" and "Ellin darlint" whenotherwise you are fully aware, but for the Irish of it, she would haveto be referred to as Miss Dodworth. And this wisp of a girl with her bigblack-fringed gray eyes peering up and out over her gray knitted shawl, but for the holes in her white stockings and the fact that the alabasterof her neck was a shade off color--faith, an' it might have beenEleanor hersilf! It is obvious that any juryman who allows his mind tobe influenced by the mere fact that one of the witnesses for the defenseis a pretty woman--even if she recalls to him his wife orsweet-heart--is a poor weakling, a silly ass. 

Otherwise all a crook need do would be to hire a half dozen ofZiegfeld's midnight beauties to testify for him by day; and the slenderdarlings could work in double shifts and be whisked in auto busses fromroof garden to court room. Bently was no weakling, but Katie--perhapsbecause it was the moment of apple blossoms and dogwood and theanniversary of his wedding day--Katie got him. Kathleen Mavourneen, andall! No man could have brought up a fatherless and motherless girl likethat and keep her so simple, frank and innocent unless there wassomething fine about him. You see, highbrows and lowbrows are all alikebelow the collar bone. 

And here's the catch in it. Bently had told Eleanor that very morningthat none of the rogues would get by him, and he had meant it. None ofthem ever had--in all his years of jury service. Time and again he hadbeen the one stubborn man to hang out all night for a verdict of guiltyagainst eleven outraged and indignant fellow talesmen who wanted toacquit. But quite unconsciously he found himself saying that this oldfellow at the bar wasn't a rogue at all. If he was a criminal he was soat most only in a Pickwickian sense. All the previous cases in which hehad sat had been for murder or arson, robbery or theft, burglary, blackmail or some other outrageous offense against common morals ordecency. But here was a man who had never done anything but good in hislife, and was at the bar of justice charged with crime merely becausesome cold-blooded mercenaries thought he was interfering with theirbusiness! Bently was in a recalcitrant and indignant frame of mindagainst the prosecution long before the defense began. The wholeproceeding seemed to him an outrageous farce. That wasn't what they werethere for at all! So swiftly does the acid of sympathy corrode andweaken the stoutest conscience, the most logical of minds!

Mr. Tutt did not put Danny on the stand--why should he?--and theoctogenarian judge declared the case closed on both sides. Theneverybody made a speech, in which he told the jury to disregardeverything everybody else said. 

Mr. Tutt spoke first. He thanked the gaping jury for their attention andcourtesy and kindness and intelligence and for taking the trouble tolisten to him. He told them what a wise and upright judge the old baboonon the bench was; and what a sterling, honest, kindly chap the fatassistant district attorney really was. They were the highest type ofpublic officers--but paid--he accentuated the "paid" very slightly--todo their duty as they interpreted it. Now, Mr. Hingman would have toclaim that Danny Lowry was a criminal; whereas, thank heaven! they allof them--every man of them--knew he was nothing of the kind!Criminal--that old man? Mr. Tutt raised his eyes and his arms to heavenin protest. Why, one look at him would create a reasonable doubt! Butthe case against him failed absolutely for the following reasons:

Daniel Lowry had not practised veterinary medicine without a license intaking care of Brown's sick horse, because he had not claimed to be aveterinary; he had not been paid for his services; and because all hehad done was to help a suffering animal, as any man who called himself aChristian and had a heart would have done, and as it was his duty to do. Who "shall have an ass or an ox fallen into a pit"? and so on. It was inHoly Writ! The highest law!

There was no evidence against Danny at all, because Brown was anaccomplice and his testimony was not corroborated; at any rate he was aprocurer and instigator of crime, an _agent provocateur_, a despicableliar, hypocrite and violator of the very law he was paid to uphold; andas he had held himself out as a physician to Danny Lowry everything thatpassed between them was privileged as a confidential communication andmust be disregarded as if it had never been said. 

Daniel Lowry was a man of the highest reputation, of such character thathe never had been guilty of an unkind or selfish act in his entire life, much less commit crime; which alone, taken by itself, was quite enoughto interject and raise a reasonable doubt--upon which they must acquit. 

Then Tom Hingman got up and grimaced and said he had known Mr. Tutt allhis professional life and he was a peach, but they mustn't believe whathe said or let him put anythin' over on 'em, for he was pretty slickeven if he was a fine old feller. Now the plain fact was, as they allknew perfectly well, that this old boy had been caught with the goods. It might be tough luck, but the law was the law and they were all thereto enforce it--much as they hated to do so--and there was nothing to itbut to convict and let the judge deal with the defendant with that mercyand leniency and forbearance for which he was so justly famous. Hepanted a few times and sat down. 

