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Title: By Advice of Counsel

Author: Arthur Cheney Train

Release date: April 1, 2004 [eBook #11987]
Most recently updated: December 26, 2020

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11987

Credits: Produced by Steven desJardins and Distributed Proofreaders

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BY ADVICE OF
COUNSEL ***

"At That Moment ... Mr. Tutt Emerged from Behind the Jury Box and
Took His Stand at Tony's Side."

By Advice of Counsel
Being Adventures of the 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's
butcher shop he did it casually, on general principles, and without any idea
of starting anything. He had strolled unexpectedly round the corner from his
dad's saloon, had seen the row going on between Froelich and the gang of
boys that after school hours used the street in front of the shop as a ball
ground, and had merely seized the opportunity to vindicate his reputation as
a desperado and put one over on the Dutchman. The fact that he had on a
red sweater was the barest coincidence. Having observed the brick to be
accurately pursuing its proper trajectory he had ducked back round the
corner again and continued upon his way rejoicing. He had not even noticed
Tony Mathusek, who, having accidentally found himself in the midst of the
mêlée, had started to beat a retreat the instant of the crash, and had run
plump into the arms of Officer Delany of the Second. Unfortunately Tony
too was 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 done it!"
shrieked the butcher. "I vill make a gomblaint against him!"
"Come along, you! Quit yer kickin'!" ordered the cop, twisting Tony's thin
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 drives all
mine gustomers avay mit deir yelling and screaming. You fix it for me,
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 for malicious
mischief."
"Sure! Dot's it! Malicious mischief!" assented the not over-intelligent
tradesman. "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 tortured arm.
"Say, mister, you got the wrong feller! I didn't break the window. I was just
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 them boys. I
don't belong to that gang."
"Oh, so you belong to a gang, do ye? Well, we don't want no gangsters
round 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 decent jail! He
had heard all about the horrors of the reformatory. They wouldn't even let
your people visit you on Sundays! And his mother would think he was run
over or murdered. She would go crazy with worry. He didn't mind on his
own account, but his mother— He loved the old widowed mother who
worked her fingers off to send him to school. And he was the only one left,
now that Peter had been killed in the war. It was too much. With a sudden
twist he tore out of his coat and dashed blindly down the street. As well
might a rabbit hope to escape the claws of a wildcat. In three bounds
Delany had him again, choking him until the world turned black.
But this is not a story about police brutality, for most cops are not brutal.
Delany was an old-timer who believed in rough methods. He belonged,
happily, to a fast-vanishing system more in harmony with the middle ages

than with our present enlightened form of municipal government. He
remained what he was for the reason that farther up in the official hierarchy
there were others who looked to him, when it was desirable, to deliver the
goods—not necessarily cash—but to stand with the bunch. These in turn
were obligated on occasion, through self-interest or mistaken loyalty to
friend or party, to overlook trifling irregularities, to use various sorts of
pressure, or to forget what they were asked to forget. There was a far-
reaching web of complicated relationships—official, political, matrimonial,
commercial and otherwise—which had a very practical effect upon the
performance of theoretical 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 "a practical
man." Even reform administrations have been known to advocate a liberal
enforcement of the laws. Can you blame Delany for being practical when
others so much greater than he have prided themselves upon the same
attribute of practicality? There were of course a lot of things he simply had
to do or get out of the force; at any rate, had he not done them his life would
have been intolerable. These consisted in part of being deaf, dumb and blind
when he was told to be so—a comparatively easy matter. But there were
other things that he had to do, as a matter of fact, to show that he was all
right, which were not only 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 guilty one.
According to his cop-psychology, if his side partner saw something it was
practically the same as if he had seen it himself. That phantasmagorical
scintilla of evidence needed to bolster up a weak or doubtful case could
always be counted on if Delany was the officer who had made the arrest.
None of his cases were ever thrown out of court for lack of evidence, but
then, Delany never arrested anybody who wasn't guilty!
Of course he had to "give up" at intervals, depending on what
administration was in power, who his immediate superior was, and what
precinct he was attached to, but he was not a regular grafter by any means.
He was an occasional one merely; when he had to be. He did not consider
that he was being grafted on when expected to contribute to chowders,

picnics, benevolent associations, defense funds or wedding presents for
high police officials. Neither did he think that he was taking graft because
he amicably permitted Froelich to leave a fourteen-pound rib roast every
Saturday night at his brother-in-law's flat. In the same way he regarded the
bills slipped him by Grabinsky, the bondsman, as well-earned commissions,
and saw no reason why the civilian clothes he ordered at the store shouldn't
be paid for by some mysterious friendly person—identity unknown—but
shrewdly suspected to be Mr. Joseph Simpkins, Mr. Hogan's runner. Weren't
there to be any cakes and ale in New York simply because a highbrow
happened to be mayor? Were human kindness, good nature and generosity
all dead? Would he have taken a ten-dollar bill—or even a hundred-dollar
one—from Simpkins when he was going to be a witness in one of Hogan's
cases? Not on your life! He wasn't no crook, he wasn't! He didn't have to
be. He was just a cog in an immense wheel of crookedness. When the wheel
came down on his cog he automatically did his part.
I perceive that the police are engaging too much of our attention. But it is
necessary to explain why Delany was so ready to arrest Tony Mathusek,
and why as he dragged him into the station house he beckoned to Mr. Joey
Simpkins, who was loitering outside in front of the deputy sheriff's office,
and whispered behind his hand, "All right. I've got one for you!"
Then the machine began to work as automatically as a cash register. Tony
was arraigned at the bar, and, having given his age as sixteen years and five
days, charged with the "malicious destruction of property, to wit, a plate-
glass window of one Karl Froelich, of the value of one hundred and fifty
dollars." Mr. Joey Simpkins had shouldered his way through the smelly
push and taken his stand beside the bewildered and half-fainting boy.
"It's all right, kid. Leave it to me," he said, encircling him with a protecting
arm. Then to the clerk: "Pleads not guilty."
The magistrate glanced over the complaint, in which Delany, to save
Froelich trouble, had sworn that he had seen Tony throw the brick. Hadn't
the butcher said he'd seen him? Besides, that let the Dutchman out of a
possible suit for false arrest. Then the magistrate looked down at 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
and distrusted Delany, having repeatedly stated in open court that he
wouldn't hang a yellow dog on his testimony. The underfed, undersized boy
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 low as
you can."
Now this judge was a political accident, having been pitchforked into office
by the providence that sometimes watches over sailors, drunks and third
parties. Moreover, in spite of being a reformer he was nobody's fool, and
when the other reformers who were fools got promptly fired out of office he
had been reappointed by a supposedly crooked boss simply because, as the
boss said, he had made a hell of a good judge and they needed somebody
with brains here and there to throw a front. Incidentally, he had a swell
cousin on Fifth Avenue who had invited the boss and his wife to dinner, by
reason of which the soreheads who lost out went round asking what kind of
a note it was when a silk-stocking crook could buy a nine-thousand-dollar
job for a fifty-dollar dinner. Anyhow, he was clean and clean-looking,
kindly, humorous and wise above his years—which were thirty-one. And
Tony looked to him like a poor runt, Simpkins and Delany were both
rascals, Froelich wasn't in court, and he sensed a nigger somewhere. He
would have turned Tony out on the run had he had any excuse. He hadn't,
but he tried.
"Would you like an immediate hearing?" he asked Tony in an encouraging
tone.
"Mr. Hogan can't be here until to-morrow morning," interposed Simpkins.
"Besides, we shall want to produce witnesses. Make it to-morrow
afternoon, judge."

Judge Harrison leaned forward.
"Are you sure you wouldn't prefer to have the hearing now?" he inquired
with 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 at headquarters."
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 me a
good character."
The judge heard and shrugged his bombazine-covered shoulders. It was no
use. The children of darkness were wiser in their generation than the
children of light.
"Five hundred dollars bail," he remarked shortly. "Officer, have your
witnesses ready to proceed to-morrow afternoon at two o'clock."

"Mr. Tutt," said Tutt with a depressed manner as he watched Willie remove
the screen and drag out the old gate-leg table for the firm's daily 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 before
replying.
"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 she
removed her paper cuffs preparatory to lighting the alcohol lamp under the
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 course not!
And frankly, I don't know what a shyster is."
"Neither do I," admitted Tutt. "But it sounds opprobrious. Still, that is a
rather dangerous test. You remember that colored client of ours who wanted
us to bring an action against somebody for calling him an Ethiopian!"
"There's nothing dishonorable in being an Ethiopian," asserted Miss
Wiggin.
"A shyster," said Mr. Tutt, reading from the Century Dictionary, "is defined
as 'one who does business trickily; a person without professional 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 Ill Fame—Raphael B.
Hogan," announced Tutt, complacently disregarding all innuendoes.
"But he's a very elegant and gentlemanly person," objected Miss Wiggin as
she warmed the cups. "My idea of a shyster is a down-at-the-heels,
unshaved and generally disreputable-looking police-court lawyer—
preferably with a red nose—who murders the English language—and who
makes his living by preying upon the ignorant and helpless."
"Like Finklestein?" suggested Tutt.
"Exactly!" agreed Miss Wiggin. "Like Finklestein."
"He's one of the most honorable men I know!" protested Mr. Tutt. "My dear
Minerva, you are making the great mistake—common, I confess, to a large
number of people—of associating dirt and crime. Now dirt may breed
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 sharks

out of Sing Sing."
"That is true!" she admitted, "but tell it not in Gath!"
"A shyster," began Mr. Tutt, unsuccessfully applying a forced draft to his
stogy and then throwing it away, "bears about the same relation to an honest
lawyer as a cad does to a gentleman. The fact that he's well dressed, belongs
to a good club and has his name in the Social Register doesn't affect the
situation. Clothes don't make men; they only make opportunities."
"But why is it," persisted Miss Wiggin, "that we invariably associate the
idea of crime with that of 'poverty, hunger and dirt'?"
"That is easy to explain," asserted Mr. Tutt. "The criminal law originally
dealt only with crimes of violence—such as murder, rape and assault. In the
old days people didn't have any property in the modern sense—except their
land, their cattle or their weapons. They had no bonds or stock or bank
accounts. Now it is of course true that rough, ignorant people are much
more prone to violence of speech and action than those of gentle breeding,
and hence most of our crimes of violence are committed by those whose
lives are those of squalor. But"—and here Mr. Tutt's voice rose indignantly
—"our greatest mistake is to assume that crimes of violence are the most
dangerous to the state, for they are not. They cause greater disturbance and
perhaps more momentary inconvenience, 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 easily handle all that. The real danger to the community lies in
the crimes of duplicity—the cheats, frauds, false pretenses, tricks and
devices, flimflams—practised most successfully by well-dressed
gentlemanly crooks of polished manners."
By this time the kettle was boiling cheerfully, quite as if no such thing as
criminal law existed at all, and Miss Wiggin began to make the tea.
"All the same," she ruminated, "people—particularly very poor people—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 a guilty man
can offer. 'I couldn't help myself' has always been the excuse 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 of
someone 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 are played
out—necessity and instigation. They've never been any good since the
Almighty overruled Adam's plea in confession and avoidance that a certain
female co-defendant took advantage of his hungry innocence and put 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 to think
of it, the maxim is not that 'Necessity is the first law of Nature,' but that
'Necessity knows no law.'"
"I'll bet you—" began Tutt. Then he paused, recalling a certain celebrated
wager which he had lost to Mr. Tutt upon the question of who cut Samson's
hair. "I bet you don't know who said it!" he concluded lamely.
"If I recall correctly," ruminated Mr. Tutt, "Shakspere says in 'Julius Caesar'
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 Publilius Syrus."
"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 preying upon
the ignorant and helpless is concerned," said Mr. Tutt. "That man is a
human hyena—worse than a highwayman."

"Yet he's a swell dresser," interjected Tutt. "Owns his house and lives in
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 the excuse 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 anything else,
but Hogan doesn't have to be a lawyer. He could be an honest man if 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 about scratching a
Russian and finding a Tartar; I'd hate to scratch some of our 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 social circles, but off Fifth Avenue
there's the same sort of struggle for existence that goes on in the animal
world. A man may be all sweetness and light to his wife and children and go
to church on Sundays; he may even play pretty fair with his own gang; but
outside of his home and social circle he's a ravening wolf; at least Raphael
B. Hogan is!"

The subject of the foregoing entirely accidental conversation was at that
moment standing contemplatively in his office window smoking an
excellent cigar preparatory to returning to the bosom of his family. Raphael
B. Hogan believed in taking life easily. He was accustomed to say that
outside office hours his time belonged to his wife and children; and several
times a week he made it his habit on the way home to supper to stop at the
florist's or the toy shop and bear away with him inexpensive tokens of his

love and affection. On the desk behind him, over which in the course of
each month passed a lot of very tainted money, stood a large photograph of
Mrs. Hogan, and another of the three little Hogans in ornamented silver
frames, and his face would soften tenderly at the sight of their self-
conscious faces, even at a moment when he might be relieving a widowed
seamstress of her entire savings-bank account. After five o'clock this hyena
purred at his wife and 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 a warm-
hearted humanitarian. The milk of human kindness oozed from his every
pore. In fact, he was always grumbling about the amount of work he had to
do for nothing. He was a genial, generous host; unostentatiously
conspicuous in the local religious life of his denomination; in court a model
of obsequious urbanity, deferential to the judges before whom he appeared
and courteous to all with whom he was thrown in contact. A good-natured,
easy-going, simple-minded fat man; deliberate, slow of speech, well-
meaning, with honesty sticking out all over him, you would have said; one
in whom the widow and the orphan would have found a staunch protector
and an unselfish friend. And now, having thus subtly connoted the character
of our villain, let us proceed with our narrative.
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 examination to-
morrow at two. Five hundred bail."
"Any sugar?"
"Don't know. Says his father's dead and mother earns seventeen a week in a
sweatshop and sends him to school. Got some insurance. I'm going right

round there now."
"Well," replied Hogan, "don't scare her by taking too much off her at first. 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 all was
said regarding the possibility of establishing Tony's innocence, but that on
the contrary Mr. Simpkins' mind was concentrated upon his mother's ability
to pay. This was the only really important consideration to either of them.
But Hogan did not worry, because he knew that Simpkins would skilfully
entangle Mrs. Mathusek in such a web of apprehension that rather than face
her fears she would if necessary go out and steal the money. So Mr. Raphael
B. Hogan hung up the receiver and with his heart full of gentle sympathy
for all mankind walked slowly home, pausing to get some roses for Mrs.
Hogan and to buy a box for Daddy Long Legs at the Strand, for whenever
he got a new case he always made it the occasion for a family party, and he
wanted the children to benefit by passing an evening under the sweet
influence of Miss Pickford.
Now just at the moment that his employer was buying the roses Mr.
Simpkins entered the apartment of Mrs. Mathusek and informed her of
Tony's arrest and incarceration. He was very sympathetic about it, very
gentle, this dapper little man with the pale gray eyes and inquisitive,
tapirlike nose; and after the first moment of shock Mrs. Mathusek took
courage and begged the gentleman to sit down. There are always two
vultures hanging over the poor—death and the law; but of the two the law is
the lesser evil. The former is a calamity; the latter is a misfortune. The one
is final, hopeless, irretrievable; from the other there may perhaps be an
escape. She knew Tony was a good boy; was sure his arrest was a mistake,
and that when the judge heard the evidence he would let Tony go. Life had
dealt hardly with her and made her an old woman at thirty-four, really old,
not only in body but in spirit, just as in the middle ages the rigor of
existence made even kings old at thirty-five. What do the rich know of age?

The women of the poor have a day of spring, a year or two of summer, and
a lifetime of autumn and winter.
Mrs. Mathusek distrusted the law and lawyers in the abstract, but Mr.
Simpkins' appearance was so reassuring that he almost counteracted in her
mind the distress of Tony's misfortune. He was clearly a gentleman, and she
had a reverential regard for the gentry. What gentlefolk said was to be
accepted as true. In addition this particular gentleman was learned in the
law and skilled in getting unfortunate people out of trouble. Now, though
Mr. Simpkins possessed undoubtedly this latter qualification, it was also
true that he was equally skilled in getting people into it. If he ultimately
doubled their joys and halved their sorrows he inevitably first doubled their
sorrows and halved their savings. Like the witch in Macbeth: "Double,
double toil and trouble." His aims were childishly simple: First, to find out
how much money his victim had, and then to get it.
His methods were no more complicated than his aims and had weathered
the test of generations of experience. So:
"Of course Tony must be bailed out," he said gently. "You don't want him to
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 for the
slightest sign of suspicion.
"Five hundred dollars! Eoi! Eoi! It is a fortune! Where can I get five
hundred dollars?" She burst into tears. "I have saved only one hundred and
sixty!"
Mr. Simpkins pursed his lips. Then there was nothing for it! He reached for
his hat. Mrs. Mathusek wrung her hands. Couldn't the gentleman go bail for
Tony? He was such a dear, kind, good gentleman! She searched his face
hungrily. Mr. Simpkins falteringly admitted that he did not possess 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, in that
case there would be no money to pay the great lawyer whom they must at
once engage to defend her son—Mr. Hogan, one who had the pull and
called all the judges by their first names. He would not usually go into court
for less than five hundred dollars, but Mr. Simpkins said he would explain
the circumstances to him and could almost promise Mrs. Mathusek that 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 take the money, which
she unsewed from inside the ticking of her mattress. Then he conducted her
to the station house to show her how comfortable Tony really was and how
much better it was to let him stay in jail one night and make sure of his
being turned out the next afternoon by giving the money to Mr. Hogan, than
to use it for getting bail for him and leave him lawyerless and at the mercy
of his accusers. When Mrs. Mathusek saw the cell Tony was in she became
even more frightened than she had been at first. But by that time she had
already given the money to Simpkins.
Second thoughts are ofttimes best. Most crooks are eventually caught
through their having, from long immunity, grown careless and yielded to
impulse. Once he had signed the complaint in which he swore that he had
seen Tony throw the brick, Delany had undergone a change of heart. Being
an experienced policeman he was sensitive to official atmosphere, and he
had developed a hunch that Judge Harrison was leery of the case. The more
he thought of it the less he liked the way the son-of-a-gun had acted, the
way he'd tried to get Mathusek to ask for an immediate hearing. Why had
he ever been such a fool as to sign the complaint himself? It had been
ridiculous—just because he was mad at the boy for trying to get away and
wanted to make things easy for Froelich. If he went on the stand the next
afternoon he'd have to make up all sorts of fancy details, and Hogan would
have his skin neatly tacked to the barn doors for keeps. Thereafter, no
matter what happened, he'd never be able to change his testimony. After all,
it would be easy enough to abandon the charge at the present point. It was a
genuine case of cold feet. He scented trouble. He wanted to renig while the
renigging was good. What in hell had Froelich ever done for him, anyhow?
A few measly pieces of roast!

When Hogan returned home that evening with the little Hogans from the
movies he found the cop waiting for him outside his door.
"Look here," Delany whispered, "I'm going to can this here Mathusek
window case. I'm going to fall down flat on my identification and give you
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 come in,
eh? Why don't you come through?"
"But I've got him wrong!" pleaded Delany. "You don't want me to put my
neck in a sling, do you, so as you can make a few dollars? Look at all the
money I've sent your way. Have a heart, Rafe!"
"Bull!" sneered the Honorable Rafe. "A man's gotta live! You saw him do
it! 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 out of 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 on him
as upon Satan.

The brick that Terry McGurk hurled as a matter of principle through
Froelich's window produced almost as momentous consequences as the
want of the horseshoe nail did in Franklin's famous maxim. It is the
unknown element in every transaction that makes for danger.
The morning after the catastrophe Mr. Froelich promptly made application
to the casualty company with which he had insured his window for
reimbursement for his damage. Just as promptly the company's lawyer
appeared at the butcher shop and ascertained that the miscreant who had
done the foul deed had been arrested and was to be brought into court that
afternoon. This lawyer, whose salary depended indirectly upon the success
which attended his efforts to secure the conviction and punishment of those
who had cost his company money, immediately camped upon 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 cooperate he would most certainly
ascertain why. Now insurance companies are powerful corporations. They
can do favors, and contrariwise they can make trouble, and Lawyer Asche
was hot under the collar about that window. Had he ever heard of the place
he would have likened it to the destruction of Coucy-le-Château by the
Huns.
This, for Delany, put an entirely new aspect upon the affair. It was one thing
to ditch a case and another to run up against Nathan Asche. He had sworn to
the complaint and if he didn't make good on the witness stand Asche would
get his hide. Then he bethought him that if only Froelich was sufficiently
emphatic in his testimony a little uncertainty on his own part might be
excused.
In the meantime, however, two things had happened to curdle Froelich's
enthusiasm. First, his claim against the Tornado Casualty Company had
been approved, and second, he had been informed on credible authority that
they had got the wrong boy. Now he had sincerely thought that he had seen
Tony throw the brick—he had certainly seen a boy in a red sweater do
something—but he realized also that he had been excited and more or less
bewildered at the time; and his informant—Mrs. Sussman, the wife of the
cigar dealer—alleged positively that it had been thrown by a strange kid
who appeared suddenly from round the corner and as suddenly ran away in
the direction whence he had come.
Froelich perceived that he had probably been mistaken, and being relatively
honest—and being also about to get his money—and not wishing to bear
false witness, particularly if he might later be sued for false imprisonment,
he decided to duck and pass the buck to Delany, who was definitely
committed. He was shrewd enough, however, not to give his real reason to
the policeman, but put it on the ground of being so confused that he couldn't
remember. This left Delany responsible for everything.
"But you said that that was the feller!" argued the cop, who had gone to
urge Froelich to assume the onus of the charge. "And now you want to
leave 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 the boy.
He did it so ingeniously that he got Asche to go round there, only to find
that she had no money, all given to Simpkins. Gee, what a mix-up!
It is quite possible that even under these circumstances Delany might still
have availed himself of what in law is called a locus poenitentiae had it not
been that the mix-up was rendered still more mixed by the surreptitious
appearance in the case of Mr. Michael McGurk, the father of the actual
brick artist, who had learned that the cop was getting wabbly and was
entertaining the preposterous possibility of withdrawing the charge against
the innocent Mathusek, to the imminent danger of his own offspring. In no
uncertain terms the saloon keeper intimated to the now embarrassed
guardian of the public peace that if he pulled anything like that he would
have him thrown off the force, to say nothing 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 independent
conclusion as to how he could circumvent Delany's contemplated treachery.
If, he decided, the cop should go back on his identification of the criminal
he foresaw Tony's discharge in the magistrate's court, and no more money.
The only sure way, therefore, to prevent Tony's escape would be by not
giving Delany the chance to change his testimony; and by waiving
examination before the magistrate and consenting voluntarily 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 plenty of time for Simpkins to get an
assignment of Mrs. Mathusek's insurance money before the grand jury
kicked out the case. This also had the additional advantage of preventing
any funny business on the part of Judge Harrison.
Delany was still undecided what he was going to do when the case was
called at two o'clock. It is conceivable that he might still have tried to

rectify his error by telling something near the truth, in spite of Hogan,
Asche and McGurk, but the opportunity was denied him.
At two o'clock Tony, a mere chip tossed aimlessly hither and yon by eddies
and cross currents, the only person in this melodrama of motive whose
interests were not being considered by anybody, was arraigned at the bar
and, without being consulted in the matter, heard Mr. Hogan, the fat, kindly
lawyer whom his mother had retained to defend him, tell the judge that they
were going to waive examination and consent to be held for the action of
the grand jury.
"You see how it is, judge," Hogan simpered. "You'd have no choice but to
hold my client on the officer's testimony. The easiest way is to waive
examination 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 before Judge
Harrison and he could later spill the case before the grand jury when called
before that august body. Moreover, he could tip off the district attorney in
charge of the indictment bureau that the case was a lemon, and the latter
would probably throw it out on his own motion. The D.A.'s office didn't
want any more rotten cases to prosecute than it could help. It seemed his
one best bet, the only way to get his feet out of the flypaper. What a mess
for a few pieces of rotten beef!
"You understand what is being done, do you?" inquired the keen-faced
judge sharply. "You understand this means that unless you give bail you
will have to stay in jail until the grand jury dismisses the case or finds an
indictment against you?"
Underneath the cornice of the judge's dais Hogan patted his arm, and Tony,
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 the
Monk, who had nearly beaten a Chinaman to death with a pair of brass
knuckles, from whom he learned much that was exciting if not edifying.
Now, as Delany was wont to say for years thereafter, that damn Mathusek
case just went bad on him. He had believed that in the comparative secrecy

of the inquisitorial chamber he could easily pretend that he had originally
made an honest mistake and was no longer positive of the defendant's
identity, in which case when the grand jury threw out the case nobody
would ever know the reason and no chickens would come home to roost on
him.
But when the cop visited the office of Deputy Assistant District Attorney
Caput Magnus the next morning, to inform him that this here window-
breaking case was a Messina, he found Mr. Nathan Asche already solidly
there present, engaged in advising Mr. Magnus most emphatically to the
exact contrary. Indeed the attorney was rhetorical in his insistence that this
destruction of the property of law-abiding taxpayers must stop.
Mr. Asche was not a party to be trifled with. He was a rectangular person
whom nothing could budge, and his very rectangularity bespoke his
stubborn rectitude. His shoulders were massive and square, his chin and
mouth were square, his burnsides were square cut, and he had a square head
and wore a square-topped derby. He looked like the family portrait of Uncle
Amos Hardscrabble. When he sat down he remained until he had said his
say. It was a misfortunate meeting for Delany, for Asche nailed him upon
the spot and made him repeat to Caput Magnus the story of how he had
seen Tony throw the brick and then, for some fool reason, not being
satisfied to let it go at that, he insisted on calling in a stenographer and
having Delany swear to the yarn in affidavit form! This entirely spoiled any
chance the policeman might otherwise have had of changing his testimony.
He now had no choice but to go on and swear the case through before the
grand jury—which he did.
Even so, that distinguished body of twenty-three representative citizens was
not disposed to take the matter very seriously. Having heard what Delany
had to say—and he made it good and strong under the circumstances—
several of them remarked disgustedly that they did not understand why the
district attorney saw fit to waste their valuable time with trivial cases of that
sort. Boys would play ball and boys would throw balls round; if not balls,
then stones. They were about to dismiss by an almost unanimous vote,
when the case went bad again. The foreman, a distinguished person in
braided broadcloth, rose and announced that he was very much interested to
learn their views upon this subject as he was the president of a casualty

company, and he wished them to understand that thousands—if not
hundreds of thousands—of dollars' worth of plate-glass windows were
wantonly broken by young toughs, every year, for which his and other
insurance companies had to recoup the owners. In fact, he alleged heatedly,
window breaking was a sign of peculiar viciousness. Incipient criminals
usually started their infamous careers that way; you could read that in any
book on penology. An example ought to be made. He'd bet this feller who
threw the brick was a gangster.
So his twenty-two fellow grand jurymen politely permitted him to recall
Officer Delany and ask him: "Say, officer, isn't it a fact—just tell us frankly
now—if this feller Mathusek isn't a gangster?"
"Sure, he's a gangster. He was blowin' about it to me after I arrested him,"
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 Tony
Mathusek for malicious destruction of property signify in the usual manner.
Cont'riminded? It's a vote. Ring the bell, Simmons, and bring on the next
case."
So Tony was indicted by the People of the State of New York for a felony,
and a learned judge of the General Sessions set his bail at fifteen hundred
dollars; and Hogan had his victim where he wanted him and where he could
keep him until he had bled his mother white of all she 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 planning
ultimately to get rid of the whole damn tangle by having the indictment
quietly dismissed when nobody was looking, by his friend O'Brien, to
whom the case had been sent for trial. And everything being as it should be,
and Tony being locked safely up in a cell, Mr. Joey Simpkins set himself to
the task of extorting three hundred and fifty dollars more from Mrs.
Mathusek upon the plea that the great Mr. Hogan could not possibly
conduct the case before a jury for less.

Now the relations of Mr. Assistant District Attorney O'Brien and the Hon.
Raphael B. Hogan were distinctly friendly. At any rate, whenever Mr.
Hogan asked for an adjournment in Mr. O'Brien's court he usually got it
without conspicuous difficulty, and that is what occurred on the five several
occasions that the case of The People versus Antonio Mathusek came up on
the trial calendar during the month following Tony's incarceration, on each
of which Mr. Hogan with unctuous suavity rose and humbly requested that
the case be put over at his client's earnest request in order that counsel
might have adequate time in which to subpoena witnesses and prepare for a
defense.
And each day Simpkins, who now assumed a threatening and fearsome
demeanor toward Mrs. Mathusek, visited the heartsick woman in her flat
and told her that Tony could and would rot in the Tombs until such time as
she procured three hundred and fifty dollars. The first week she assigned
her life-insurance money; the second she pawned the furniture; until at last
she owed Hogan only sixty-five dollars. At intervals Hogan told Tony that
he was trying to force the district attorney to try the case, but that the latter
was insisting on delay.
In point of fact, O'Brien had never looked at the papers, much less made
any effort to prepare the case; if he had he would have found that there was
no case at all. And Delany's mind became at peace because he perceived
that at the proper psychological moment he could go to O'Brien and
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 the simple reason
that he never did any more work than he was actually compelled to do.
But as chance would have it, three times out of the five, Mr. Ephraim Tutt
happened to be in court when Mr. Hogan rose and made his request for an
adjournment; and he remembered it because the offense charged was such
an odd one—breaking a window.
Delany's simple plan was again defeated by Nemesis, who pursued him in
the shape of the rectangular Mr. Asche, and who shouldered himself into
O'Brien's office during the fifth week of Tony's imprisonment and wanted to
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 his official boss and
being still sore was glad of a chance to take it out on someone else.
"D'you think I've nothin' better to do than try your damned old window-
busting cases?" he sneered. "Who ever had the idea of indicting a boy for
that sort of thing, anyhow?"
"That is no way to talk," answered Mr. Asche with firmness. "You're paid to
prosecute whatever cases are sent to you. This is one of 'em. There's been
too much delay. Our president will be annoyed."
"Oh, he will, will he?" retorted O'Brien, nevertheless, coming to the instant
decision that he had best find some other excuse than mere disinclination.
"If he gets too shirty I'll tell him the case came in here without any
preparation and being in the nature of a private prosecution we've been
waiting for you to earn your fee. How'll you like that, eh?"
Mr. Asche became discolored.
"H'm!" he replied softly. "So that is it, is it? You won't have that excuse very
long, even if you could get away with it now. I'll have a trial brief and
affidavits from all the witnesses ready for you in forty-eight hours."
"All right, old top!" nodded O'Brien carelessly. "We always strive to
please!"
So Mr. Asche got busy, while the very same day Mr. Hogan asked for and
obtained another adjournment.
Some people resemble animals; others have a geometrical aspect. In each
class the similarity tends to indicate character. The fox-faced man is apt 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 and round, was
slippery and hard to hold. Three days passed, during which Mrs. Mathusek
grew haggard and desperate. She was saving at the rate of two dollars a day,
and at that rate she would be able to buy Tony a trial in five weeks more.
She had exhausted her possibilities as a borrower. 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 be advisory counsel to the Tornado
Casualty Company.
"I just want you to look at these papers, Mr. Tutt," Mr. Asche said, and his
jaw looked squarer than ever.
Mr. Tutt was reclining as usual in his swivel chair, his feet crossed upon the
top of his ancient mahogany desk.
"Take a stog!" he remarked without getting up, and indicating with the toe
of one Congress-booted foot the box which lay open adjacent to the Code of
Criminal Procedure. "What's your misery?"
"Hell's at work!" returned Mr. Asche, solemnly handing over a sheaf of
affidavits. "I never smoke."
Mr. Tutt somewhat reluctantly altered his position from the horizontal to the
vertical and reached for a fresh stogy. Then his eye caught the name 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 enemy hath
been delivered into mine hands!"
"Hey? What?" inquired Tutt, popping across the threshold. "Who—I mean
—"
"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 a
dilapidated taxi at the corner adjacent to Froelich's butcher shop, and
several hours later was whisked uptown again to the brownstone dwelling
occupied by the Hon. Simeon Watkins, the venerable white-haired judge
then presiding in Part I of the General Sessions, where he remained until

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 that distinguished member
of the judiciary emptied an ancient bottle containing a sparkling rose-
colored liquid of great artistic beauty.
Then Mr. Tutt returned to his own library at the house on Twenty-third
Street and paced up and down before the antiquated open grate, inhaling
quantities of what Mr. Bonnie Doon irreverently called "hay smoke," and
pondering deeply upon the evils that men do to one another, until the dawn
peered through the windows and he bethought him of the all-night lunch
stand round the corner on Tenth Avenue, and there sought refreshment.
"Salvatore," he remarked to the smiling son of the olive groves who tended
that bar of innocence, "the worst crook in the world is the man who does
evil for mere money."
"Si, Signor Tutti," answered Salvatore with Latin perspicacity. "You gotta
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 the
call of the calendar, looking quite vaguely as if he had never heard of the
case before, round Part I, which was as usual crowded, hot, stuffy and
smelling of unwashed linen and prisoners' lunch. "People versus Mathusek?
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: "If Your
Honor please, the defendant would like a few days longer to get his
witnesses. Will Your Honor kindly adjourn the case for one week?"
He did not notice that the stenographer was taking down everything that he
said.
"I observe," remarked Judge Watkins with apparent amiability, "that you
have had five adjournments already. If The People's witnesses are here I am

inclined to direct you to proceed. The defendant has been under indictment
for six weeks. That ought to be long enough to prepare your defense."
"But, Your Honor," returned Hogan with pathos, "the witnesses are very
hard to find. They are working people. I have spent whole evenings chasing
after them. Moreover, the defendant is perfectly satisfied to have 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 the first
time. He wasn't such a bad old actor himself, for he had already learned
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 it all
about?
"I—er—there was no use in fighting the case there. I hoped the grand jury
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 Delany
were trying to put something over on him!
"No! Certainly not!" he replied unconvincingly. He didn't want to make the
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 gathering
over his eyebrows.
"Where is he?"

"Downstairs in the magistrate's court."
"Officer," ordered the judge, "send for Mr. Simpkins. We will suspend until
he can get here."
Then His Honor occupied himself with some papers, leaving Hogan
standing alone at the bar trying to work out what it all meant. He began to
wish he had never touched the damn case. Everybody in the courtroom
seemed to be looking at him and whispering. He was most uncomfortable.
Suppose that crooked cop had welshed on him! At the same instant in the
back of the room a similar thought flashed through the mind of Delany.
Suppose Hogan should welsh on him! Coincidentally both scoundrels
turned sick at heart. Then came to each the simultaneous realization that
neither could gain anything by giving the other away, and that the only
thing possible for either was to stand pat. No, they must hang together or
assuredly hang 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, are you
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 in
General Sessions."
"Have either you or Mr. Hogan done anything as yet—except to waive
examination in the police court?"
Mr. Simpkins turned hastily to Mr. Hogan, who realized that things were
going badly.

"Your Honor," he interposed thickly, "this money was an agreed fee for my
services as counsel. This examination seems to me somewhat uncalled for
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 to appear
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—but not leave
the courtroom. We may need you."
At that moment, just as the defendant was led to the bar, Mr. Tutt emerged
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 prison pallor on his sunken
little face. There was something about the thin neck, the half-open mouth
and the gaunt, blinking, hollow eyes that suggested those of a helpless
fledgling.
"Impanel a jury!" continued the judge, and Mr. Tutt conducted Tony inside
the rail and sat down beside him at the table reserved for the defendant.
"It's all right, Tony!" he whispered. "The frame-up isn't on you this time,
my lad."
Cowering in the back of the room Delany tried to hide himself among the
spectators. Some devilish thing had gone wrong. He hadn't heard all that
had passed between the judge and Hogan, but he had caught enough to
perceive that the whole case had gone blooey.
Judge Watkins was wise! He was going after Hogan just as old Tutt would
go after him, Delany. There was a singing in his head and the blood smarted
in his eyes. He'd better beat it! Half bent over he started sneaking for the
door.
"Who is that man trying to go out?" shouted the judge in terrifying tones
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 and
swagger 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. He
simply stared vacuously at Judge Watkins, his lips vibrating with fear.
"Sit down. No; take the stand!" cried Judge Watkins. "I'll try this case
myself."
As if his foot were already attached to a ball and chain Delany dragged
himself up—up—hundreds of feet up, it seemed—to the witness chair. As if
from a mountain side he saw dim forms moving into the jury box, heard the
judge and Mr. Tutt exchanging meaningless remarks. The faces before him
grinned and gibbered at him like a horde of monkeys. They had got him at
last—all for a few pieces of rotten beef! That lean, hungry wolfhound
would tear his tongue out by the roots if he even opened his mouth; claw
wide open his vitals. And old Tutt was fixing him with the eye of a basilisk
and slowly turning him to stone. Somebody sure had welshed! He had once
been in a side show at Coney Island where the room simulated the motion
of an ocean steamer. The courtroom began to do the same—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 with him! It was an execution, and
the crowd down below were thirsting for his blood, waiting to tear him to
bits!
"You saw this boy throw a brick through Mr. Froelich's window, didn't
you?" coaxed Judge Watkins insinuatingly. Delany sensed that the old white
fox was trying to trick him—get him for perjury. No! He wouldn't perjure
himself again! No! But what could he do? His head swung stupidly,
swaying like a dazed bull's. The sweat poured from every pore in his vast
bulk. A hoarse noise—like a death rattle—came from his throat. The room

dissolved in waves of white and black. Then in a vertigo 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 pleasant morning.
What he saw and heard really constituted, he alleged, a great big full front-
page story "in a box"—though it got only four sticks on the eleventh page—
being crowded out by the armistice. Why, he said, it was the damnedest
thing ever! There had been no evidence against the defendant at all! And
after the cop had collapsed Judge Watkins had refused to dismiss the case
and directed Mr. Tutt to go on in his own way.
The proceeding had resolved itself into a criminal trial of Hogan and
Simpkins. Tony's good character had been established in three minutes, and
then half a dozen reputable witnesses had testified that the brick had been
thrown by an entirely different boy. Finally, Sussman and his assistant both
swore positively that Delany had been in the back of the tobacco shop with
his back to the door, holding them up for cigars, when the crash came.
Terry wanted two columns; he almost cried when they cut his great big full-
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, mayhem and murder
on that story of mine!" Then he added pensively: "If I thought old man Tutt
would slip me a thousand to soothe my injured feelings 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's financial
center with the Levant. It is less than fifty feet through this tiny
thoroughfare from the back doors of the great Broadway office buildings to
Greenwich Street, where the letters on the window signs resemble contorted
angleworms and where one is as likely to stumble into a man from Bagdad
as from Boston. One can stand in the middle of it and with his westerly ear
catch the argot of Gotham and with his easterly all the dialects of
Damascus. And if through some unexpected convulsion of Nature 51
Broadway should topple over, Mr. Zimmerman, the stockbroker, whose
office is on the sixth story, might easily fall clear of the Greek restaurant in
the corner of Greenwich Street, roll twenty-five yards more down Morris
Street, and find himself on Washington Street reading a copy of Al-Hoda
and making his luncheon off baha gannouge, majaddarah and milookeiah,
which, after all, are only eggplant salad, lentils and rice, and the popular
favorite known as Egyptian Combination.
To most New Yorkers this is a section of the city totally unknown and
unsuspected, yet existing as in a fourth dimension within a stone's throw—
and nearer—of our busiest metropolitan artery—and there within one
hundred yards of the aforesaid Mr. Zimmerman's office above the electric
cars of Broadway, and within earshot of the hoots of many a
multimillionaire's motor, on a certain evening something of an Oriental
character was doing in the hallway of a house on Washington Street that
subsequently played a part in the professional lives of Tutt & Tutt.