Then the judge took his crack. He told the jury, in so many words, topay no attention to either the A. D. A. Or to Mr. Tutt, and to listen onlyto him, because he was the whole thing. The question was: Had thedefendant assumed to give medical treatment to Brown's horse, for anykind of valuable consideration? In determining this they should considerall the evidence, including the fact that the prisoner had claimed to bea veterinary, had been paid for treating Brown's horse as such, hadpleaded guilty in the police court, and that none of the alleged factsupon which the charge was based had been denied before them in presenttrial. 

As he said this the pink-and-white baboon looked at them steadily andsignificantly for several seconds over his eyeglasses. They shouldconsider the business card which the defendant had given to thecomplaining witness and in which he held himself out as a veterinary. The testimony of the complainant stood uncontradicted. The complainantwas not an accomplice and his testimony did not have to be corroborated. A decoy wasn't an accomplice. That was the law. Neither was what hadpassed between the complainant and defendant privileged as aconfidential communication, because the complainant was not a physician. That was all there was to that!

They should ask themselves what in fact the defendant had done if notpractise veterinary medicine without a license? It was not controvertedbut that he had said he was a veterinary, administered medicine to asick horse, offered to compound payment for medical treatment forhimself, finally taken five dollars, and admitted his guilt before themagistrate. If they had any reasonable doubt--and such a doubt might ofcourse be raised by evidence of previous good character--they would ofcourse give it to the defendant and acquit him, but such a doubt must beno mere whim, guess or conjecture that the defendant might not after allbe guilty even if the evidence seemed so to demonstrate; it must be asubstantial doubt based on the evidence and such a one as wouldinfluence them in the important matters of their own daily, domestic andbusiness lives. That was all there was to it! Let them take the case anddecide it! It should not take 'em very long. The question of how thedefendant should be punished, if at all, did not concern them. He wouldtake care of that. They might safely leave it to him! He bowed andturned to his papers. The jury gathered up their coats and straggledafter Cap Phelan out of the court room. 

"Y'd be all right, counselor, " remarked the second court officer, suspending momentarily the delights of mastication, "if 'twasn't ferthat son of a gun on the back row, Gibson! He's a bad one! I've knownhim for years! He'd convict his own mother of petit larceny!"

"So? So?" murmured Mr. Tutt, producing a leather case the size of adoctor's instrument bag from his inside pocket and removing a couple ofstogies therefrom. "Well, it's too late now to do anything about it. I'mgoing out to stretch my legs and have a smoke. "

Mr. Tutt loitered into the corridor, stepped unostentatiously behind apillar, slipped into the adjoining court room--which happened to beempty--and thence back into the passage upon which the jury roomsopened. He found Cap Phelan standing before one of these with a fingerto his lips. 

"Pst! They're at it a-ready!" whispered Phelan as Mr. Tutt slipped him astogy. 

The transom above was open and through it drifted out a faint bluecloud. A great hubbub was going on inside. Suddenly above it a harshvoice rang out: "That ain't a reasonable doubt! I tell you, that ain't areasonable doubt! Aw, you give me a pain, you do!"

"I've got 'em!" grinned Mr. Tutt contentedly. "Phelan, bring me achair!"

Now right here is where this story begins--only here. 

"Vell, gen'l'muns, " said the foreman, who was a glove merchant andlooked like Sam Bernard, as they took their seats round the battered oaktable. "Vot you say? Shall we disguss or take a vote?"

"Let's take a smoke!" amended a real-estate broker. "No use goin' backright off and getting stuck onto another damn case! Where's thatcuspidor?"

"Speakin' of veterinaries, " chuckled a man with three rolls of fat onhis neck, "did y'ever hear the story of the negro and the mule with thecough?"

None of them apparently ever had, so the stout brother told all abouthow--ha, ha!--the mule coughed first. 

"I remember that story now, " remarked one of the jury reminiscentlywhile the fat man glared at him. "If I had my way all these veterinarieswould be in jail! They're a dangerous lot. I had a second cousin oncewho'd paid a hundred dollars--a hundred dollars!--for a horse and itgot the colic. So he called in a veterinary and it died. "

"Well, the vet didn't kill it, did he?" inquired the fat man scornfully. 