Out of the literally Egyptian darkness of the tenement owned by Abadallah
Shanin Khaldi issued curious smothered sounds, together with an
unmistakable, pungent, circuslike odor.
"Whack!"
There came an indignant grunt, followed by a flabby groan and a straining
and squeaking of the jerry-built staircase as Kasheed Hassoun vigorously
applied a lath to the horny backsides of Eset el Gazzar.
"Ascend, dog of a dog!" panted Kasheed. "Move thy accursed feet, O
wizened hump! Daughter of Satan, give me room! Thou art squeezing out
my life! Only go on, child of my heart! It is but a step upward, O Queen of
the 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 of Kalil
Majdalain.
"Her head is free of the ceiling. Quick, Kasheed! Turn her, thou, upon the
landing!"
"Whack!" responded the lath in the hand of Kasheed Hassoun.
Step by step the gentle shaggy brute felt her way with feet, knees and
nozzle up the narrow staircase. What was this but another of those bizarre
experiences which any camel-of-the-world must expect in a land where the
water wells squirted through a tube and men rode in chariots driven by fire?
"Whack!"
"Go on, darling of my soul!" whispered Kasheed. "Curses upon thy father
and 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
possible a dray of paper for Meraat-ul-Gharb, the Daily Mirror. By and by a

window on the fourth floor opened and the head of Kalil Majdalain
appeared.
"Mahabitcum!" he grinned; which, being interpreted, means "Good
fellowship 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 four
Syrians climbed upon the truck and drove to the restaurant of Ghabryel &
Assad two blocks farther north, where they had a bit of awamat, coffee and
cigarettes, and then played a game of cards, while in the attic of the
tenement house Eset el Gazzar munched a mouthful of hay and tapped her
interior reservoir for a drink of clear water, as she sighed through her
valvelike nostrils and pouted with her cushioned lips, pondering upon the
vagaries of quadrupedal existence.
Willie Toothaker, the office boy of Tutt & Tutt, had perfected a catapult
along the lines of those used in the Siege of Carthage—form derived from
the appendix of Allen and Greenough's Latin Grammar—which boded ill
for the truck drivers of lower Gotham.
Since his translation from Pottsville Center, Willie's inventive genius had
worked something of a transformation in the Tutt & Tutt offices, for he had
devised several labor-saving expedients, such as a complicated series of
pulleys for opening windows and automatically closing doors without
getting up; which, since they actually worked, Mr. Tutt, being a pragmatist,
silently, patiently and good-naturedly endured. To-day both partners were
away in court and Willie had the office to himself with the exception of old
Scraggs.
"Bet it'll shoot a block!" asserted Willie, replacing his gum, which he had
removed temporarily to avert the danger of swallowing it in his excitement.
"Caesar used one just like this—only bigger, of course. See that scuttle over
on Washington Street? Bet I can hit it!"
"Bet you can't come within two hundred feet of it!" retorted the watery-
eyed scrivener. "It's a lot further'n you think."
"'Tain't neither!" declared Willie. "I know how far it is! What can we
shoot?"

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 overcome the
resistance of the atmosphere."
"How about that paperweight?"
"'S too heavy."
"Well—"
"I know!" exclaimed William suddenly. "Gimme that little bottle of red ink.
'S just about right. And when it strikes it'll make a mark so's we can 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 me for it
in the cash account. Give it here!"
Conscience being thus satisfied the two eagerly placed the ink bottle in the
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 tenement house
across the street.
"Now!" he exclaimed ecstatically. "Stand from under, Scraggs!"
He pressed a lever. There was a whang, a whistle—and the ink bottle
hurtled 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 descend upon the
penthouse—the scuttle opened and there was thrust forth a huge yellow face
with enormous sooty lips wreathed in an unmistakable smile. On the long
undulating neck the head resembled one of the grotesque manikins carried

in circus parades. Eset el Gazzar in a search for air had 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 ink struck
the penthouse roof just over the beast's head and deluged it with its
vermilion contents. Eset reared, shook her neck, gave a defiant grunt and
swiftly withdrew her head into the attic.
Sophie Hassoun, the wife of Kasheed, seeing the violent change in Eset's
complexion, wrung her hands.
"What hast thou done, O daughter of devils? Thou art bleeding! Thou hast
cut thyself! Alack, mayhap thou wilt die, and then we shall be ruined!
Improvident! Careless one! Cursed be thy folly! Hast thou no regard? And I
dare not send for Doctor Koury, the veterinary, for then thy presence would
be discovered and the gendarmes would come and take thee away. Would
that we had left thee at Coney Island! O, great-granddaughter of Al Adha—
sacred camel of the Prophet—why hast thou done this? Why hast thou
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 her
knees preparatory to sitting down herself.
"A camel!" repeated Willie, round-eyed. He counted the roofs dividing the
penthouse from where Morris Street bisected the block. "Whoop!" he cried
and dashed out of the office.
In less than four minutes Patrolman Dennis Patrick Murphy, who was
standing on post on Washington Street in front of Nasheen Zereik's
Embroidery Bazaar talking to Sardi Babu, saw a red-headed, pug-nosed
urchin 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 in there!"
"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 his scalp, hanging to
his shoulders, and a luxuriant black curly beard reaching to his middle; in
addition to which he wore a blue blouse and carpet slippers. He was a
Maronite from Lebanon, and he and his had a feud with Hassoun,
Majdalain, and all others who belonged to the sect headed by the Patriarch
of Antioch.
"Belki!" he remarked significantly. "Perhaps his words are true! I have
heard it whispered already by Lillie Nadowar, now the wife of Butros the
confectioner. Moreover, I myself have seen hay on the stairs."
"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 had
come running to see what was the matter, and a crowd had gathered.
"It is false—what he says!" declared Gadas Maloof the shoemaker. "I have
sat opposite the house day and night for ten—fifteen years—and no camel
has gone in. Camel! How could a camel be got up such narrow stairs?"
"But thou art a friend of Hassoun's!" retorted Fajala Mokarzel the grocer.
"And," he added in a lower tone, "of Sophie Tadros, his wife."
There was a subdued snicker from the crowd, and Murphy inferred that they
were laughing at him.
"But this man," he shouted wrathfully, pointing at Sardi Babu, "says you all
know there's a camel up there. An' this kid's seen it! Come along now, 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. The
gendarme will corroborate me. What care I where Kasheed Hassoun stables
his camel?"
Maloof shouldered his way up to him, and grasping the Maronite by the
beard muttered in Arabic: "Thou dog! Go confess thy sins! For by the Holy
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 up
the steps, the throng pressing close upon his heels.

"What's all this?" inquired Magistrate Burke bewilderedly an hour later as
Officer Murphy entered the police court leading a tall Syrian in a heavy
overcoat and green Fedora hat, and followed by several hundred black-
haired, olive-skinned Levantines. "Don't let all those Dagos in here! 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, whose grammar
was almost sublimated by comparison with Roony's. "They're Armenians—
you can tell by their complexions."
"Well, I won't have 'em in here, whatever they are!" announced Burke. "I
don'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 his arms 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, and burning
with a religious fervor unknown to the pale heterodoxy of the Occident.

"This here," began Murphy, "is a complaint by Sardi Babu"—he swung the
cowering little man with a twist before the bench—"against one Kasheed
Hassoun for violating the health ordinances."
"No, no! I do not complain! I am not one who complains. It is nothing
whatever to me if Kasheed Hassoun keeps a camel! I care not," cried Babu
in Arabic.
"What's he talkin' about?" interrupted Burke. "I don't understand that sort of
gibberish."
"He makes the complaint that this here Hassoun"—he indicated the tall man
in the overcoat—"is violating Section 1093d of the regulations by keeping 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? I didn't
suppose—"
Suddenly Sardi Babu threw himself fawning upon Hassoun.
"Oh, Kasheed Hassoun, I swear to thee that I made no complaint. It is a
falsification of the gendarme! And there was a boy—a red and yellow boy
—who said he had seen thy camel's head above the roofs! I am thy friend!"
He twisted his writhing snakelike fingers together. Hassoun regarded him
coldly.
"Thou knowest the fate of informers and provocateurs—of spies—thou
infamous Turk!" he answered through his teeth.
"A Turk! A Turk!" shrieked Sardi Babu frantically, beating the breast of his
blue blouse. "Thou callest me a Turk! Me, the godson of Sarkis Babu and of
Elias Stephan—whose fathers and grandfathers were Christians when thy
family were worshipers of Mohammed. Blasphemy! Me, the godson of a
bishop!"

"I also am godson of a bishop!" sneered Kasheed. "A properly anointed
bishop! 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 office windows at
the penthouse upon the Washington Street roof which had been Willie's
target of the day before. "I don't say," he continued by way of explanation,
"that the camel stuck his head out because Willie hit the roof with the bottle
—it was probably just a circumstance—but it looked that way. 'Bing!' went
the ink bottle on the scuttle; and then—pop!—out came the camel like a
jack-in-the-box."
"What became of the camel?" inquired Miss Wiggin, cherishing a faint hope
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 a
block 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 imagination
refuses to contemplate the spectacle! Where's Willie?"
"He hasn't been in at all this morning!" said Miss Wiggin. "I'll warrant—"
"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 had
reached an unerring conclusion by two different and devious routes, to wit,
intuition and logic, the same being the high road and low road of reason—
high or low in either case as you may prefer. Thus logic: Camel—small boy.
Intuition: Small boy—camel. But there was here an additional element—a
direct personal relationship between this particular small boy and this
particular camel, rising out of the incident of the ink bottle. She realized
that that camel must have acquired for William a peculiar quality—almost
that of a possession—in view of the fact that he had put his mark upon it.
She knew that Willie could no more stay away from the environs of that
camel than said camel could remain in that attic. Indeed we might go on at
some length expounding further this profound law of human nature that
where there are camels there will be small boys; that, as it were, under such
circumstances Nature abhors an infantile vacuum.
"If I know him, he is!" agreed Mr. Tutt, referring to William's probable
proximity to Eset el Gazzar.
"Speaking of camels," said Tutt as he lit a cigarette, "makes me think of
brass beds."
"Yes," nodded his partner. "Of course it would, naturally. What on earth do
you mean?"
"I mean this," began Tutt, clearing his throat as if he were addressing twelve
good and true men—"a camel is obviously an unusual—not to say peculiar
—animal to be roosting over there in that attic. It is an exotic—if I may use
that term. It is as exotic as a brass bed from Connecticut would be, or is, in
Damascus or Lebanon. Now, therefore, a camel will as assuredly give cause
for trouble in New York as a brass bed 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 these
unassimilated foreigners—"
"What have they got to do with brass beds in Lebanon?" challenged Miss
Wiggin.

"Why," continued Tutt, "I am credibly informed that the American brass bed
—particularly the double bed—owing to its importation into Asia Minor
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 so
himself—the Turks, you know, are nuts on beds—and they think a great big
brass family bed such as—you know—they're in all the department-store
windows. Well, every Turk in every village throughout Asia Minor saves up
his money to buy a brass bed—like a nigger buys a cathedral clock. Sign of
superiority. You get me? And it becomes his most cherished household
possession. If he meets a friend on the street he says to him naturally and
easily, without too much conscious egotism, just as an American might say,
'By the way, have you seen my new limousine?'—he says to the other Turk,
'Oh, I say, old chap, do you happen to have noticed my new brass bed from
Connecticut? They just put it 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 what
happens. Some Armenian—the Armenians are the pawnbrokers of Asia
Minor—moves into that village and in three months he has a mortgage on
everything 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 mortgaged to him
into an oxcart and starts on his way, escorted by the Sultan's troops. On top
of the load is Yusuf Bulbul Ameer's brass bed. Yusuf looks out of his
doorway and sees the bed moving off and rushes after it to 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 you eighty-
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. The
Turkish Government is responsible.'
"'Not much,' says Yusuf, grabbing hold of it, trying to pull it off the cart.
"'Hands off there!' yells the Armenian.
"Then there is a mix-up and everybody piles in—and there is a massacre!"
"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 that
just as a Yankee brass bed in Turkey will make certain trouble, so a Turkish
camel in New York is bound to do the same thing."
A door slammed behind them and Willie's voice interrupted the
conversation.
"Mr. Tutt! Mr. Tutt!" he cried hysterically. "There's been a murder down
there—and we—I'm—partly responsible. I spent the night with the camel
and he's—she's—all right—in Regan's Boarding Stable. But Kasheed 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 come
in?"
"Somebody killed Sardi Babu," explained Willie. "I don't know exactly who
did it—but they've arrested Kasheed Hassoun, the owner of Eset el Gazzar."
"Who?" roared Tutt.
"The camel. You see, nobody knew she was in the attic until I saw her stick
her head out of the hole in the roof. Then I told Murphy and he went 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 judge fined Kasheed
twenty-five dollars, and he—Kasheed—accused Sardi of being a Turk and
they had a big row right there in court. Nothing happened until the cops had
got Eset out of the window and she was over at Regan's. I stayed there. Her

head is bright red from the ink, you know. Then somebody went over to the
restaurant where Sardi was and killed him. So you see, in a way, I'm to
blame, and I didn't think you'd mind defending Kasheed, because he's a
corker and if they electrocute him Eset will starve to death."
"I see," said. Mr. Tutt thoughtfully. "You think that by rights if anybody 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 of
Tutt & Tutt appearing as counsel in the case of The People against Kasheed
Hassoun, charged with the crime of murder in the first degree for having
taken the life of Sardi Babu with deliberation and premeditation and malice
aforethought and against the peace of the People of the State of New York.

"And then there's this here Syrian murder case," groaned the chief clerk of
the district attorney's office plaintively to his chief. "I don't know 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 killed him all right, but you
know what these foreign-language murder cases are, boss! They're lemons,
every one of 'em!"
"What's the matter with it?" inquired the D.A. "It's a regular knock-down-
and-drag-out case, isn't it? Killed him right in a restaurant, didn't he?"
"Sure! That part of it's all right," assented the chief clerk. "He killed him—
yes! But how are you going to get an American jury to choose between
witnesses who are quite capable of swearing that the corpse killed the
defendant. How in hell can you tell what they're talking about, anyway?"
"You can't!" said the D.A. "Send the papers in to Pepperill and tell him on
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 the sleeping
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 the eye of
a needle than for a just prosecutor to convict a Syrian of murder. Well, old
top, send for a couple of dozen Korans and hire rooms for 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 born beneath
the golden dome of the State House on Beacon Street, and from the
windows of the Pepperill mansion his infant eyes had gazed smugly down
upon the Mall and Frog Pond of the historic Common. There had been an
aloof serenity about his life within the bulging front of the paternal
residence with its ancient glass window panes—faintly tinged with blue,
just as the blood in the Pepperill veins was also faintly tinged with the same
color—his unimpeachable social position at Hoppy's and later on at
Harvard—which he pronounced Haavaad—and the profound respect in
which he was held at the law school in Cambridge, that gave Mr. W.
Montague Pepperill a certain confidence in the impeccability of himself, his
family, his relatives, his friends, his college, his habiliments 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 few
perhaps might be found accidentally across Charles Street upon the made
land of the Back Bay. A real American must necessarily also be a graduate
of Harvard, a Unitarian, an allopath, belong to the Somerset Club and date
back ancestrally at least to King Philip's War. W. Montague had, however,
decided early in life that Boston was too small for him and that he owed a
duty to the rest of the country.
So he had condescended to New York, where through his real American
connections in law, finance and business he had landed a job in a political
office where the aristocrats were all either Irish, Jews or Italians, who

regarded him as an outlandish animal. It had been a strange experience for
him. So had the discovery that graft, blackmail, corruption, vice and crime
were not mere literary conventions, existing only for the theoretical
purposes of novelists and playwrights, but were actualities frequently dealt
with in metropolitan society. He had secured his appointment from a reform
administration and he had been retained as a holdover by Peckham, the new
district attorney, by reason of the fact that his uncle by marriage was a Wall
Street banker who contributed liberally without prejudice to both political
parties. This, however, W.M.P. did not know, and assumed that he was
allowed to keep his four-thousand-dollar salary because the county could
not get on without him. He was slender, wore a mouse-colored waistcoat,
fawn tie and spats, and plastered his hair neatly down on each side of a
glossy cranium that was an almost perfect sphere.
"Ah! Mr. William Montague Pepperill, I believe?" inquired Mr. Tutt with
profound politeness from the doorway of W.M.P.'s cubicle, which looked
into 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, whom
you are going to try for murder. You are, of course, perfectly familiar with
the facts."
He fumbled in his waistcoat, produced two withered stogies and cast his eye
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 on the
window ledge, and stacked in it the bundle of papers he was carrying.
"I thought you might forgive me if I came to talk over the case a little with
you. You see, there are so many things that a prosecutor has to consider—
and which it is right that he should consider." He paused to light a match.
"Now in this case, though in all probability my client is guilty there is
practically no possibility of his being convicted of anything higher than
manslaughter in the first degree. The defense will produce many witnesses
—probably as many as the prosecution. Both sides will tell their stories in a
language unintelligible to the jury, who must try to ascertain the true
inwardness of the situation through an interpreter. They will realize that
they are not getting the real truth—I mean the Syrian truth. As decent-
minded men they won't dare to send a fellow to the chair whose defense
they cannot hear and whose motives they do not either know or understand.
They will feel, as I do and perhaps you do, that the only persons to do
justice among Syrians are Syrians."
"Well," replied Mr. Pepperill politely, "what have you to propose?"
"That you recommend the acceptance of a plea of manslaughter in the
second degree."
Deputy Assistant District Attorney William Montague Pepperill drew
himself up haughtily. He regarded all criminal practitioners as semicrooks,
ignorant, illiterate, rather dirty men—not in the real American 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 prepared to be
judged by our laws and by our standards of morality. I do not agree with
you that our juridical processes are not adequate to that purpose. Moreover,
I regard it as unethical—un-eth-i-cal—to accept a plea for a lesser degree of
crime than that which the defendant has presumptively committed."
Mr. Tutt regarded him with undisguised admiration.
"Your sentiments do you honor, Mr. Pepperill!" he returned. "You are sure
you do not mind my smoke? But of course my client is presumed innocent.
I am very hopeful—almost confident—of getting him off entirely. But
rather than take the very slight chance of a conviction for murder I am

letting discretion take the place of valor and offer to have him admit his
guilt of manslaughter."
"I guess," answered Pepperill laconically, indulging in his only frequent
solecism, "that you wouldn't offer to plead to manslaughter unless 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 man to
man—as I have been speaking to you—he means what he says. I have told
you that I expected to acquit my client. My only reason for offering a plea is
the very slight—and it is a very slight—chance that an 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 my sincerity. 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 the
window ledge and turning to the door. "And—you young whippersnapper,"
he added when once it had closed behind him and he had turned to shake
his lean old fist at the place where W.M.P. presumably was still sitting, "I'll
show you how to treat a reputable member of the bar old enough to be your
grandfather! I'll take the starch out of your darned Puritan collar! I'll harry
you and fluster you and heckle you and make a fool 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 old Rome look like thirty piasters! You
pinheaded, pretentious, pompous, egotistical, niminy-piminy—"
"Well, well, Mr. Tutt, what's the matter?" inquired Peckham, laying his hand
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 the
lions!"

"No decent lion would want him!" retorted Mr. Tutt. "He might maul him a
little, but I won't. I'm just going to give him a full opportunity to test his
little proposition that the institutions of these jolly old United States are
perfectly adapted to settle quarrels among all the polyglot prevaricators of
the world and administer justice among people who are still in a barbarous
or at least in a patriarchal state. He's young, and he don't understand that a
New York merchant is entirely too conscientious to find a man guilty on
testimony that he would discount heavily 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 the
preparation of his case, utterly unconscious of the dangers with which his
legal path was beset. As he sat at his shiny oaken desk and pressed the
button that summoned the stenographer it seemed to him the simplest thing
in the world to satisfy any jury of what had taken place and the summit of
impudent audacity on the part of Mr. Tutt to have suggested that Hassoun
should be dealt with otherwise than a first-degree murderer. And it should
be added parenthetically that W.M.P., in spite of his New England
temperament, had a burning ambition to send somebody to the electric
chair.
In truth, on its face the story as related by Fajala Mokarzel and the other
friends of Sardi Babu the deceased pillow-sham vender was simplicity
itself. Besides Sardi Babu and Mokarzel there had been Nicola Abbu, the
confectioner; Menheem Shikrie, the ice-cream vendor; Habu Kahoots, the
showman; and David Elias, a pedler. All six of them, as they claimed, had
been sitting peacefully in Ghabryel & Assad's restaurant, eating kibbah
arnabeiah and mamoul. Sardi had ordered sheesh kabab. It was about nine
o'clock in the evening, and they were talking 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 threatening
manner: "Where is he who did say that he would spit upon the beard of my
bishop?"

Thereupon Sardi Babu had risen and answered: "Behold, I am he."
Immediately Kasheed Hassoun, and while his accomplice held them at bay
with a revolver, had leaned across the table and grabbing Sardi by the throat
had broken his neck. Then the smaller man had fired off his pistol 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 the restaurant and a photograph of the
outside of it, and stamped the indictment 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 general superintendent
of arrangements in all cases requiring an extra-artistic touch.
"It's too bad we can't cart a few hundred cubic feet of the Sahara into the
court room and divert the Nile down Center Street, but I guess you can
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 Cairo production from
Coney and have Franklin Street crowded with goats, asses and dromedaries.
I might even have a caravan pitch its tents alongside the Tombs."
"You can't lay it on too strong," declared Mr. Tutt. "But you don't need to go
off Washington Street. And, Bonnie, remember—I want every blessed Turk,
Greek, Armenian, Jew, Arab, Egyptian and Syrian that saw Sardi Babu 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 a subtle Oriental
smell that emanated from no one could say where, but which none the less
permeated the entire court room. It seemed to be a curious compound of

incense, cabbage, garlic and eau de cologne, with a suggestion of camel.
The room was entirely filled with Syrians. One row of benches was
occupied by a solemn group of white-bearded patriarchs who looked as if
they had momentarily paused on a pilgrimage to Mecca. All over the room
rose the murmur of purring Arabic. The stenographer was 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 the calendar
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 in unison,
declaring that they were. At or about this same moment the small door in
the rear of the room opened and an officer appeared, leading in Kasheed
Hassoun. He was an imposing man, over six feet in height, of dignified
carriage, serious mien, and finely chiseled features. Though he was dressed
as a European there was nevertheless something indefinably suggestive of
the East in the cut of his clothes; he wore no waistcoat and round his waist
was wound a strip of crimson cloth. His black eyes glinted through
lowering brows, wildly, almost fiercely, and he strode haughtily beside his
guard like some unbroken stallion 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," admitted
Pepperill.
"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 all over 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! Some
travelers!"
"Well, go on getting the jury," said the judge, yawning again and handing
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 eet haf 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 the countenance
of Mr. Zahoul blazed with wrath and humiliation. "It's very difficult to get a
fluent interpreter in Arabic."
"Well, just interpret what he says to me, will you?" kindly requested His
Honor.

"I zay," suddenly exploded Zahoul—"dees papaire eet half contemptuous
article on ze menkaha zat dees Kasheed Hassoun not kill dees Sardi Babu!"
"He says," translated Pepperill, "that the newspaper contains an indiscreet
article in favor of the defense. I had no idea there would be any improper
attempt to influence the jury."
"What difference does it make, anyway?" inquired His Honor. "You don't
expect any juryman is going to read that thing, do you? Why, it looks as if a
bumblebee had fallen into an ink bottle and then had a fit all over 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 Pepperill proceeded to
select twelve gentlemen to pass upon the issue who had never been nearer
to Syria than the Boardwalk at Atlantic City and who only with the utmost
attention could make head or tail of what Mr. Salim Zahoul averred that the
witnesses were trying to say. Moreover, most of the talesmen evinced a
profound distrust of their own ability to do justice between the People and
the defendant and a curious desire to be relieved from service. However, at
last the dozen had been chosen and sworn, the congestion of the court room
slightly relieved, Mr. Zahoul somewhat appeased, and Mr. William
Montague Pepperill rose to outline his very simple case to the jury.
There was, he explained, no more difficulty in administering justice in the
case of a foreigner than of anyone else. All were equal in the eyes of the law
—equally presumed to be innocent, equally responsible when proved guilty.
And he would prove Kasheed Hassoun absolutely guilty—guilty beyond a
reasonable doubt, beyond any doubt. He would produce five—five
reputable witnesses who would swear that Hassoun had murdered Sardi
Babu; and he prophesied that he would unhesitatingly demand at the end of
the trial such an unequivocal, fearless, honest expression of their collective
opinion as would permanently fix Mr. Kasheed Hassoun so that he could do
no more harm. He expressed it more elegantly but that was the gist of it. He
himself was as sincere and honest in his belief in his ability to establish the
truth of his claim as he was in the justice of his cause. Alas, he was far too

young to realize that there is a vast difference between knowing the truth
and being able to demonstrate what it is!
In proper order he called the photographer who had taken the picture of the
restaurant, the draftsman who had made the diagram of the interior, the
policeman who had arrested Hassoun, the doctor who had performed the
official autopsy upon the unfortunate Babu, and the five Syrians who had
been present when the crime was perpetrated. Each swore by all that was
holy that Kasheed Hassoun had done exactly as outlined by Assistant
District Attorney Pepperill—and swore it word for word, verbatim et
literatim, in iisdem verbis, sic, and yet again exactly. Their testimony
mortised and tenoned in a way to rejoice a cabinet-maker's heart. 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 about the murder. Instead he merely
inquired in a casual way where they came from, how they got there, what
they did for a living, and whether they had ever made any contradictory
statement as to what had occurred, and as his cross-examination of Mr.
Habu Kahoots was typical of all the rest it may perhaps be set forth as an
example, particularly as Mr. Kahoots spoke English, which the others did
not.
"And den," asserted Mr. Kahoots stolidly, "Kasheed Hassoun, he grab heem
by ze troat and break hees neck."
He was a short, barrel-shaped man with curly ringlets, fat, bulging cheeks,
heavy double chin and enormous paunch, and he wore a green worsted
waistcoat and his fingers were laden with golden rings.
"Ah!" said Mr. Tutt complaisantly. "You saw all that exactly as you have
described 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, old
plantation, Oriental show, snake exhibit and merry-go-round."
"Well, well!" exclaimed Mr. Tutt. "You are certainly a capitalist! I hope you
are not financially overextended!"
Mr. Pepperill looked pained, not knowing just how to prevent such
jocoseness on the part of his adversary.
"I object," he muttered feebly.
"Quite properly!" agreed Mr. Tutt. "Now, Mr. Kahoots, are you a citizen of
the United States?"
Mr. Kahoots looked aggrieved.
"Me? No! Me no citizen. I go back sometime Acre and build moving-
picture garden and ice-cream palace."
"I thought so," commented Mr. Tutt. "Now what, pray, were you doing in
the Washington Street restaurant?"
"Eating kibbah arnabeiah and mamoul."
"I mean if you live in Augusta how did you happen to be in New York at
precisely 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, did you?"
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
story with 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 long
knife?"
"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 that the
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 in quite
the same way as the judge, who, suddenly rousing himself, asked Mr. Tutt if
he had any basis for asking such questions.
"Why, certainly," answered the old lawyer quietly. "I shall prove that this
witness made three absolutely contradictory statements before the Grand
Jury."
"Is that so, Mister District Attorney?"
"I don't know," replied Pepperill faintly. "I had nothing to do with the
proceedings before the Grand Jury."
Judge Wetherell frowned.

"It would seem to me," he began, "as if a proper preparation of the case
would have involved some slight attention to—Well, never mind! Proceed,
Mr. Tutt."
"Kahoots!" cried the lawyer sternly. "Isn't it a fact that you have been
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 my partner,
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 the stock. I not get the
tablecloth, see. I was of the tablecloth you know short. 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.' He say,'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, 'You look in
the book.' He say, 'No.' We each take hold of the cloth. I have a knife. I cut
cloth in two. I give heem half. I take half. I say, 'You take 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 his
mouth.
"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 to leave
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 you
were 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 leather
bag a formidable document on parchment-like paper covered with
inscriptions in Arabic and adorned with seals and ribbons.
"I have here, Your Honor," said he, "the record of this man's conviction in
the Criminal Court in Beirut, properly exemplified by our consuls and the
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 and
Abdurrahman and Ibrahim Aisha and Fatima, daughter of Hason Abbas, of
the attack on certain nomads, of having fired on them with the intent of
murder, of participation and assistance in the act of murder, of having shot
on the regular troops, of assisting in the escape of some offenders and of
having drawn arms on the regular troops, during an uprising on Sunday,
January 24, 1303—Mohammedan style—between the inhabitants of the

Mezreatil-Arab quarter in Beirut and the nomads who had pitched their
tents near by, the following arrested persons, namely—Metri son of Habib
Eljemal and Habib son of Mikael Nakash and Hanna son of Abdallah
Elbaitar and Elias Esad Shihada and Tanous son of Jerji Khedr and Habib
son of Aboud Shab and Elias son of Metri Nasir and Khalil son of Mansour
Maoud and Nakhle son of Elias Elhaj and Nakhle son of Berkat Minari and
Antoon son of Berkat Minari and Lutfallah son of Jerji-Kefouri and Jabran
Habib Bishara and Kholil son of Lutf Dahir and Nakhle Yousif Eldefoumi,
all residents of the said quarter and Turkish subjects, and their companions,
sixty-five fugitives, namely—Isbir Bedoon son of Abdallah Zerik and Elias
son of Kanan Zerik and Amin Matar and Jerji Ferhan alias Baldelibas and
Habu son of Hanna Kahoots and—'"
Deputy Assistant District Attorney Pepperill started doubtfully to his feet.
"If the court please," he murmured in a sickly voice, "I object. In the first
place I don't know anything about this record—and I object to it on that
ground; and in the second place a trial and conviction in the absence of a
defendant under our law is no conviction at all."
"But this man is a Turkish subject and it's a good conviction in Turkey,"
argued Mr. Tutt.
"Well, it isn't here!" protested Pepperill.
"You're a little late, aren't you?" inquired His Honor. "It has all been read 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 his
hand.
"I'd like to ask a question myself," he announced defiantly, almost
arrogantly, after the manner of one with a grievance. "I'm a hard-working
business man. I've been dragged here against my will to serve on this jury
and decide if this defendant murdered somebody or other. I don't see what
difference it makes whether or not this witness cut a tablecloth in two or

murdered Fatima, the daughter of What's his Name. I want to go home—
sometime. If it is in order I'd like to suggest that we get along."
Judge Wetherell started and peered with a puzzled air at this bold shatterer
of established procedure.
"Mister Juryman," said he severely, "these matters relate directly to the
credibility of the witness. They are quite proper. I—I—am—surprised—"
"But, Your Honor," expostulated the iconoclast upon the back row, "I guess
nobody is going to waste much time over this Turkish snake charmer! Ain't
there a policeman or somebody we can believe who saw what happened?"
"Bang!" went the judicial gavel.
"The juryman will please be silent!" shouted Judge Wetherell. "This is
entirely out of order!" Then he quickly covered his face with his
handkerchief. "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 digressions from the
direct testimony occasioned among the audience. The reference to the
billiard-table cover and the murder of the unfortunate Fatima apparently
roused long-smoldering fires. A group of Syrians by the window broke into
an unexpected altercation, which had to be quelled by a court officer, and
when quiet was restored the jury seemed but slightly attentive to the
precisely similar yarns of Nicola Abbu, Menheem Shikrie, Fajal Mokarzel
and David Elias, especially as the minutes of the Grand Jury showed that
they had sworn to three entirely different sets of facts regarding the cause of
Babu's death. Yet when the People rested it remained true that five
witnesses, whatever the jury may have thought of them, had testified that
Hassoun strangled Sardi Babu. The jury turned expectantly to Mr. Tutt to
hear what he had to say.

"Gentlemen," he said quietly, "the defense is very simple. None of the
witnesses who have appeared here was in fact present at the scene of the
homicide at all. I shall call some ten or twelve reputable Syrian citizens
who will prove to you that Kasheed Hassoun, my client, with a large party
of friends was sitting quietly in the restaurant when Sardi Babu came in
with a revolver in his hand, which he fired at Hassoun, and that then, and
only then, a small dark man whose identity cannot be established—
evidently a stranger—seized Babu before he could fire again, and killed
him—in self-defense."
Mr. William Montague Pepperill's jaw dropped as if he had seen the ghost
of one of his colonial ancestors. He could not believe that he had heard Mr.
Tutt correctly. Why, the old lawyer had the thing completely turned round!
Sardi Babu hadn't gone to the restaurant. He had been in the restaurant, and
it had been Kasheed Hassoun who had gone there.
Yet, one by one, placidly, imperturbably, the dozen witnesses foretold by
Mr. Tutt, and gathered in by Bonnie Doon, marched to the chair and swore
upon the Holy Bible that it was even as Mr. Tutt had said, and that no such
persons as Mokarzel, Kahoots, Abbu, Shikrie and Elias had been in the
restaurant at any time that evening, but on the contrary that they, the friends
of Hassoun, had been there eating Turkish pie—a few might have had
mashed beans with taheenak—when Sardi Babu, apparently with suicidal
intent, entered alone to take vengeance upon the camel owner.
"That is all. That is our case," said Mr. Tutt as the last Syrian left the stand.
But there was no response from the bench. Judge Wetherell had been dozing
peacefully for several hours. Even Pepperill could not avoid a decorous
smile. Then the clerk pulled out the copy of Al-Hoda and rustled it, and His
Honor, who had been dreaming that he was riding through the narrow
streets of Bagdad upon a jerky white dromedary so tall that he could peek
through the latticed balconies at the plump, black-eyed odalisques within
the harems, slowly came back from Turkey to New York.
"Gentlemen of the jury," said he, pulling himself together, "the defendant
here is charged by the Grand Jury with having murdered Fatima the
daughter of Abbas—I beg your pardon! I mean—who was it?—one Sardi
Babu. I will first define to you the degrees of homicide—"

One day three months later, after Kasheed Hassoun had been twice tried
upon the same testimony and the jury had disagreed—six to six, each time
—Mr. Tutt, who had overstayed his lunch hour at the office, put on his
stovepipe hat and strolled along Washington Street, looking for a place to
pick up a bite to eat. It was in the middle of the afternoon and 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 all talked so much
about at the trial. Presently a familiar juxtaposition of names caught his eye
—Ghabryel & Assad. The very restaurant which had been the scene of the
crime! Curiously, he turned in there. Like all the other places it was
deserted, but at the sound of his footsteps a little Syrian boy not more than
ten years old came from behind the screen at the end of the room and stood
bashfully awaiting his order.
Mr. Tutt smiled one of his genial weather-beaten smiles at the youngster
and glancing idly over the bill of fare ordered biklama and coffee. Then he
lit a stogy and stretched his long legs comfortably out under the narrow
table. Yes, this was the very spot where either Sardi Babu and his friends
had been sitting the night of the murder or Kasheed Hassoun and his friends
—one or the other; he wondered if anybody would ever know which. Was it
possible that in this humdrum little place human passions had been roused
to the taking of life on account of some mere difference in religious dogma?
Was this New York? Was it possible to Americanize these people? A door
clattered in the rear, and from behind the 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 the
store. I go to school every day, but I work here afterward. I got a prize 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 looked straight

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't
change 'em in fifty years. They're just what they always were. They don't
want anything different. They think they're in Syria yet. But me—say, what
do you think? Of course I'm an American!"
"That's right!" answered Mr. Tutt, offering him a piece of pastry. "And what
is your name?"
"George Nasheen Assad," answered the boy, showing a set of white teeth.
"Well, George," continued the attorney, "what has become of Kasheed
Hassoun?"
"Oh, he's down at Coney Island. He runs a caravan. He has six camels. I go
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 the great 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. Tutt whimsically.
"I don't know," returned the child. "I guess you did right not to call me 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 saw the
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 his hand 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 Kasheed
and 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 Althea
Beekman of Dawkins, her housekeeper, as she sat at her satinwood desk
after 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 outraged air.
"I hardly know how to tell you—such a thing in this house! I couldn't
possibly have her round. I was afraid she might corrupt the other girls,
ma'am—and they are such a self-respecting lot—almost quite ladylike,
ma'am. So I simply paid her and told her to take herself off."
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 her here
so I sent her away. It was quite inconvenient, too—with the servant problem
what it is. But I'm hoping to get another this afternoon from 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 misbehaving herself, but
—I—wouldn't want her to be sent away—under such circumstances. It
would be quite heartless. Yes, I am very much disturbed!"
"I'm sorry, ma'am," answered the housekeeper penitently. "But I was only
thinking of the other girls."
"Well, it's too late to do anything about it now," repeated her mistress. "But
I'm sorry, Dawkins; very sorry, indeed. We have responsibilities toward
these people! However—this is Thursday, isn't it?—we'll have veal for
lunch as usual—and she was so pretty!" she added inconsequently.
"H'm. That was the trouble!" sniffed the housekeeper. "We're well rid of her.
You'd think a girl would have some consideration for her employer—if
nothing else. In a sense she is a guest in the house and should behave
herself as such!"
"Yes, that is quite true!" agreed her employer. "Still—yes, Brown Betty is
very well for dessert. That will do, Dawkins."
Behind the curtain of this casual conversation had been enacted a
melodrama as intensely vital and elemental as any of Shakespeare's
tragedies, 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 she
liked for that matter, so long as she got out of her sight, Katie's brother
Shane in the back room of McManus' gin palace gave Red McGurk—for
the same "reasons"—a certain option and, the latter having scornfully
declined to avail himself of it, had then and there put a bullet through his
neck. But this, naturally, Miss Beekman did not know.
As may have been already surmised Miss Althea was a gracious, gentle and
tender-hearted lady who never knowingly would have done a wrong to
anybody and who did not believe that simply because God had been pleased
to call her into a state of life at least three stories higher than her kitchen she
was thereby relieved from her duty toward those who occupied it.
Nevertheless, from the altitude of those three stories she viewed them as
essentially different from herself, for she came of what is known as "a long
line of ancestors." As, however, Katie O'Connell and Althea Beekman were

practically contemporaries, it is somewhat difficult to understand how one
of them could have had a succession of ancestors that was any longer than
that of the other. Indeed, Miss Beekman's friend, Prof. Abelard Samothrace,
of Columbia University, probably would have admitted that just as the two
had lived in the same house—albeit at different levels—on Fifth Avenue, so
their forebears at some prehistoric period had, likely as not, occupied the
same cave and had in company waded on frosty mornings the ice-skimmed
swamps of Mittel Europa in pursuit of the cave bear, the mastodon and the
woolly rhinoceros, and for afternoon relaxation had made up twosomes for
hunting wives with stone clubs instead of mashies in their hairy prehensile
hands.
It would seem, therefore, that—whatever of tradition might have originated
in the epoch in question—glimmerings of sportsmanship, of personal pride,
of tribal duty or of conscience ought to have been the common heritage of
them both. For it was assuredly true that while Miss Katie's historic
ancestors had been Celtiberians, clad on occasion only in a thin coating of
blue paint, Miss Althea's had dwelt in the dank marshes of the Elbe and had
been unmistakably Teutonic, though this curse had been largely removed by
racial intermarriage during subsequent thousands of years. Indeed, it may
well have been that in the dimmer past some Beekman serf on bended knee
had handed a gilded harp to some King O'Connell on his throne. If the
O'Connells were foreigners the Beekmans, from the point of view of the
aboriginal American, were no less so simply because they had preceded
them by a couple of hundred years.
Tradition is not a matter of centuries but of ages. If Katie inherited some of
hers from the peat bogs adjacent to Tara's Halls in that remote period when
there were still snakes in Ireland, Miss Althea had vicariously acquired
others from the fur-clad barbarians described by Tacitus who spent their
leisure time in drinking, gambling or splitting each other's skulls with stone
mallets. On this subject see Spencer's "Data of Ethics" and Lecky's "History
of European Morals." But all this entirely escaped Miss Althea, who
suffered from the erroneous impression that because she was a Beekman
and lived in a stone mansion facing Central Park she differed fundamentally
not only from the O'Connells but from the Smiths, the Pasquales, the
Ivanovitches and the Ginsbergs, all of whom really come of very old
families. Upon this supposed difference she prided herself.

Because she was, in fact, mistaken and because the O'Connells shared with
the Beekmans and the Ginsbergs a tradition reaching back to a period when
revenge was justice, and custom of kinsfolk the only law, Shane O'Connell
had sought out Red McGurk and had sent him unshriven to his God. The
only reason why this everyday Bowery occurrence excited any particular
attention was not that Shane was an O'Connell but that McGurk was the son
of a political boss of much influence and himself one of the leaders of a
notorious cohort of young ruffians who when necessary could be relied
upon to stuff a ballot box or otherwise to influence public opinion. As Red
was a mighty man in Gideon, so his taking off was an event of moment, and
he was waked with an elegance unsurpassed in the annals of Cherry Hill.
"An' if ye don't put the son-of-a——- who kilt me b'y in th' chair, ye name's
mud—see?" the elder McGurk had informed District Attorney Peckham the
next morning. "I've told the cops who done it. Now you do the rest—
understand?"
Peckham understood very well. No one seeing the expression on McGurk's
purple countenance could have failed to do so.
"We'll get him! Don't you worry!" Peckham had assured the desolated
father with a manner subtly suggesting both the profoundest sympathy and
the prophetic glories of a juridical revenge in which the name of McGurk
would be upon every lip and the picture of the deceased, his family, and the
home in which they dwelt would be featured on the front page of every
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 passed
along 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 muttered threat or
two and the lie passed openly the week before.
Everybody knew that Shane had done it, and why; though no one could tell
how he knew it. And because everybody knew, it became a political
necessity for Peckham to put him under arrest with a great fanfare of
trumpets and a grandiose announcement of the celerity with which the
current would be turned through his body.