"My cousin always claimed he did!" replied the other solemnly. "Therewas some mistake about what he gave the horse--wood alcohol orsomething--I forget what it was. Anyhow, I think they're all a dangerouslot. They all ought to be locked up. I move to convict!"

"But neither of these fellers is a veterinary!" retorted a sad-lookinggentleman in black. "The charge is that one of 'em pretended to be--butwasn't. So if he wasn't how could you convict him of being aveterinary?"

"Well, if he had been I'd have convicted him all right, " asserted thefirst. "They're dangerous--like all these clairvoyants and soothsayers. "

"Will somebody tell me?" requested a tall man who had been lookingintently out of the window, "whether a veterinary is the same thing as aveterinarian? I always supposed a veterinarian was a sort of religion, like a Unitarian. Veteran means old--I thought it was some old form ofreligion; or a feller who didn't believe in eatin' meat. "

"Lead that nut out!" shouted somebody. "Let's get busy. The question is:Did this old guy pretend he was a horse doctor when he wasn't? I say hedid. "

"Let's take a vote, " suggested Bently. 

"Vell, let's understand vat we're doin', " admonished the foreman. "Doyou gen'l'muns all understand that we're tryin' to convict this fellerfor doctoring a horse without a prescription?"

"You mean a license, don't you?" inquired Bently. 

"Sure--a license. All right! Let's get a vote. "

The first ballot resulted in seven for acquittal, four for conviction, and one blank--Bently's. 

"I don't know who the fellers are that voted for acquittal!" suddenlyannounced a juror with a red face. "But I know this Brown personally, and he's all right. You can rely on him absolutely. He goes to the sameplace as me in the summer--Cottage Point. If any of you gentlemen want agood quiet place--"

"Any mosquitoes?" inquired an unknown irreverently. 

"No more'n anywheres else near New York. "

They took another ballot and found that the juryman who knew Brown hadbrought over two others to conviction, so that the jury was now evenlydivided, Bently voting irresponsibly for acquittal. 

"Look here!" proposed the man in black. "Let's argue this out. Suppose Iput the various propositions and you vote on 'em each separately. "

"Shoot ahead!" adjured somebody. 

"Now, first, all who think this defendant claimed to be a veterinary sayaye. "

"Wait a minute!" interposed the tall man, who was still standing by thewindow. "Maybe I am a nut. But I wish someone would explain to me whichis the defender. I thought Mr. Tutt was the defender. "

"Oh, my Lord!" groaned a flabby salesman in a pink tie. "Defend-ant--a-n-t--remember your ant! He's the man we're trying! Theother one is the complainant!"

"The only one that had any complaint was the horse", protested the tallman. "But I understand now--we're tryin' the defendant. I've neverserved on a jury before. Now, what's the question?"

"Did the defendant--ant--claim to be a licensed veterinary--when hewasn't?"

"Now wait a second, " objected the tall man again. "I want to get thisstraight. Is it the point that if this old man pretended he was a horsedoctor when he wasn't he has to go to jail?"

"Sure. "

"But the other man pretended he was a doctor. "

"But he was trying to trick the defendant. "

"But the first feller wasn't a doctor any more than the other feller. Why not convict the first feller?"

There was a chorus of groans from about the table. 

"You ought not to be here at all!" remarked the salesman acidly. "You'resimple-minded, you are! You keep still now and vote with the majority, or we'll tell the judge on you!"

The tall man subsided. 

"Vell, " suddenly interjected the foreman, "he admitted he was guilty inthe bolice gourt. "

"Sure!" "That's so!" "Pass the box again!" came from all hands. 

When the foreman had counted the ballots Bently was horrified todiscover that ten jurors now thought the defendant guilty, and only twobelieved him innocent. 

"May I suggest, " said he earnestly, "that perhaps this old man did notunderstand in the magistrate's court the elements that went to make upthe offense charged against him? He merely stood ready to admit freelywhatever the facts were. His opinion on the purely legal question of hisown guilt was not of much value. Anyhow, his subsequent plea of notguilty to the indictment neutralizes the significance of the originalplea. "

There was a murmur of surprise and admiration from Bently's companions. 

"That's true, too!" declared the salesman. "I never thought of that!You're some talker--you are, I must say! But how about that businesscard?"