The only fly in the ointment was the fact that O'Connell had walked into the
district attorney's office as soon as the rumor reached him and quietly
submitted to being arrested, saying merely: "I heard you wanted me. Well,
here I am!"
But though they badgered him for hours, lured him by every pretext to
confess, put a stool pigeon in the same cell with him, and resorted to every
trick, device and expedient known to the prosecutor's office to trap him into
some sort of an admission, they got nothing for their pains. It was just one
of those cases where the evidence simply wasn't forthcoming. And yet
Peckham was aware that unless he convicted O'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 that of 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 have been
referred to as "one hundred per cent American" she was so nearly so—
except for a reminiscent affection for "the late dear Queen"—that the phrase
in her case would have been substantially correct. Her mother had been the
daughter of a distinguished Revolutionary statesman who had been a signer
of the Declaration of Independence, an ambassador and justice of the
Supreme Court as well; her father a celebrated newspaper editor.
She had been born in the Prue and I period in Gramercy Park near what is
now The Players' Club, and the old colonial house with its white trimmings
and ornamental ironwork had been the scene of many a modest gayety at a
time when Emerson, Lowell, and George William Curtis were viewed less
as citizens than as high priests of Culture, sharing equally in sanctity with
the goddess thereof. She could just remember those benign old gentlemen,
as well as the many veterans of the Civil War who dined at her father's
decorous mahogany and talked of the preservation of the Constitution and
those other institutions to found which it is generally assumed the first
settlers landed on the Atlantic seaboard and self-sacrificingly accepted real
estate from the wily native in return for whisky and glass beads. She was
forty-seven years of age, a Colonial Dame, a Daughter of the American
Revolution, a member of the board of directors of several charitable
institutions, and she was worth a couple of million dollars in railroad
securities. On Sundays she always attended the church in Stuyvesant Square

frequented by her family, and as late as 1907 did so in the famous Beekman
C-spring victoria driven by an aged negro coachman.
But besides being full of rectitude and good works—which of themselves
so often fail of attraction—Miss Althea was possessed of a face so
charming even in its slightly faded prettiness that one wondered how it was
possible that she could successfully have withstood the suitors who must
have crowded about her. Her house on Fifth Avenue was full of old
engravings of American patriots, and the library inherited from her editorial
parent was replete with volumes upon subjects which would have filled a
Bolshevik with disgust. Briefly, if ever Trotzky had become Commissar of
the Soviet of Manhattan, Miss Althea and those like her would have been
the first candidates for a drumhead court-martial.
She prided herself equally upon her adherence to religious principle and the
Acts of Congress. For the law, merely as law, she had the profoundest
veneration, viewing the heterogeneous statutes passed from time to time by
desultory legislators much as if they had in some mysterious way been
handed down from Mount Sinai along with the Ten Commandments.
For any violator of the law she had the uttermost abhorrence, and the only
weakness in her ethics arose out of her failure to discriminate between
relative importances, for she undoubtedly regarded the sale of a glass of
beer after the closing hour as being quite as reprehensible as grand larceny
or the bearing of false witness. To her every judge must be a learned, wise
and honorable man because he stood for the enforcement of the law of the
land, and she never questioned whether or not that law was wise or
otherwise, which latter often—it must be confessed—it was not.
In a word, though there was nothing progressive about Miss Althea she was
one of those delightful, cultivated, loyal and enthusiastic female citizens
who are rightfully regarded as vertebrae in the backbone of a country
which, after it has got its back up, can undoubtedly lick any other nation on
earth. It was characteristic of her that carefully folded inside the will drawn
for her by her family solicitor was a slip of paper addressed to her heirs and
next of kin requesting that at her funeral the national anthem should be
played and that her coffin should be draped with the American flag.

But there was a somewhat curious if not uncommon inconsistency in Miss
Beekman's attitude toward lawbreakers in that once they were in prison they
instantly became objects of her gentlest solicitude. Thus she was a frequent
visitor at the Tombs, where she brought spiritual, and more often, it must be
frankly admitted, bodily comfort to those of the inmates who were
recommended by the district attorney and prison authorities as worthy of
her attention; and Prosecutor Peckham being not unmindful of the possible
political advantage that might accrue from being on friendly terms with so
well-known a member of the distinguished family of Beekman, lost no
opportunity to ingratiate himself with her and gave orders, to his
subordinates to make her path as easy as possible. Thus quite naturally she
had heard of Tutt & Tutt, and had a casual 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 with one hand while
he felt for a match in his waistcoat pocket with the other, upon the afternoon
of the day that Miss Beekman had had the conversation with Dawkins with
which this story opens.
"National temperament," answered Bonnie Doon, producing the desired
match. "It's just like an Irishman to refuse point-blank to talk to the lawyer
who has been assigned to defend him. He's probably afraid he'll make some
admission from which you will infer he's guilty. No Irishman ever 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 he today, 'but
don't ask me to talk about the case, because I won't.' I give it up. He
wouldn't even tell me where he was on the day of the murder."
Bonnie grunted dubiously.
"There may be a very good reason for that!" he retorted. "If what rumor
says is true he simply hunted for McGurk until he found him and put a lead
pellet back of his ear."

"And also, if what rumor says is true," supplemented Tutt, who entered at
this moment, "a good job it was, too. McGurk was a treacherous, dirty
blackguard, the leader of a gang of criminals, even if he was, as they all
agree, a handsome rascal who had every woman in the district on
tenterhooks. Any girl in this case?"
Bonnie shrugged his shoulders.
"They claim so; only there's nothing definite. The O'Connells are well
spoken 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 the unwritten
law without besmirching the very reputation you are trying to protect."
The senior partner of Tutt & Tutt wheeled his swivel chair to the window
and crossing his congress boots upon the sill gazed contemplatively down
upon the shipping.
"Unwritten law!" sarcastically exclaimed Tutt from the doorway. "There
ain't no such animal in these parts!"
"You're quite wrong!" retorted his elder partner. "Most of our law—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 are
unwritten laws, just as binding as the printed ones upon our statute books,
which after all are only the crystallization of the sentiments and opinions of
the community based upon its traditions, manners, customs and religious
beliefs. For every statute in print there are a hundred that have no tangible
existence, based on our sense of decency, of duty and of honor, which are
equally controlling and which it has never been found necessary to reduce
to writing, since their infraction usually brings its own penalty or infringes
the more delicate domain of private conscience where the crude processes
of the criminal law cannot follow. The laws of etiquette and fair play are
just as obligatory as legislative enactments—the Ten Commandments as
efficacious as the Penal Code."

"Don't you agree with that, Tutt?" demanded Bonnie. "Every man's
conscience 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, ignoring
him. "You remember when old Cogswell was on the bench and a man was
brought before him for breaking his umbrella over the head of a fellow who
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 smashed my 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 is unwritten
law. People don't like to punish a man for resenting a slur upon his wife's
reputation."
"But you see where that leads you?" remarked his partner. "The so-called
unwritten law is based on our inherited idea of chivalry. A lady's honor and
reputation were sacred, and her knight was prepared instantly to defend it
with the last drop of his blood. A reflection on her honesty was almost as
unbearable as one upon her virtue. Logically, the unwritten law ought to
permit women to break their contracts and do practically anything they see
fit."
"They do, don't they—the dear things!" sighed Bonnie.
"I remember," interjected Tutt brightly, "when it was the unwritten law of
Cook County, Illinois—that's Chicago, you know—that any woman could
kill her husband for the life-insurance money. Seriously!"
"There's no point of chivalry that I can see involved in that—it's merely
good business," remarked Mr. Doon, lighting another cigarette. "All the
same it's obvious that the unwritten law might be stretched a long way. It's a
great convenience, though, on occasion!"
"We should be in an awful stew if nowadays we substituted ideas of
chivalry for those of justice," declared Mr. Tutt. "Fortunately the danger 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 Tutt
complacently. "No, we needn't worry about the return of chivalry—in New
York at any rate."
"I should say not!" exclaimed Miss Wiggin, entering at that moment with a
pile of papers, as nobody rose.
"But," insisted Bonnie, "all the same there are certainly plenty of cases
where if he had to choose between them any man would obey his
conscience rather than the law."
"Of course, there are such cases," admitted Mr. Tutt. "But we ought to
discourage 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 much
stock in the kind of honor that makes an heir apparent 'perjure himself like a
gentleman' about a card game at a country house."
"Neither do I," she returned, "any more than I do in the kind of honor that
compels a man to pay a gambling debt before he pays his tailor, but I do
believe that there may be situations where, though it would not be
permissible to perjure oneself, honor would require one to refuse to obey
the law."
"That's a pretty dangerous doctrine," reflected Mr. Tutt. "For everybody
would be free to make himself the judge of when he ought to respect the
law and when he oughtn't. We can easily imagine that the law would come
out at the small end of the horn."
"In matters of conscience—which, I take it, is the same thing as one's sense
of honor—one has got to be one's own judge," declared Miss Wiggin firmly.
"The simplest way," announced Tutt, "is to take the position that the law
should always be obeyed and that the most honorable man is he who
respects it the most."

"Yes, the safest and also the most cowardly!" retorted Miss Wiggin.
"Supposing the law required you to do something which you personally
regarded not only as morally wrong but detestable, would you do it?"
"It wouldn't!" protested Tutt with a grimace. "The law is the perfection of
reason."
"But I am entitled, am I not, to suppose, for purposes of argument, that it
might?" she inquired caustically. "And I say that our sense of honor is the
most precious thing we've got. It's our duty to respect our institutions and
obey the law whether we like it or not, unless it conflicts with our
conscience, in which case we ought to defy it and take 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 of the
law, every time!"
"It's highly theoretical," commented Tutt. "As usual with our discussions."
"Not so theoretical as you might think!" interrupted his senior, hastening to
reenforce Miss Wiggin. "Nobody can deny that to be true to oneself is the
highest principle of human conduct, and that ''tis man's perdition to be safe
when for the truth he ought to die.' That's why we reverence the early
Christian martyrs. But when it comes to choosing between 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 our highest duty is
to the state, it is a mere play on words, in my humble opinion, to speak of
honor as distinguished from law or the obligation of one's oath in a court of
justice. I bet I can find plenty of authorities to that effect in the library!"
"Of course you can," countered Miss Wiggin. "You can find an authority on
any side of any proposition you want to look for. That's why one's own
sense of honor is so much more reliable than the law. What is the law,
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 casual ruling from

a judge who very likely hadn't the remotest idea of what I think 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 law haven't
anything to do with one another. The courts have constantly pointed that out
from the earliest days, though judges like, when they can, to make the two
seem one and the same. Chief Baron Bowes, I remember, said in some case
in 1743, 'The court can't determine what is honor.' No, no; the two are
different, and that difference will always make trouble. Isn't it nearly tea
time?"

Miss Beekman was just stepping off the elevator on the first floor of the
Tombs the next afternoon on one of her weekly visits when she came face
to face with Mr. Tutt.
She greeted him cordially, for she had taken rather a fancy to the shabby old
man, drawn to him, in spite of her natural aversion to all members of the
criminal bar, by the gentle refinement of his weather-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 client
refuses to speak to me! Perhaps you could get something out of him for
me."
"Oh, they all talk to me readily enough!" she replied. "I fancy they know
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 to defendants
charged with homicide. There was too much notoriety connected with them,
for one thing; there was nothing she hated so much as notoriety.
"Seriously," he went on with earnestness, "I wish you'd have a word with
him. It's pretty hard to have to defend a man and not to know a thing about
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. Perhaps he
needs some medicine or letter paper or something. I'll get an order from the
warden and go right back and see him."
Twenty minutes later Shane O'Connell faced Miss Beekman sullenly across
the deal table of the counsel room. A ray of late sunshine fell through the
high grating of the heavily barred window upon a face quite different from
those which Miss Althea was accustomed to encounter in these
surroundings, for it showed no touch of depravity or evil habits, and
confinement had not yet deprived its cheeks of their rugged mantle of
crimson or its eyes of their bold gleam.
He was little more than a boy, this murderer, as handsome a lad as ever
swaggered out of County Kerry.
"An' what may it be that leads you to send for such as me, Miss Beekman!"
he demanded, glowering at her.
She felt suddenly unnerved, startled and rather shocked at his use of her
name. Where could he have discovered it? From the keeper, probably, she
decided. All her usual composure, her quiet self-possession, her aloof 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 eyes
reached 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 leaped and
curled about her like hissing flames. "Did you see after her or watch her
comings and goings, as she saw after you—she a mere lass of sixteen?
Arrah! No!"
With a sensation of horror Miss Althea realized that at last she was in a
murder case in spite of herself! This lad, the brother of Katie, the waitress
whom she had discharged! How curious! And how unfortunate! His charge
was preposterous; nevertheless a faint blush stole to her cheek and she
looked away.
"How ridiculous!" she managed to say. "It was no part of my obligation to
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 wid McGurk?"
"I—how absurd!"
Suddenly she faltered. An indistinct accusing recollection turned her faint—
of the housekeeper having told her that one of the girls insisted on going to
a dance on an evening not hers by arrangement, and how she had given
orders that the house should be closed the same as usual at ten o'clock for
the night. If the girl couldn't abide by the rules of the Beekman ménage she
could sleep somewhere else. What of it? Supposing she 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 indirectly
saved his life, a phrase curiously like the one used on a former occasion by
Dawkins to Miss Althea:
"Katie was a member of your household; ye might have had a bit of thought
for her!" he asserted bitterly.
Dawkins had said: "You'd think a girl would have some consideration for
her employer, if nothing else. In a sense she is a guest in the house and
should behave herself as such."

There was no sense in it! There was no parallel, no analogy. There was no
obligation to treat the girl as a guest, even though the girl should have 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 her employment—those
who slept under her roof?
"'Twould have been better to have been kind to her then than to be kind to
me now!" said he with sad conviction.
The proud Miss Althea Beekman, the dignified descendant of a long line of
ancestors, turned red. Heretofore serenely confident of her own personal
virtue and her own artificial standards of democracy, she now found herself
humiliated and chagrined before this rough young criminal.
"You—are—quite right!" she confessed, her eyes smarting with sudden
tears. "My position is quite—quite illogical. But of course I had no idea!
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 that the
likes of him should be dictating to the likes of her. And he could never
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. "Please tell me
everything that has happened. I have influence with the district attorney 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 could
trust her. Slowly—brokenly—tensely, he told her how he had killed Red
McGurk, and why.
The corridors were full of shadows when Althea Beekman put her hands on
Shane O'Connell's shoulders and bade him good night. Though she
abominated his crime and loathed him for having committed it she felt in
some way partially responsible, and she also perceived that, by the code of
the O'Connells, Shane had done what he believed to be right. He had taken
the law into his own hands and he was ready to pay the necessary penalty.

He would have done the same thing all over again. To this extent 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 his
stogy.
"I haven't very good news for you," she answered regretfully. "He's
confessed to me—told me everything—why he shot him and where he
bought the pistol. He's a brave boy, though! It's a sad case! But what can
you do with people who believe themselves justified in doing things like
that?"
She did not notice Detective Eddie Conroy, of the D.A.'s office, standing
behind an adjacent pillar, ostentatiously lighting a cigar; nor see him smile
as he slowly walked away.

"Talk about luck!" exulted O'Brien, the yellow dog of the district attorney'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 Tombs that O'Connell
had confessed to her! Say, how's that? Some evidence—what?"
"What good will that do us?" asked Peckham, glancing up with a scowl
from his desk. "She won't testify for us."
"But she'll have to testify if we call her, won't she?" demanded his assistant.
The district attorney drummed on the polished surface before him.
"We—ell, I suppose so," he admitted hesitatingly. "But you can't just
subpoena a woman like that without any warning and put her on the stand
and make her testify. It would be too rough!"
"It's the only way to do it!" retorted O'Brien with a sly grin. "If she knew in
advance that we were thinking of calling her she'd beat it out of town."
"That's true," agreed his chief. "That's as far as she'd go, too, in defying the
law. But I don't much like it. Those Beekmans have a lot of influence, 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't call 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 may
have to do it—I don't say we won't—but it's risky business!" replied
Peckham dubiously.
"It's a good deal less risky than not doing it, so far as your candidacy next
autumn is concerned!" retorted his assistant. "We won't let her suspect what
we're goin' to do; and the last minute I'll call her to the stand and cinch the
case! She won't even know who called her! Perhaps I can arrange with
Judge Babson to call her on some other point and then pretend to sort of
stumble onto the fact of the confession and examine her himself. That
would let us out. I can smear it over somehow."
"You'd better," commented Peckham, "unless you want a howl from the
papers! It would make quite a story if Miss Althea Beekman got on the
rampage. She could have your scalp, my boy, if she wanted it!"
"And McGurk could have yours!" retorted O'Brien with the impudence
born of knowledge.
The prosecution of Shane O'Connell, which otherwise might have slowly
languished and languishing died, took on new life owing to the evidence
thus innocently delivered into the hands of the district attorney; in fact it
became a cause célèbre. The essential elements to convict were now all
there—the corpus delicti, evidence of threats on the part of the defendant,
of motive, of opportunity, and—his confession. The law which provides
that the statement of an accused "is not sufficient to warrant his conviction
without additional proof that the crime charged has been committed" would
be abundantly satisfied—though without his confession there would have
been no proof whatever that the crime charged 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 full panoply the
McGurks, their relatives and followers. All Cherry Hill seemed to have
packed itself into Part I of the Supreme Court. There was an atmosphere
somehow suggestive of the races or a prize fight. But it was a sporting event
which savored of a sure thing—really more like a hanging. They were there
to make holiday over the law's revenge for the killing of the darling of the
Pearl Button Kids. Peckham personally assured 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 of
cigars from his pocket and the two smoked the pipe of peace.
But the reader is not particularly concerned with the progress of the trial,
for he has already attended many. It is enough to say that a jury with
undershot jaws, who had proved by previous experience their indifference
to capital punishment and to all human sympathy, were finally selected and
that the witnesses were duly called, and testified to the usual facts, while the
Pearl Button Kids and the rest, spitting surreptitiously beneath the benches,
eagerly drank in every word. There was nothing for Mr. Tutt to do; nothing
for him to deny. The case built itself up, brick by brick. And Shane
O'Connell sat there unemotionally, hardly listening. There was nothing in
the evidence to reflect in any way upon the honor of the O'Connells in
general or in particular. He had done that which that honor demanded and
he was ready to pay the penalty—if the law could get him. He assumed that
it would get him. So did the Tutts.
But when toward the end of the third day nothing had yet been brought
forward to connect him with the crime Tutt leaned over and whispered to
Mr. Tutt, "D'ye know, I'm beginning to have a hunch there isn't any case!"
Mr. Tutt made an imperceptible gesture of assent.
"Looks that way," he answered out of the corner of his mouth. "Probably
they'll spring the connecting evidence at the end and give us the coup de
grâce."
At that moment a police witness was released from the stand and O'Brien
stepped to the bench and whispered something to the judge, who glanced at

the clock and nodded. It was twenty minutes of four, and the jury were
already getting restless, for the trial had developed into a humdrum, cut-
and-dried affair.
Miss Beekman sitting far back in the rear of the court room suddenly heard
O'Brien call her name, and a quiver of apprehension passed through her
body. She had never testified in any legal proceeding, and the idea of
getting up before such a crowd of people and answering questions filled her
with dismay. It was so public! Still, if it was going to help O'Connell—
"Althea Beekman," bellowed Cap. Phelan, "to the witness chair!"
Althea Beekman! The gentle lady felt as if she had been rudely stripped of
all her protective clothing. Althea! Did not the law do her the courtesy of
calling her even "Miss"? Nerving herself to the performance of 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 eyes heavenward 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 the
majestic figure of the Goddess of the Law, blindfolded and holding aloft the
scales of justice. Beside her sat in the silken robes of his sacred office a
judge who cleverly administered that law to advance his own interests and
those of his political associates. In front of her, treacherously smiling, stood
the cynical, bullet-headed O'Brien. At a great distance Mr. Tutt leaned on
his elbows at a table beside Shane O'Connell. To them she directed her gaze
and faintly smiled.
"Miss Beekman," began O'Brien as courteously as he knew how, "you
reside, do you not, at Number 1000 Fifth Avenue, in this city and county?"
"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 civic activities?"
"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 to
do.
"What did he say?" he asked, nervously looking away.
Something in his hangdog look warned Miss Beekman that she was being
betrayed, 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 confidential
one?"
"I object to the question!" snapped O'Brien. "The law recognizes no
confidential communications as privileged except those made to a priest, a
physician or an attorney. The witness is none of these. The question is
immaterial and irrelevant."
"That is the law," announced the judge, "but under all the circumstances I
will permit the witness to answer."
Miss Beekman paused.
"Why," she began, "of course it was confidential, Mr. Tutt. O'Connell
wouldn't have told me anything if he had supposed for one moment I was
going to repeat what he said. Besides, I suggested that I might be able to
help him. Yes, certainly our talk was confidential."
"I am sorry," gloated O'Brien, "but I shall have to ask you what it was."
"That is not a question," said Mr. Tutt calmly.
"What did the defendant say to you in the counsel room of the Tombs on the
twenty-third of last month?" cautiously revised O'Brien.
"I object!" thundered Mr. Tutt, his form towering until seemingly it matched
that of the blind goddess in height. "I object to the answer as requiring 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 what the
defendant said to you. You will recall that you yourself volunteered the
information that you had had the talk in question. Otherwise"—he coughed
and put up his hand—"we might possibly never have learned of it. A
defendant cannot deprive the people of the right to prove what he may have
divulged respecting his offense merely by claiming that it was in
confidence. Public policy could never allow that. It may be unpleasant for
you to answer the question but I must ask you to do so."

"But," she protested, "you certainly cannot expect me to betray a
confidence! I asked O'Connell to tell me what he had done so that I could
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 dastardly trick
which O'Brien had played upon her. Already she suspected that the judge
was only masquerading in the clothing of a gentleman. With a white face
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, feeling
the change in her manner. "You are a witness for the people—not the
defendant."
"I am not a witness against O'Connell!" she declared. "This man"—
indicating O'Brien scornfully—"has in some way found out that I—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 her
Beekman blood the chief justice, the ambassador, the great editor, the signer
of the Declaration of Independence, stirred, awoke, rubbed their eyes and
sternly reared themselves. And that blood—blue though it was instead of
scarlet like the O'Connells'—boiled in her veins and burned through the
delicate tissue of her cheeks.
"My conscience will not permit me to betray a confidence!" she cried
angrily.
"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 is most 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 the gibbet,
they nevertheless admired this little woman's fearlessness and the old
lawyer's pugnacity. On the rear wall the yellow face of the old self-
regulating clock, that had gayly ticked so many men into the electric chair,
leered shamelessly across at the blind goddess.
"Answer the question, madam! If, as you claim, you are a patriotic citizen
of this commonwealth, having due respect for its institutions and for the
statutes, you will not set up your own ideas of what the law ought 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 Miss
Beekman's inherited complacency, with each beat of the clock, fell one by
one to the ground until it was entirely demolished. Vainly she struggled 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 the delighted
reporters scribbled furious messages to their city editors that Miss Althea
Beekman, one of the Four Hundred, was defying Judge Babson, and to rush
up a camera man right off in a taxi, and to look her up in the morgue for a
front-page story. O'Brien glanced uneasily at Babson. Possible defiance on
the part of this usually unassuming lady had not entered into his
calculations. The judge took a new tack.
"You probably do not fully understand the situation in which you are
placed," he explained. "You are not responsible for the law. Neither are you
responsible in any way for the consequences to this defendant, whatever
they may be. The matter is entirely out of your hands. You are compelled to
do as the court orders. As a law-abiding citizen you have no choice in the
matter."
Miss Althea's modest intellect reeled, but she stood her ground, the ghost of
the Signer at her elbow.

"I am sorry," she replied, "but my own self-respect will not allow me to
answer."
"In that case," declared Babson, playing his trump card, "it will be my
unpleasant duty to commit you for contempt."
There was a bustle of excitement about the reporters' table. Here was a
story!
"Very well," answered Miss Beekman proudly. "Do as you see fit, and as
your own duty and conscience demand."
The judge could not conceal his annoyance. The last thing in the world that
he wished to do was to send Miss Althea to jail. But having threatened her
he must carry out his threat or forever lose face.
"I will give the witness until tomorrow morning at half after ten o'clock to
make up her mind what she will do," he announced after a hurried
conference with O'Brien. "Adjourn court!"
Miss Beekman did not go to bed at all that night. Until a late hour she
conferred in the secrecy of her Fifth Avenue library with her gray-haired
solicitor, who, in some mysterious way, merely over the telephone,
managed to induce the newspapers to omit any reference to his client's
contemptuous conduct in their morning editions.
"There's no way out of it, my dear," he said finally as he took his leave—he
was her father's cousin and very fond of her—"this judge has the power to
send you to jail if he wants to—and dares to! It's an even chance whether he
will dare to or not. It depends on whether he prefers to stand well with the
McGurks or with the general public. Of course I respect your attitude, but
really I think you are a little quixotic. Points of honor are too ephemeral to
be debated in courts of justice. To do so would be to open the door to all
kinds of abuses. Dishonest witnesses would constantly avail themselves of
the opportunity to avoid giving evidence."
"Dishonest witnesses would probably lie in the first place!" she quavered.
"True! I quite overlooked that!" he smiled, gazing down at her in an
avuncular 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—can avail
against demand in a court of justice. Even confessions obtained by fraud 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 the
Beekman breed! There's one thing I must say," he added as he stood in the
doorway after bidding her good night—"that old fellow Tutt has behaved
pretty well, leaving you entirely alone this way. I always had an idea he was
a sort of shyster. Most attorneys of that class would have been sitting on
your doorstep all the evening trying to persuade you to stick to your
resolution not to give their client away, and to do the square thing. But he's
done nothing of the sort. Rather decent on the 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 sometimes
committed in thy name!"
But on the steps he stopped and looked back affectionately at the library
window.
"After all, Althea's a good sport!" he remarked to himself.

At or about the same moment a quite dissimilar conference was being held
between Judge Babson and Assistant District Attorney O'Brien in the café
of the Passamaquoddy Club.
"She'll cave!" declared O'Brien, draining his glass. "Holy Mike! No woman
like her is going to stay in jail! Besides, if you don't commit her 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 you aren't afraid of anybody!"
Babson pulled nervously on his cigar.
"Maybe that's so," he said, "but I don't much fancy an appellate court
sustaining me on the law and at the same time roasting hell out of me as a

man!"
"Oh, they won't do that!" protested O'Brien. "How could they? All they're
interested in is the law!"
"I've known those fellows to do queer things sometimes," answered the
learned 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 had
answered to their names, "I hope you feel differently to-day about giving
your testimony. Don't you think that after all it would be more fitting 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 His
Honor patiently. "Originally many people, like yourself, had the mistaken
idea that what they called their honor should be allowed to intervene
between them and their duty. And even the courts sometimes so held. But
that was long ago—in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. To-day the
law wisely recognizes no such thing. Let me read you what Baron Hotham
said, in Hill's Trial in 1777, respecting the testimony of a witness who very
properly told the court what the accused had said to him. It is very clearly
put:
"'The defendant certainly thought him his friend, and he'—the defendant
—'therefore did disclose all this to him. Gentlemen, one has only to say
further that if this point of honor was to be so sacred as that a man who
comes by knowledge of this sort from an offender was not to be at liberty to
disclose it the most atrocious criminals would every day escape
punishment; and therefore it is that the wisdom of the law knows nothing of
that point of honor.'"
Miss Beekman listened politely.

"I am sorry," she replied with dignity. "I shall not change my mind. I refuse
to answer the question, and—and you can do whatever you like with me."
"Do you understand that you are in contempt of this court? Do you intend to
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 room
clapped his hands.
Judge Babson's face grew hard and his eyes narrowed to steel points.
"The witness stands committed for contempt," he announced bitingly. "I
direct that she be confined in the city prison for thirty days and pay a fine of
two hundred and fifty dollars. Madam, you will go with the officer."
Miss Althea rose while the ghost of the Signer encircled her with his arm.
Mr. Tutt was already upon his feet. He knew that the ghost of the Signer
was there.
"May I ask the court if the witness, having been committed for the
contemptuous conduct of which she is obviously guilty, may remain in your
chambers until adjournment, in order that she may arrange her private
affairs?"
"I will grant her that privilege," agreed Judge Babson with internal relief.
"The request is quite reasonable. Captain Phelan, you may take the witness
into my robing room and keep her there for the present."
With her small head erect, her narrow shoulders thrown back, and with a
resolute step as befitted the descendant of a long line of ancestors Miss
Althea passed behind the jury box and disappeared.
The twelve looked at one another dubiously. Both Babson and O'Brien
seemed 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 it
almighty well, you idiot!" he muttered under his breath.

"If that is the people's case I move for the defendant's immediate
discharge," cried Mr. Tutt, jumping to his feet. "There is no evidence
connecting him with the crime."
McGurk, furious, sprang toward the bar.
"See here! Wait a minute! Hold on, judge! I can get a hundred witnesses—"
"Sit down!" shouted one of the officers, thrusting him back. "Keep quiet!"
Babson looked at O'Brien and elevated his forehead. Then as O'Brien gave
a shrug the judge turned to the expectant jury and said in apologetic tones:
"Gentlemen of the jury, where the people have failed to prove the
defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt it is the duty of the court to
direct a verdict. In this case, though by inference the testimony points
strongly toward the prisoner, there is no direct proof against him and I am
accordingly constrained—much as I regret it—to instruct you to return a
verdict of not guilty."
In the confusion which followed the rendition of the verdict a messenger
entered breathlessly and forcing his way through the crowd delivered a
folded paper to Mr. Tutt, who immediately rose and handed it to the clerk;
and that official, having hurriedly perused it and pursed his lips 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 Supreme
Court, and returnable forthwith," whispered Mr. McGuire in an awe-
stricken voice. "I can't disregard that, you know!"
"What!" cried Babson. "How on earth could he have issued a writ in this
space of time? The thing's impossible!"
"If Your Honor please," urbanely explained Mr. Tutt, "as—having known
Miss Beekman's father—I anticipated that the witness would pursue the
course of conduct which, in fact, she has, I prepared the necessary papers
early this morning and as soon as you ordered her into custody my partner,

who was waiting in Judge Winthrop's chambers, presented them to His
Honor, secured his signature and brought the writ here in a taxicab."
Nobody seemed to be any longer interested in O'Connell. The reporters had
left their places and pushed their way into the inclosure before the dais. In
the rear of the room O'Brien was vainly engaged in trying to placate the
Pearl Button Kids, who were loudly swearing vengeance upon both him and
Peckham. It was a scene as nearly turbulent as the old yellow clock had
ever witnessed. Even the court officers abandoned any effort to maintain
order and joined the excited group about Mr. Tutt before the bench.
"Does Your Honor desire that this matter be argued before the Supreme
Court?" inquired Mr. Tutt suavely. "If so I will ask that the prisoner be
paroled in my custody. Judge Winthrop is waiting."
Babson had turned pale. Facing a dozen newspapermen, pencils in hand, he
quailed. To hell with "face." Why, if he went on any longer with the farce
the papers would roast the life out of him. With an apology for a smile that
was, in fact, a ghastly grin, he addressed himself to the waiting group of
jurymen, lawyers and reporters.
"Of course, gentlemen," he said, "I never had any real intention of dealing
harshly with Miss Beekman. Undoubtedly she acted quite honestly and
according to her best lights. She is a very estimable member of society. It
will be unnecessary, Mr. Tutt, for you to argue the writ before Judge
Winthrop. The relator, Althea Beekman, is discharged."
"Thank you, Your Honor!" returned Mr. Tutt, bowing profoundly, and
lowering an eyelid in the direction of the gentlemen of the press. "You are
indeed a wise and upright judge!"
The wise and upright judge rose grandly and gathered his robes about the
judicial legs.
"Good morning, gentlemen," he remarked from his altitude to the reporters.
"Good morning, judge," they replied in chorus. "May we say anything
about the writ?"
Judge Babson paused momentarily in his flight.

"Oh! Perhaps you might as well let the whole thing go," he answered
carelessly. "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 the
gentleman beside him and replied sincerely though breathlessly, "No! You
can search me!"
And "Cap." Phelan, who happened to be setting his watch at just that
instant, affirms that he will make affidavit that the old yellow clock winked
across the room at the Goddess of Justice, and that beneath her bandages
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 a pained
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 the neck—medical students and
phrenologists please note—and habitually wearing an expression of
helpless pathos. Instinctively you felt that you 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 the
gentleman in to Mr. Tutt."
"Thank you, sir," said Mr. Higgleby, and followed Willie.
"Is this Mr. Higgleby?" chirped Tutt as Higgleby entered the adjoining
office. "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—for
putting a client in a properly grateful and hence liberal frame of mind was,
like the method of some physicians, first to scare said client, or patient, out
of his seven senses; second, to admit reluctantly, upon reflection, 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 him with such a flourish of
congratulation upon his escape that he was glad to 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 came in, and those who paid as they went
out.
Therefore upon hearing Mr. Higgleby's announcement as to the nature of
his trouble Tutt registered horror.
"What? What did you say?" he demanded.
"I said," repeated Mr. Higgleby with a shade of annoyance, "'the fact is, I've
been arrested for bigamy.' I don't see any reason for making such a touse
about it," he added plaintively.
"Who's making a—a—a touse about it?" inquired Tutt, perceiving that he
had taken the wrong tack. "I'm not. I was just a little surprised at a man 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—and all that.
Well, cut it! Let's start fair. I am a bigamist!"
Tutt regarded him with obvious curiosity. "You don't say!" he ejaculated,
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 the Tutt-
Tutt treatment, "after all, bigamy isn't so bad! It's only five years at the
worst. Generally it's not more than six months."
"Get wise!" snapped Mr. Higgleby. "I didn't come here to have you throw
cold 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 and looseness
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!" he remarked
peevishly, indicating the ornament. "What good is certification to me? As if
I wanted to pay to make sure I was accused in exact language! 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's desk with a
certain peculiar air of assurance all his own, as if, though surprised and
somewhat annoyed at the grand jury's interference with his private affairs,
he was nevertheless—being captain of his own soul—not particularly
disturbed about the matter.
"And—er—did you marry these two ladies?" inquired Tutt apologetically.
"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 of
Osceola 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 is that
overindulgence in erudition has always been known to have an unfortunate
effect upon the intellectual faculty. Too much wine—though it must have
required an inordinate quantity in certain mendacious periods—was
regarded as provocative of truth; and too many books as clearly put bats in
a man's belfry. The explanation is of course simple enough. If one
overweights the head the whole structure is apt to become unbalanced. This
is the reason why we hold scholars in such light esteem. They are an

unbalanced lot. And after all, why should they get paid more than half the
wage of plumbers or locomotive firemen? What is easier than sitting before
a comfortable steam radiator and reading an etymological dictionary or the
Laws of Hammurabi? They toil not even if their heads spin. Only in
Germany has the pedagogue ever received full meed of gold and of honor—
and look at Germany!
Pedants have never been much considered by men of action. They never
will be. Experience is the only teacher, which, in the language of Amos
Eno, who left two millions to the Institute of Mechanics and Tradesmen, is
"worth a damn." We Americans abhor any affectation of learning; hence our
weakness for slang. I should apologize for the word "weakness." On the
contrary it is a token of our virile independence, our scorn for the
delicatessen of education, mere dilettanteism. And this has its practical side,
for if we don't know how to pronounce the words "evanescent persiflage"
we can call it "bunk" or "rot." We suspect all college graduates. We don't
want them in our business. They slink through our lives like pickpockets
fearful of detection.
What has all this to do with anything? It has to do, dear reader, with Mr.
Caput Magnus, the assistant of the district attorney of the county of New
York, whose duty it was to present the evidence in all criminal cases to the
grand jury and make ready the instruments of torture known as 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's
One Price Tailoring Establishment, and even by those of the glorious days
of Howe & Hummel, by the Nine Gods of Law—and more—Caput Magnus
was a learned savant. He and he alone of all the members of the bar on the
pay roll of the prosecutor's office, housed in their smoke-hung cubicles in
the Criminal Courts Building, knew how to draw up those complicated 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 those accused of crime to be
"simply, clearly and directly" informed of the nature of the offense charged
against them, in order that they may know what to do about it and prepare
their defense.

And while we are on it—and in order that the reader may be fully instructed
and qualified to pursue Tutt & Tutt through their various adventures
hereafter—we may as well add that herein lies one of the pitfalls of crime;
for the simple-minded burglar or embezzler may blithely make way with a
silver service or bundle of bank notes only to find himself floundering,
horse, foot and dragoons, in a quagmire of phraseology from which he
cannot escape, wriggle as he will. Many such a one has thrown up his hands
—and with them silver service, bank notes and all—in horror at what the
grand jury has alleged against him.
Indeed there is a well-authenticated tradition that a certain gentleman of
color who had inadvertently acquired some poultry belonging to another,
when brought to the bar and informed that he theretofore, to wit, in a
specified year of our Lord in the night time of the day aforesaid, the
outhouse of one Jones then and there situate, feloniously, burglariously did
break into and enter with intent to commit a crime therein, to wit, the goods,
chattels and personal property of the said Jones then and there being found,
then and there feloniously and burglariously by force of arms and against
the peace of the people to seize, appropriate and carry away, raised his
voice in anguish and cried:
"Fo de Lawd sake, jedge, Ah didn't do none ob dem tings—all Ah done was
to take a couple ob chickens!"
Thus to annihilate a man by pad and pencil is indeed an art worthy of
admiration. The pen of an indictment clerk is oft mightier than the sword of
a Lionheart, the brain behind the subtle quill far defter than said
swordsman's skill. Moreover, the ingenuity necessary to draft one of these
documents is not confined to its mere successful composition, for having
achieved the miraculous feat of alleging in fourteen ways without
punctuation that the defendant did something, and with a final fanfare of
"saids" and "to wits" inserted his verb where no one will ever find it, the
indicter must then be able to unwind himself, rolling in and out among the
"dids" and "thens" and "theres" until he is once more safely upon the terra
firma of foolscap at the head of the first page.
Mr. Caput Magnus could do it—with the aid of a volume of printed forms
devised in the days of Jeremy Bentham. In fact, like a camel who smells

water afar off, he could in a desert of verbal sand unerringly find an oasis of
meaning. Therefore was Caput Magnus held in high honor among the pack
of human hounds who bayed at the call of Huntsman Peckham's horn.
Others might lose the scent of what it was all about in the tropical jungle of
an indictment eleven pages long, but not he. Like the old dog in Masefield's
"Reynard the Fox," Mr. Magnus would work through ditches full of legal
slime, nose through thorn thickets of confusion, dash through copses and
spinneys of words and phrases, until he snapped close at the heels of
intelligibility. The Honorable Peckham couldn't have drawn an indictment
to save his legal life. Neither could any of the rest. Neither could Caput
without his book of ancient forms—though he didn't let anybody know it.
Shrouded in mystery on a salary of five thousand dollars a year, Caput sat
in the shrine of his inner office producing literature of a clarity equaled only
by that of George Meredith or Mr. Henry James. He was the Great Accuser.
He could call a man a thief in more different ways than any deputy assistant
district attorney known to memory—with the aid of his 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 unendurable to his fellows and insufferable
to Peckham, who would have cheerfully fired him months gone by had he
had a reason or had there been any other legal esoteric to take his place.
Yet pride goeth before a fall. And I am glad of it, for Magnus was a
conceited little ass. This yarn is about the fall of Caput Magnus almost as
much as it is about the uxorious Higgleby, though the two are inextricably
entwined together.

"Mr. Tutt," remarked Tutt after Higgleby's departure, "that new client of
ours is certainly sui generis."
"That's no crime," smiled the senior partner, reaching for the malt-extract
bottle.
"His knowledge of matrimony and the laws governing the domestic
relations is certainly exhaustive—not to say exhausting. I look like a piker
beside him."