"It seems to me, " argued Bently, "that the card plays no particular partin this case. In the first place the question before us is not whetherLowry ever did--in the past--hold himself out as a veterinary, butwhether he did so on the day alleged in the indictment. The fact that hegave the detective a card which he had had printed perhaps years beforeonly tends to show that at some time or other he may have pretended tobe a licensed veterinary. And you will recall, gentlemen, that thetestimony is merely that he said to the detective in reference to thecard: 'That is my name. ' He did not say anything to him about being aveterinary. "

This somewhat disingenuous argument created a profound impression. 

"Say, now you've said something!" declared the salesman. "You'd oughtabeen a lawyer yourself. Let's take another vote. "

Curiously enough Bently's argument seemed to have had a revolutionaryeffect, for the jury now stood ten to two for acquittal. He began tofeel encouraged. If ever there was a case-- Then he heard an altercationgoing on fiercely between the salesman and Brown's summer friend, thelatter insisting loudly that the detective was a perfect gentleman andentirely all right. 

"Nobody questions Mr. Brown's entire honesty, " interposed Bentlyhastily, in a friendly way. "The question before us is the sufficiencyof the evidence. Upon this, it seems to me, there is what might fairlybe called a reasonable doubt. "

"And you have to give that to the defendant--it's the law!" shouted thesalesman in fury. 

It was at this point that Mr. Tutt and Phelan had taken up theirpositions outside the door, and the friend of Brown had told thesalesman that he gave him a pain; that his doubt wasn't a reasonabledoubt. 

"Gentlemen! Gentlemen!" protested Bently. "Let us discuss this mattercalmly. "

"But I'm a reasonable man!" shouted the salesman. "And so, if I have anydoubt, my doubt is bound to be reasonable. "

"You--a reasonable man?" sneered Brown's friend. "You're nothin' but adamn fool!"

"I am, am I?" yelled the salesman, starting to remove his coat. "I'llshow you--"

"Oh, cut it out!" expostulated the fat man complacently. "Settle allthat afterward! We ain't interested. "

"Vell, take annoder vote, " mildly suggested the foreman. 

This time it stood eleven to one for acquittal. All concentrated uponthe friend of Brown, over whose face had settled a look of grimdetermination. But a similar expression occupied the features of Mr. Bently Gibson, erstwhile the exponent of the-law-as-it-is, the bulwarkof the jury system, now adrift upon the ship of justice, blindlydetermined that no matter what--law or no law, principles or noprinciples--that old man was going to be acquitted. 

"My friend, " he remarked solemnly, taking the floor, "of course you wantto do justice in this case. We have nothing against Mr. Brown at all. Heis doubtless a very honest and efficient officer. But surely the goodcharacter of this defendant may well create a reasonable doubt--and therest of us feel that it does. "

"Sure! 'Course it does!" came from all sides. Mr. Brown's red-facedfriend having escaped the salesman's wrath began to show somewhat lessaggressiveness. 

"I don't care a damn about Brown!" he assured them. "He can go to hellfor all of me! But I don't see how you can acquit this feller when theevidence is uncontradicted that he told Brown he was a veterinary andtreated his horse. I'd be violating my oath if I voted for acquittalafter that testimony. I ain't going to commit perjury for nobody! I'dlike to oblige you gentlemen, too, and vote your way, but I just can'twith that evidence stickin' in my crop. If it wasn't for that--"

"He could 'a' treated the horse without doing it as a veterinary, justas Mr. Tutt said!" interjected the tall man. 

"Good for you!" said the salesman, fully restored to equanimity. "You'regettin' intelligent. Serve on a few more juries--"

"But he said he was a veterinary, " insisted Brown's friend. "How couldhe have treated the horse as anything else but as a veterinary when hesaid he was treating him as a veterinary?"

"Maybe he just thought he was doing it as a veterinary", commented thegloom in black. "He may have tried to do it as a veterinary and failed. In that case he didn't do it as a veterinary but just as a plain man. Get me?"

"No, I don't!" snorted the red-faced one. "That's all bull. He said hewas a vet and he treated the horse as a vet and got five dollars forit. "

"How do you know he did?" unexpectedly asked Bently. 

"Because he said so himself. That was part of the conversation betweenBrown and Lowry, " declared the obstinate summer friend of Brown. "If itwasn't for that--"

"If it wasn't for that you'd acquit?" demanded Bently sharply. 

"Yes. Sure I would!"

"Then I say you should disregard all that conversation because it was aprivileged communication between a doctor--Brown--and hispatient--Lowry!" declared Bently heatedly. 

"But the judge said it wasn't privileged!" retorted the other. 

"Mr. Tutt said it was, though, " shot back the salesman. 

"Well, the judge said--"

"Let's go in and find out who said what, " proposed the tall man. "I'dlike to know myself. I don't remember who said anything any longer. "

So they filed back into court. 

"Your Honor, " stuttered the foreman, licking his lips in embarrassment, "some of the gen'l'muns vant to inguire veder the gonversation betweenMr. Brown and Mr. Lowry is privileged or veder we haf to belief it?"

The judge, who had evidently expected that the return of the jury wasfor the purpose of declaring the defendant guilty, scowled. 

"The rule is, " said he wearily, "that conversations between a doctor andhis patient are privileged and cannot be testified to without theconsent of the patient. If Brown had been a doctor--which he is not--itis possible that I might have sustained Mr. Tutt's objection on theground and struck out the conversation. But he only pretended to be adoctor, and no privilege exists under those circumstances even if insome cases it seems to work a hardship upon the one who is deceived. Theconversation in this instance is part of the record. You may retire. "

But Bently, with a light upon his countenance such as theretofore hadne'er been seen on sea or land, suddenly held up his hand. 

"One question, Your Honor. If Brown had been a doctor you would haveexcluded the testimony?"

The aged angel raised his eyebrows deprecatingly. 

"Perhaps; I might have considered the suggestion. "

"Thank you, " said Bently, and they all traipsed out. 

"That cooks him!" whispered Phelan to Mr. Tutt at the keyhole. 

"Wait and see! Wait and see!" muttered the lawyer. "We're not dead yet. "

Once back in their room the jury took another vote. Eleven to one again. Then Bently rose. 

"Gentlemen, " he cried, "I think I have the key to this case. "

They all gazed at him expectantly. 

"We are obliged by law to give every reasonable doubt to the defendant. Now the only obstacle to our acquitting this poor old man is the factthat there is in evidence a conversation in which Lowry is claimed tohave said that he was a veterinary and had been acting as such all hislife. Mr. Tutt says that that conversation is privileged and should bedisregarded because it was a confidential communication between a doctorand a patient. The judge says it is not privileged for the reason thatMr. Brown was not in fact a doctor--but he says further that if Brownwere a doctor we should have to disregard that part of theevidence--which would, as we all agree, leave us free to acquit. 

"Now then, how do we know Brown is _not_ a doctor? He says he isn't; buthe lied about everything else he told Lowry, and he may have been lyingabout that too. And if he lied to Lowry he may have been lying to ushere to-day. I say that there is a reasonable doubt right there as towhether Brown is really a doctor or not. Such a doubt belongs to thedefendant. He is entitled to it and it is our duty to acquit him!"

"Hear! Hear!" "That's so!" "Bully for you!" "What yer got to say now, eh?" "Take a vote!" "Pass the box!" resounded through the transom amid atremendous scuffling of feet and scraping of chairs. 

"Phelan!" gasped Mr. Tutt. "Who shall ever again have the temerity tosuggest that the jury system is not the greatest of our institutions?"

"Pst!" answered Cap. "Listen! Sh-h. By God! They've acquitted him!"

 * * * * *

"So you caught the five-fifteen after all!" was Eleanor's greeting asthe model juror jumped off the train. "I was terribly afraid youwouldn't! I hope you didn't let any rascal get away from you?"

"No!" He laughed as he leaped into the motor beside her. "Not a rascal!And I've got a surprise for you! I'm going to have my vacation afterall!"

"Really!" she cried, delighted. "You clever boy! How did you manage it?"

"Well, " he answered a little shamefacedly as he lit a cigarette, "thefact is that when the jury I was on returned their verdict thisafternoon the judge said he wouldn't require our services any longer. "

 * * * * *

It was at about the same moment that two other good and true friendsstood at the foot of the steps leading up to Mr. Tutt's ramshackle frontdoor. 

"Sorr!" Danny was saying in a trembling voice, the tears in his fadedeyes. "Sorr! I would go to jail a hundred years and more, so I would, could I but hear again what they all said of me! Sure, I niver knew Iwas any account at all, at all! And them sayin' what a fine man I was, an' all! God bless ye, sorr! And whin ye stand, sorr, at the bar ofheaven before God, the Judge, and the jury of all his holy angels, ifthere be none else to defend ye, sure old Danny Lowry'll be there to dothat same. "