"For which," replied Mr. Tutt, "you may well be thankful."
"I am," replied Tutt devoutly. "But you could put what I know about bigamy
in that malt-extract bottle."
"I prefer the present contents!" retorted Mr. Tutt. "Bigamy is a fascinating
crime, involving as it does such complicated subjects as the history of the
institution of marriage, the ecclesiastical or canonical law governing
divorce and annulment, the interesting doctrines of affinity and
consanguinity, suits for alienation of affection and criminal conversation,
the conflict of laws, the White Slave Act—"
"Interstate commerce, so to speak?" suggested Tutt mischievously.
"Condonation, collusion and connivance," continued Mr. Tutt, brushing him
aside, "reinstitution of conjugal rights, the law of feme sole, The Married
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 could know
all about such things. It would take a big lawyer."
"Not at all! Not at all!" soothed Mr. Tutt, sipping his eleven-o'clock
nourishment and fingering for a stogy. "When it comes to divorce one
lawyer knows as much about the law as another. Not even the Supreme
Court is able to tell whether a man and woman are really married or not
without calling in outside assistance."
"Well, who can?" asked Tutt anxiously.
"Nobody," replied his partner with gravity, biting off the end of a last year's
stogy salvaged from the bottom of the letter basket. "Once a man's married
his troubles not only begin but never end."
"By the way," said Tutt, "speaking of this sort of thing, I see that that
Frenchman whom we referred to our Paris correspondent has just been
granted a divorce from his American wife."
"You mean the French diplomat who married the Yankee vaudeville artist in
China?"

"Yes," answered Tutt. "You recall they met in Shanghai and took a flying
trip to Mongolia, where they were married by a Belgian missionary. The
court held that the marriage was invalid, as the French statutes require a
native of that country marrying abroad to have the ceremony performed
either before a French diplomatic official or 'according to the usages of 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, in Mongolia
there are only two methods sanctified by tradition by which a man 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 the
French law," said Tutt. "And he certainly didn't buy her—though he might
have. It appears that in that happy land a wife costs from five camels up;
five camels for a flapper and so on up to thirty or forty camels for an old
widow, who invariably brings the highest quotation."
"In Mongolia age evidently ripens and mellows women as it does wine in
other countries," reflected Mr. Tutt.
"But you can buy some women for five pounds of rice," added Tutt. "Queer
country, isn't it?"
"Not at all!" declared his senior. "Even in America every man pays and pays
and pays for his wife—through the nose!"
Tutt grinned appreciatively.
"However that may be," he ventured, "a man who enters into a marriage
contract—"
"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 a contract
of marriage, don't we?"
"Quite inaccurately. The only contract in a marriage is what we commonly
refer to as the engagement; that is a real contract and is governed by the
laws of contracts. The marriage itself is an entirely different thing. When a
marriage is performed and consummated the parties have changed their
condition; they bear an entirely new relationship to society, which, as
represented by the state, acquires an interest in the transaction, and all you
can say about it is that whereas they were both single before, they are
married now, and that in the eyes of the law their status has been altered to
one as distinct and clearly defined as that which exists between father and
son, guardian and ward or master and slave."
"Hear! Hear!" remarked Tutt. "But I don't see why it isn't a contract—or
very much like one," he persisted.
"It is like one in that its validity, like that of civil contracts generally, is
determined by the law governing the place where it was entered into," went
on Mr. Tutt oracularly, as if addressing the court of appeals. "But it differs
from a contract for the reason that the parties are not free to fix its terms,
which are determined for them by the state; that they cannot modify or
rescind it by mutual consent; that the nature of the marriage status changes
with the state and the laws of the state where the parties happen to be
domiciled; and that damages cannot be recovered for a breach of marital
duty."
"Do you know I never thought of that before," admitted Tutt. "But it's
perfectly true."
"It is to the interest of society to have the relationship orderly and
permanent," continued his partner. "That is why the state is so alert with
regard to divorce proceedings and vigilant to prevent fraud or collusion.
You may say that the state is always a party to every matrimonial action—
even if it is not actually interpleaded—and that such proceedings are
triangular and minus many of the characteristics of the ordinary civil suit."
"I suppose another reason for that is that originally marriage and divorce
were entirely in the hands of the church, weren't they?" ruminated Tutt.

"Exactly. From very early days in England the church claimed jurisdiction
of all matters pertaining to marriage, on the ground that it was a sacrament."
"Did the ecclesiastical courts take the position that all marriages were made
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 been married—but
that left a loophole. When was a marriage not a marriage? Answer: When
the parties were closely enough related by blood or marriage, or either of
them was mentally incapable, under age, victims of duress, fraud, mistake,
previously contracted for, or—already married."
"Ah!" breathed Tutt, thinking of Mr. Higgleby.
"The ecclesiastical law remained without any particular variation until after
the American Revolution and the colonies separated from Great Britain, and
as there was no union of church and state on this side of the water, and so
no church to take control of the subject or ecclesiastical courts to put its
doctrines into effect, for a while there was no divorce law at all over here,
and then one by one the states took the matter up and began to make such
laws about it as each saw 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 in the
time of Moses, of Julius Caesar, and of Edward the Confessor as it is now.
There hasn't been anything approaching the flagrancy of Roman divorce in
modern history."
"Thank heaven there's still enough to pay our office rent—anyhow!" said
Tutt contentedly. "I hope they won't do anything so foolish as to pass a
national divorce law."

"They won't," Mr. Tutt assured him. "Most Congressmen are lawyers and
are not going to take the bread out of their children's mouths. Besides, the
power to regulate the domestic relations of the United States, not being
delegated under the Constitution to the Federal Government, is expressly
retained by the states themselves."
"You've given me a whole lot of ideas," admitted Tutt. "If I get you rightly,
as each state is governed by its own independent laws, the status of married
persons must be governed by the law of the state where they are; otherwise
if every couple on some theory of exterritoriality carried the law of the state
where they happened to have been joined together round with them we
would have the spectacle of every state in the union interpreting the divorce
laws of every other state—confusion worse confounded."
"On the other hand," returned Mr. Tutt, "the law is settled that a marriage
valid when made is valid everywhere; and conversely, if invalid where
made is invalid everywhere—like our Mongolian case. If that were not so
every couple in order to continue legally married would have to go 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 to his
subject, "that as each state has the right to regulate the status of its own
citizens it has jurisdiction to act in a divorce proceeding provided one of the
parties is actually domiciled within its borders. Naturally this action must
be determined by its own laws and not by those of any other state. The great
divergence of these laws makes extraordinary complications."
"Hallelujah!" cried Tutt. "Now, in the words of the psalmist, you've said a
mouthful! I know a man who at one and the same time is legally married to
one woman in England, to another in Nevada, is a bigamist in New York,
and—"
"What else could he be except a widower in Pittsburgh?" pondered the elder
Tutt. "But it's quite possible. There's a case going on now where a woman
in New York City is suing her ex-husband for a divorce on the usual
statutory ground, and naming his present wife as co-respondent, though the

plaintiff herself divorced him ten years ago in Reno, and he married again
immediately after on the strength of it."
"I'm feeling stronger every minute!" exclaimed Tutt. "Surely in all this
bedlam we ought to be able to acquit our new client Mr. Higgleby of the
charge 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 on the
seventeenth of last December here in the city of New York, when he had a
perfectly good wife, whom he had married on the eleventh of the preceding
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—he
happened 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 wonder
why."
"Oh, there's something sort of appealing about him," acknowledged Tutt.
"But he don't look like a bigamist," he concluded. "What does a bigamist
look like?" meditated Mr. Tutt as he lit another stogy.

"Good morning, Mr. Tutt," muttered the Honorable Peckham from behind
the imitation rubber plant in his office, where he was engaged in
surreptitiously consuming an apple. "Um—be with you in a minute. What's
on your mind?"
Mr. Tutt simultaneously removed his stogy with one hand and his stovepipe
with the other.

"I thought we might as well run over my list of cases," he replied. "I can
offer you a plea or two if you wish."
"Do I!" ejaculated the D.A., rolling his eyes heavenward. "Let's hear the
Roll of Honor."
Mr. Tutt placed his hat, bottom side up, on the carpet and lowered himself
into a huge leather armchair, furnished to the county by a political friend of
Mr. Peckham and billed at four hundred per cent of the regular retail price.
Then he reinserted the stogy between his lips and 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 businesslike manner.
"What else you got?"
"Joseph Goldstein—burglary. Will you give him grand larceny in the
second?"
The Honorable Peckham shook his head.
"Sorry I can't oblige you, old top," he said regretfully. "He's called the 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 a bartender."
"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 at sixty-five
dollars up at Monahaka's. The chain's only worth about six-fifty and I can
prove it. Monahaka don't want to go to trial because he knows I'll show him
up for the Oriental flimflammer that he is. But of course she took it. What

do you say? I'll plead her to petty and you give her a suspended sentence?
That's a fair trade."
Peckham pondered.
"Sure," he said finally. "I'm agreeable. Only tell Jennie that next time I'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 to
dismiss 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 Magnus
drew 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 just between 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 old
lawyer. "It's a kind of sumptuary offense. People will marry. And it's good
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 in return?"
asked Peckham. "Of course, bigamy isn't my favorite crime or anything like
that. I'm no bloodhound on matrimonial offenses. How'll you trade?"
"If you'll throw out Higgleby I'll plead Angelo Ferrero to manslaughter,"
announced Mr. Tutt with a grand air of bestowing largess upon an unworthy
recipient.
"Cock-a-doodle-do!" chortled Peckham. "A lot you will! Angelo's halfway
to 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 rid of
Angelo.
"Give you murder in the second," he urged.
"Manslaughter."
"Nothing doing," answered the D.A. definitely. "Your Mr. Higglebigamy'll
have to stand trial."
"Oh, very well!" replied Mr. Tutt, unjointing himself. "We're ready—
whenever you are."
The old lawyer's lank figure had hardly disappeared out of the front office
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. in a
superior manner over the tops of his horn-rimmed spectacles. "Nothing is
the matter with the indictment. I have followed my customary form. It has
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 you try
that indictment yourself."
"Me!" ejaculated Caput in horror. "Why, I never tried a case in my life!"
"Well, 's time you began!" growled the D.A.
"I—I—shouldn't know what to do!" protested Mr. Magnus in agony at the
mere suggestion.
"Where the devil would we be if everybody felt like that?" demanded his
master. "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—do
whatever you say."
"You better!" shouted Peckham after his retreating figure. "You little
blathering 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 deal for a
decent excuse to fire that blooming nincompoop!"
Meantime, as the object of his ire slunk down the corridor darkness
descended upon the soul of Caput Magnus. For Caput was what is known as
an office lawyer and had never gone into court save as an onlooker or—as
he would have phrased it—an amicus curiae. He was a perfect pundit—"a

hellion on law," according to the Honorable Peckham—a strutting little
cock on his own particular dunghill, but, stripped of his goggles, books,
forms and foolscap, as far as his equanimity was concerned he might as
well have been in face, figure and general objectionability. No longer could
he be heard roaring for his stenographer. Instead, those of his colleagues
who paused stealthily outside his door on their way over to Pont's for "five-
o'clock tea" heard dulcet tones floating forth from the transom in varying
fluctuations:
"Ahem! H'm! Gentlemen of the jury—h'm! The defendant is indicted for
the outrageous crime of bigamy! No, that won't do! Gentlemen of the jury,
the defendant is indicted for the crime of bigamy! H'm! The crime of
bigamy is one of those atrocious offenses against the moral law—"
"Oh! Oh!" choked the legal assistants as they embraced themselves wildly.
"Oh! Oh! Caput's practisin'! Just listen to 'im! Ain't he the little cuckoo! Bet
he's takin' lessons in elocution! But won't old Tutt just eat him alive!"
And in the stilly hours of the early dawn those sleeping in tenements and
extensions adjacent to the hall bedroom occupied by Caput were roused by
a trembling voice that sought vainly to imitate the nonchalance of
experience, declaiming: "Gentlemen of the jury, the defendant is indicted
for the crime of bigamy! This offense is one repugnant to the instincts of
civilization and odious to the tenets of religion!" And thereafter they tossed
until breakfast time, bigamy becoming more and more odious to them every
minute.
No form of diet, no physical exercise, no "reducicle" could have achieved
the extraordinary alteration in Mr. Magnus' appearance that was in fact
induced by his anxiety over his prospective prosecution of Higgleby.
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 was obviously on a
decline, caused by sheer funk. Speak sharply to him and he would shy like a
frightened pony. The Honorable Peckham was enraptured, claiming now to
have a system of getting even with people that beat the invention of
Torquemada. When it was represented to him that Caput might die, fade
away entirely, in which case the office would be left without any indictment

clerk, the Honorable Peckham profanely declared that he didn't care a
damn. Caput Magnus was going to try Higgleby, that was all there was to it!
And at last the day came.
Gathered in Judge Russell's courtroom were as many of the office assistants
as could escape from their duties, anxious to officiate at the legal demise of
Caput Magnus. Even the Honorable Peckham could not refrain from having
business there at the call of the calendar. It resembled 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 waiting eagerly 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 his brains. They would rather see Caput Magnus made
mincemeat of than ninety-nine criminals convicted, even were they guilty
of bigamy.
But as yet Caput Magnus was not there. It was ten-twenty-nine. The clerk
was there; Mr. Higgleby, isosceles, flabby and acephalous as ever, was
there; Tutt and Mr. Tutt were there; and Bonnie Doon, and the stenographer
and the jury. And on the front bench the two wives of Higgleby sat, side by
side, so frigidly that had that gentleman possessed the gift of prevision he
would never have married either of them; Mrs. Tomascene Startup
Higgleby and Mrs.—or Miss—Alvina Woodcock (Higgleby)—depending
upon the action of the jury. The entire cast in the eternal matrimonial
triangular drama was there except the judge and the prosecutor in the form
of Caput Magnus.
And then, preceding the judge by half a minute only, his entrance timed
histrionically to the second, he came, like Eudoxia, like a flame out of the
east. In swept Caput Magnus with all the dignity and grace of an Irving
playing Cardinal Wolsey. Haggard, yes; pale, yes; tremulous, perhaps; but
nevertheless glorious in a new cutaway coat, patent-leather shoes, green tie,
a rosebud blushing from his lapel, his hair newly cut and laid down in
beautiful little wavelets with pomatum, his figure erect, his chin in air, a
book beneath his arm, his right hand waving in a delicate gesture of
greeting; for Caput had taken O'Leary's suggestion seriously, and had
purchased that widely known and authoritative work to which so many
eminent barristers owe their entire success—"How to Try a Case"—and in

it he had learned that in order to win the hearts of the jury 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!" bellowed an
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
genially and asked what business there was before the court, and the clerk
told him that they were all there to try a man named Higgleby for bigamy,
and the judge, nodding at Caput, said to go ahead and try him.
In the bottom of his peritoneum Mr. Magnus felt that he carried a cold stone
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 in the crystal tones he
had learned during the last few weeks at Madam Winterbottom's school of
acting and elocution—in syllables chiseled from the stone of eloquence by
the lapidary of culture:
"If Your Honor please, I move the cause of the People of the state of New
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 a legal 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 Henry
sign up with us?"
Mr. Tutt across the inclosure in front of the jury box raised his bushy
eyebrows 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 trying
ordeal 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 of
the bench. Then he stepped to the jury box and cleared his throat. His
official associates held their breath expectantly. Would he—or wouldn't he?
There was a pause.
Then: "Mister Foreman and gentlemen of the jury," declaimed Caput in
flutelike tones: "The defendant is indicted for the crime of bigamy, an
offense alike repugnant to religion, civilization and to the law."
The words flowed from him like a rippling sunlit stream; encircled him like
a necklace of verbal jewels, a rosary, each word a pearl or a bead or
whatever it is. With perfect articulation, enunciation and gesticulation 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 every standard of conduct was utterly
and entirely detestable.
Mr. Higgleby, flanked by Tutt and Mr. Tutt, listened calmly. Caput warmed
to his task.
The said Higgleby, said he, had as aforesaid in the indictment committed
the act of bigamy, to wit, of marriage when he had one legal wife already, in
New York City on the seventeenth of last December, by marrying in Grace
Church Chantry the lady whom they saw sitting by the other lady—he
meant the one with the red feather in her bonnet—that is to say, her hat,
whereas the other lady, as he had said aforesaid, had been 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 you
mean was married to the defendant in New York? You said she was sitting
by the other lady and that you meant the one with the red feather, but you

didn't say whether the one with the red feather was the other lady or the one
you were talking about."
Caput gagged and turned pink.
"I—I—" he stammered. "The lady in the red bonnet is—the—New York
lady."
"You mean she isn't his wife although the defendant went through the form
of marriage with her, because he was already married to another," suggested
His Honor. "You might, I think, put things a little more simply. However, do
it your own way."
"Ye-es, Your Honor."
"Go on."
But Caput was lost—hopelessly. Every vestige of the composure so
laboriously acquired at Madam Winterbottom's salon had evaporated. He
felt as if he were swinging in midair hitched to a scudding aeroplane by a
rope about his middle. The mucous membranes of his throat were as dry
and as full of dust as the entrails of a carpet sweeper. His vision was blurred
and he had no control over his muscles. Weakly he leaned against the table
in front of the jury, the room swaying about him. The pains of hell gat hold
upon him. He was dying. Even the staff felt compunction—all but the
Honorable Peckham.
Judge Russell quickly sensed the situation. He was a kindly man, who had
pulled many an ass out of the mire of confusion. So with a glance at Mr.
Tutt he came to Caput's rescue.
"Let us see, Mr. Magnus," he remarked pleasantly; "suppose you prove the
Illinois 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 chair and
in a faint voice answered the questions relative to her marriage of the

preceding spring as put to her by the judge. Mr. Tutt waved her aside and
Caput Magnus felt returning strength. He had expected and prepared for a
highly technical assault upon the legality of the ceremony performed in
Cook County. He had anticipated every variety and form of question. But
Mr. Tutt put none. He merely smiled benignly upon Caput 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 of
proprietorship in the overmarried defendant, the wife or maiden who in
earlier days had answered to the name of Alvina Woodcock. Though she
was the injured party and though the blame for her unfortunate state rested
entirely upon Higgleby, her resentment seemed less directed toward the
offending male than toward the Chicago lady who was his lawful wife.
There was no question as to the circumstances to which she so definitely
and aggressively testified. No one could gainsay the deplorable fact that she
had, as she supposed, been linked in lawful wedlock to Mr. Tutt's isosceles
client. But there was that in her manner which suggested that she felt that
being the last she should be first, that finding was keeping, and that
possession was nine points of matrimonial law.
And, as before, Mr. Tutt said nothing. Neither he nor Tutt nor Bonnie Doon
nor yet Higgleby showed any the least sign of concern. Caput's
momentarily returning self-possession forsook him. What portended his
ominous silence? Had he made some horrible mistake? Had he overlooked
some important jurisdictional fact? Was he now to be hoist for some
unknown 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 any
defense in this case? If not, why don't you plead guilty and let me dispose
of the matter?"
"But, Your Honor," protested Mr. Tutt, "of course I have a defense—and a
most excellent one!"
"You have?"
"Certainly."
The judged elevated his forehead.
"Very well," he remarked; "if you really have one you had better go on with
it. And," he added beneath his breath, but in a tone clearly audible 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, is
charged in this indictment with the crime of bigamy committed here in New
York, in marrying Alvina Woodcock—the strong-minded lady on the front
row of benches there—when he already had a lawful wife living in
Chicago. The indictment alleges no other offense and the district attorney
has not sought to prove any, my learned and eloquent adversary, Mr.
Magnus, having a proper regard for the constitutional rights of every
unfortunate whom he brings to the bar of justice. If therefore I can prove to
you that Mr. Higgleby was never lawfully married to Tomascene Startup in
Chicago on the eleventh of last May or at any other time, the allegation of
bigamy falls to the ground; at any rate so far as this indictment is
concerned. For unless the indictment sets forth a valid prior marriage it is
obvious that the subsequent marriage cannot be bigamous. Am I clear? I
perceive by your very intelligent facial expressions that I am. Well, my
friends, Mr. Higgleby never was lawfully married to Tomascene Startup last
May in Chicago, and you will therefore be obliged to acquit him! Come
here, Mr. Smithers."

Caput Magnus suddenly experienced the throes of dissolution. Who was
Smithers? What could old Tutt be driving at? But Smithers—evidently the
Reverend Sanctimonious Smithers—was already placidly seated in the
witness chair, his limp hands folded across his stomach and his thin nose
looking interrogatively toward Mr. Tutt.
"What is your name?" asked the lawyer dramatically.
"My name is Oswald Garrison Smithers," replied the reverend gentleman in
Canton-flannel accents, "and I reside in Pantuck, Iowa, where I am pastor
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 Pellatiah Higgins. Sarah
Maria Higgins was the lady's name, and she is alive and well at the present
time."
He gazed deprecatingly at the jury. If meekness had efficacy he would have
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 lawfully
married to a lady in Iowa when he married Miss—or Mrs.—Startup in
Chicago 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 bigamy unless you
recite a legal marriage followed by an illegal one. Therefore, since the
indictment fails to set forth a legal marriage anywhere followed by a
marriage, legal or otherwise, in New York County, it recites no crime, and
my client must be acquitted. Is not that the law, 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. "I will
do whatever talking is necessary. A little more care in the preparation of the
indictment might have rendered this rather absurd situation impossible. As
it is, I must direct an acquittal. The defendant is discharged upon this
indictment. But I will hold him in bail 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. "Your client
seems to have loved not wisely but too well." And they all poured out
happily into the corridor—that is, all of them except Caput and the two
ladies, who remained seated upon their bench gazing fiercely and
disdainfully 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 Startup with
her nose in the air.
Then instinctively they both turned and with one accord looked
malevolently at Caput, who, seeing in their glance something which he did
not like, slipped stealthily from his chair and out of the room, leaving
ignominiously behind him upon the floor his precious volume entitled
"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 hanging his
antediluvian stovepipe on the hat-tree in the corner, "I see by the morning
paper that Payson Clifford has departed this life."
"You don't say!" replied the junior Tutt, glancing up from the letter he was
writing. "Which one,—Payson, Senior, or Payson, Junior?"
"Payson, Senior," answered Mr. Tutt as he snipped off the end of a stogy
with the pair of nail scissors which he always carried in his vest pocket.
"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. "I don't say
the father was so much of a much, either. Payson Clifford was a good
fellow—even if he wasn't our First Citizen—or likely to be a candidate for
that position in the Hereafter. But that boy—"
"Shh!" reproved Mr. Tutt, slowly shaking his head so that the smoke from
his 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 young man
who had been carefully prepared for the changes and chances of this mortal
life first at a Fifth Avenue day school in New York City, afterwards at a
select boarding school among the rock-ribbed hills of the Granite State, and
finally at Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the cultured atmosphere of Harvard
College, through whose precincts, in the dim, almost forgotten past, we are
urged to believe that the good and the great trod musingly in their beautiful

prime. He emerged with a perhaps almost prudish distaste for the ugly, the
vulgar, and the unclean,—and with distinct delusions of grandeur. He was
still in that state not badly described by the old saw—"You can always tell a
Harvard man,—but you can't tell him much."
His mother had died when he was still a child and he preserved her memory
as the most sacred treasure of his inner shrine. He could just recall her as a
gentle and dignified presence, in contrast with whom his burly, loud-voiced
father had always seemed crass and ordinary. And although it was that same
father who had, for as long as he could remember, supplied him with a
substantial check upon the first day of every month and thus enabled him to
achieve that exalted state of intellectual and spiritual superiority which he
had in fact attained, nevertheless, putting it frankly in the vernacular,
Payson rather looked down on the old man, who palpably suffered from
lack of the advantages which he had furnished to his son.
Payson, Sr., had never taken any particular pains to alter his son's opinion of
himself. On the whole he was more proud of him than otherwise,
recognizing that while he obviously suffered from an overdevelopment of
the ego and an excessive fastidiousness in dress, he was, at bottom, clearly
all right and a good sort. Still, he was forced to confess that there wasn't
much between them. His son expressed the same thought by regretting that
his father "did not speak his language."
So, in the winter vacation when Payson, Sr., fagged from his long day at the
office sought the "Frolics" or the "Folies," Payson, Jr., might be seen at a
concert for the harpsichord and viola, or at an evening of Palestrina or the
Earlier Gregorian Chants. Had he been less supercilious about it this story
would never have been written—and doubtless no great loss at that. But it is
the prerogative of youth to be arrogantly merciless in its judgment of the
old. Its bright lexicon has no verdict "with mitigating circumstances." Youth
is just when it is right; 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 white
whiskered old boys who like tobacco, crab flakes, light wines and musical
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 priggishness Payson, Sr., up

and died, and Tutt and Mr. Tutt were called upon to administer his estate.
There may be concealed somewhere a few rare human beings who can look
back upon their treatment of their parents with honest satisfaction. I have
never met any. It is the fate of those who bring others into the world to be
chided for their manners, abused for their mistakes, and pilloried for their
faults. Twenty years difference in age turns many an elegance into a
barbarism; many a virtue into a vice-versa. I do not perform at breakfast for
the edification of my offspring upon the mustache cup, but I chew my
strawberry seeds, which they claim is worse. My grandpapa and
grandmama used to pour the coffee from their cups and drink it from their
saucers and they were—nevertheless—rated AA1 in Boston's Back Bay
Blue Book. And now my daughters, who smoke cigarettes, object loudly to
my pipe smoke! Autre temps autres manières. And no man is a hero to his
children. He has a hanged-sight more chance with his valet—if in these
days he can afford to keep one.
His father's death was a shock to Payson, Jr., because he had not supposed
that people in active business like that ever did die,—they "retired" instead,
and after a discreet period of semi-seclusion gradually disintegrated by
appropriate stages. But Payson, Sr., simply died right in the middle of
everything—without any chance of a spiritual understanding
—"reconciliation" would be inaccurate—with his son. So, Payson, Jr.,
protestingly acquired by part cash and balance credit a complete suit of
what he scathingly described as "the barbarous panoply 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 was
fundamentally, as his father had perceived, good stuff, and wanted to do the
right thing. But what is the right thing? Really it isn't half as hard to be
good as to know how.
As the orphaned Payson, ensconced in lonely state in one of the funeral
hacks, was carried at a fast trot down Broadway towards the offices of Tutt
& Tutt, he consoled himself for his loss with the reflection that this was,
probably, the last time he would ever have to see any of his relatives. Never
in his short life had he been face to face with such a gathering of

unattractive human beings. He hadn't imagined that such people existed.
They oughtn't to exist. The earth should be a lovely place, its real estate
occupied only by cultured and lovely people. These aesthetic considerations
reminded him with a shock that, just as he had been an utter stranger to
them, so he had been a stranger to his father—his poor, old, widowed father.
What did he really know about him?—not one thing! And he had never
tried to find out anything about him,—about his friends, his thoughts, his
manner of life,—content merely to cash his checks, under the unconscious
assumption that the man who drew them ought to be equally content to be
the father of such a youth as himself. But those rusty relatives! They must
have been his father's! Certainly his mother's wouldn't have been like that,
—and he felt confident he took after his mother. Still, those relatives
worried him! Up at Harvard he had stood rather grandly on his name
—"Payson Clifford, Jr.,"—with no questions asked about the "Senior" or
anybody else. He now perceived that he was to be thrown out into the world
of fact where who and what his father had been might make a lot of
difference. Rather anxiously he hoped the old gentleman would turn out to
have been all right;—and would have left enough of an estate so that he
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, and it is
more than doubtful whether, even if he had tried, he could have correctly
made out the inventory of an estate for filing in the Surrogate's Court. For
be it known that, while the senior member of the firm was long on the
philosophy of the law and the subtleties of "restraints on alienation,"
"powers," "perpetuities" and the mysteries of "the next eventual estate," he
was frankly short on the patience to add and subtract. So while Mr. Tutt
drew their clients' wills, it was Tutt who attempted to probate and execute
them. Then, if by any chance, there was any trouble or some ungrateful
relative thought he hadn't got enough, it was Mr. Tutt who reluctantly tossed
away his stogy, strolled over to court and defended the will which he had
drawn,—usually with success.
So it was the lesser Tutt who wrung the hand of Payson Clifford and gave
him the leathern armchair by the window.

"And now about the will!" chirped Tutt, as after a labored encomium upon
the virtues of Payson, Senior, deceased, he took the liberty of lighting a
cigarette before he commenced to read the instrument which lay in a brown
envelope upon the desk before him. "And now about the will! I suppose you
are already aware that your father has made you his executor and, after a
few minor legacies, the residuary legatee of his entire estate?"
Payson shook his head mutely. He felt it more becoming to pretend to be
ignorant of these things under the circumstances.
"Yes," continued Tutt cheerfully, taking up the envelope, "Mr. Tutt drew the
will—nearly fifteen years ago—and your father never thought necessary to
change it. It's lain right there in our 'Will Box' without being disturbed more
than once,—and that was seven or eight years ago when he came in one day
and asked to be allowed to look at it,—I think he put an envelope
containing a letter in with it. I found one there the other 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," answered Tutt.
"But the transfer tax will not be heavy, and the legacies do not aggregate
more than ten thousand."
The instrument was a short one,—drawn with all Mr. Tutt's ability for
compression—and filling only a single sheet. Payson's father had
bequeathed seventy-six hundred dollars to his three cousins and their
children, and everything else he had left to his son. Payson rapidly
computed that after settling the bills against the estate, including that of Tutt
& Tutt, he would probably get at least sixty thousand out of it. At the
current rate he would continue to be quite comfortable,—more so in fact
than heretofore. Still, it was less than he had expected. Perhaps his father
had had expensive habits.
"Here's the letter," went on Tutt, handing it to Payson who took out his pen-
knife to open it the more neatly. "Probably a suggestion as to the disposal 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 corner
with a wood cut showing a stout goddess in a night dress, evidently meant
for Proserpina—pouring a Niagara of grain out of a cornucopia of plenty
over a farmland stacked high with apples, corn, and pumpkins, and flooded
by the beams of a rising sun with a real face. Beneath were the words:

"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 coarse vulgarity.
And "Weng"! Whoever heard of such a name? He certainly had not,—
hadn't even known that his father had a partner with such an absurd
cognomen! "—& Weng!" There was something terribly plebeian about it.
As well as about the obvious desire for symmetry which had led to the
addition of that superfluous "N.Y." below the entirely adequate "N.Y. City."
But, of course, he'd be glad to do anything his father requested 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 top was a
replica of the wood cut upon the outside, only minus the "If not delivered in
five days return to." Then Payson read in his father's customary bold scrawl
the simple inscription, doomed to haunt him sleeping 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 the son's
hand. "My dear friend Sadie Burch!" He choked back the exclamation of
surprise that rose unconsciously to his lips and endeavored to suppress any
facial evidence of his inner feelings. "Twenty-five thousand!" Then he held
out the letter more or less casually to Tutt.

"Wee-e-ll!" whistled the lawyer softly, with a quick glance from under his
eyebrows.
"Oh, it isn't the money!" remarked Payson in a sickly tone—although of
course he was lying. It was the money.
The idea of surrendering nearly half his father's estate to a stranger
staggered him; yet to his eternal credit, in that first instant of bewildered
agony no thought of disregarding his father's wishes entered his 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 need to pay
any attention to it."
"Do you really mean that that paper hasn't any legal effect?" exclaimed the
boy with such a reaction of relief that for the moment the ethical aspect 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 own
handwriting."
"That doesn't make any difference," declared the lawyer. "Not being
witnessed in the manner required by law it's not of the slightest
significance."
"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 being
probated."
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 own hand and
practically attached to his will. Now, apart from any—er—moral question
involved, just why isn't this letter binding on me?"

Tutt smiled leniently.
"Have a cigarette?" he asked, and when Payson took one, he added
sympathetically as he held a match for him, "Your attitude, my dear sir,
does you credit. It is wholly right and natural that you should instinctively
desire to uphold that which on its face appears to be a wish of your father.
But all the same that letter isn't worth the paper it's written on—as matter of
law."
"But why not?" demanded Payson. "What better evidence could the courts
desire of the wishes of a testator than such a letter?"
"The reason is simple enough!" replied Tutt, settling himself in a
comfortable position. "In the eye of the law no property is ever without an
owner. It is always owned by somebody, although the ownership may be in
dispute. When a man dies his real property instantly passes to his heirs and
his personal property descends in accordance to the local statute of
distributions or, if there isn't any, to his next of kin; but if he leaves a will,
to the extent to which it is valid, it diverts the property from its natural legal
destination. Thus, in effect, the real purpose of a will is to prevent the laws
operating on one's estate after death. If your father had died intestate, you
would have instantly become, in contemplation of law, the owner of all his
property. His will—his legal will—deprives you of a small part of it for the
benefit of others. But the law is exceedingly careful about recognizing such
an intention of a testator to prevent the operation of the statutes and requires
him to demonstrate the sincerity and fixity of that intention by going
through various established formalities, such as putting his intention in due
form in a written instrument which he must sign and declare to be his last
will before a certain number of competent witnesses whom he requests to
sign as such and who actually do sign as such in his presence and in the
presence of each other. Your father obviously did none of these things when
he placed this letter with his will."
"But isn't a letter ever enough—under any circumstances?" inquired
Payson.
"Well," said Tutt. "It is true that under certain exceptional circumstances 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 in
extremis—that is, actually in fear of death—and under our statutes limited
to soldiers in active military service or to mariners at sea. Under the old
common law it was just as effective to pass personal estate as a written
instrument."
"But father wasn't either a soldier or a sailor," commented Payson, "and
anyhow a letter isn't an oral will; if it's anything at all, it's a written one,
isn't it?"
"That is the attitude the law takes," nodded Tutt. "Of course, one could
argue that it made no difference whether a man uttered his wishes orally in
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 that a will
reduced to writing and signed by the testator, or a memorandum of
instructions 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 to the
sickness of the testator to be treated as a nuncupative will; but upon
requisite proof—in a proper case—a paper, not perfected as a written will,
may be established as a nuncupative will when its completion is prevented
by act of God, or any other cause than an intention to abandon or postpone
its consummation. The presumption of the law is against validity of a
testamentary paper not completed. There must be in the testator the animus
testandi, which is sometimes presumed from circumstances in such cases
and in such places as nuncupative wills are recognized. Now, your father
being as you point out, neither a soldier nor a sailor, couldn't have made a
nuncupative will under any circumstances, even if a letter would legally be
treated as such a will instead of as an ineffectual attempt to make a written
one—upon which point I confess myself ignorant. Therefore"—and he
tossed away his cigarette butt with an air of finality—"this letter
bequeathing twenty-five thousand dollars to Sadie Burch—whoever and
whatever she may be—is either an attempt to make a will or a codicil to a
will in a way not recognized by the statute, or it is an attempt to add to, alter
or vary a will already properly executed and witnessed by arbitrarily
affixing to or placing within it an extraneous written paper."

"Well," commented Payson, "I understand what you've said about nun—
nuncupative wills, all right,—that is, I think I do. But leaving them out of
consideration I still don't see why this letter can't be regarded as part of the
original will."
"For the reason that when your father executed the original document he
went through every form required by the statute for making a will. If he
hadn't, it wouldn't have been a will at all. If this paper, which never was
witnessed by a single person, could be treated as a supplement or addition
to the will, there would have been no use requiring the original will to be
witnessed, either."
"That seems logical," agreed Payson. "But isn't it often customary to
incorporate 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 or executed after
a will was made as part of it, for that would render the requirements of the
statute nugatory."
"But suppose the letter was already in existence or was written at the same
time as the will,—wouldn't that make a difference?" hesitated Payson.
"Not a bit! Not one bit!" chirped Tutt. "The law is settled that such a paper
writing can be given effect only under certain very special conditions and
only to a limited extent. Anyhow that question doesn't arise here."
"Why not?" queried the residuary legatee. "How do you know this letter
wasn't written and placed inside the will when it was made?—And that my
father supposed that of course it would be given effect?"
"In that case why shouldn't he have incorporated the legacy in the will?"
countered Tutt sharply.
"He—er—may not have wished Mr. Tutt to know about it," murmured
Payson, dropping his eyes.
"Oh,—hardly!" protested Tutt. "We can be morally certain that this letter
was written and placed with the will that time your father came in here and
asked to be allowed to see it, seven odd years ago. Mr. Tutt would have

noticed it if your father had placed it with the will in the first instance and
would have warned him that nothing of the sort could possibly be
effective."
"But," insisted Payson, "assuming for argument's sake that this letter was in
fact written at the time the will was originally executed, what is 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 part of a
will—even if extant at the time the will was executed—unless distinctly
referred to in the will itself. In a word, there must be a clear and
unmistakable intention on the part of the testator to attempt to incorporate
the extraneous paper by reference. Now, here, there is no reference 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 in this
state that where a testator—either through carelessness or a desire to
economize space or effort, has referred in his will to extraneous papers or
memoranda, either as fixing the names of beneficiaries of particular devises
or bequests, or as fixing the amount or the manner in which the amount of
such devises or bequests is to be ascertained, such a paper must not contain
any testamentary disposition of 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 how referred to. For example, if A wills to B 'all the stock covered by
my agreement of May 1, with X' it merely describes and identifies the thing
bequeathed,—and that is all right. The law will give effect to the identifying
agreement, although it is separate from the will and unattested. But, if A's
will read 'and I give such further bequests as appear in a paper filed
herewith' and the paper contained a bequest to B of 'all the stock covered by
my agreement of May 1, with X' it would be an attempted bequest outside
of the will and so have no legal effect."
"Thanks," said Payson. "I understand. So in no event whatever could this
letter have any legal effect?"

"Absolutely none whatever!—You're perfectly safe!" And Tutt leaned back
with a comfortable smile.
But Payson did not smile in return. Neither was he comfortable. Be it said
for him that, however many kinds of a fool he may have been, while
momentarily relieved at knowing that he had no legal obligation to carry
out his father's wishes so far as Sadie Burch was concerned, his conscience
was by no means easy and he had not liked at all the tone in which the
paunchy little lawyer had used the phrase "you're perfectly safe."
"What do you mean by 'perfectly safe'," he inquired rather coldly.
"Why, that Sadie Burch could never make you pay her the legacy—because
it isn't a legal legacy. You can safely keep it. It's yours, legally and morally."
"Well, is it?" asked Payson slowly. "Morally, isn't it my duty to pay over the
money, no matter who she is?"
Tutt, who had tilted backward in his swivel chair, brought both his feet to
the floor with a bang.
"Of course it isn't!" he cried. "You'd be crazy to pay the slightest attention
to any such vague and unexplained scrawl. Listen, young man! In the first
place you haven't any idea when your father wrote that paper—except that
it was at least seven years ago. He may have changed his mind a dozen
times since he wrote it. It may have been a mere passing whim or fancy,
done in a moment of weakness or emotion or temporary 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't go into that! But, the first
proposition is that in no event is it possible for you to say that the request in
that letter was the actual wish of your father at the time of his death. All you
can say is that at some 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 father took
the trouble to retain a lawyer to have his will properly drawn and executed
he must have known first, that it was necessary to do so in order to have his
wishes carried out, and second, that no wish not properly incorporated in

the will itself could have any legal effect. In other words, inferentially, he
knew that this paper had no force and therefore it must be assumed that if
he made it that way he intended that it should have no legal effect and did
not intend that it should be carried out. Get me?"
"Why, yes, I think I do. Your point is that if a man knows the law and does a
thing so it has no legal effect he should be assumed to intend that it have no
legal effect."
"Exactly," Tutt nodded with satisfaction. "The law is wise, based on
generations of experience. It realizes the uncertainties, vagaries, and
vacillations of the human mind—and the opportunities afforded to
designing people to take advantage of the momentary weaknesses of others
—and hence to prevent fraud and insure that only the actual final wishes of
a man shall be carried out it requires that those wishes shall be 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 executors
usually do under such circumstances?"
"If they have sense they leave matters alone and let the law take its course,"
answered Tutt with conviction. "I've known of more trouble—! Several
instances right here in this office. A widow found a paper with her
husband's will expressing a wish that a certain amount of money should be
given to a married woman living out in Duluth. There was nothing to
indicate when the paper was written, although the will was executed only a
month before he died. Apparently the deceased hadn't seen the lady in
question for years. I told her to forget it, but nothing would suit her but that
she should send the woman a money order for the full amount—ten
thousand dollars. She kept it, all right! Well, the widow found out
afterwards that her husband had written that paper thirty years before at a
time when he was engaged to be married to that woman, that they had
changed their minds and each had married happily and 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 should have been. You know, it's
astonishing, the junk people keep in their safe deposit boxes! I'll bet that
ninety-nine out of a hundred are half full of valueless and useless stuff, like

old watches, grandpa's jet cuff buttons, the letters Uncle William wrote
from the Holy Land, outlawed fire insurance and correspondence that
nobody will ever read,—everything always gets mixed up together,—and
yet every paper a man 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 to express a wish in writing. It would be most dangerous to
pay attention to it. Suppose it was not in writing. Morally, a wish is just as
binding if spoken as if incorporated in a letter. Would you waste any time
on Sadie Burch if she came in here and told you that your father had
expressed the desire that she should have twenty-five thousand dollars? 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 any other than
yourself were the residuary legatee. You'd have no right to take twenty-five
thousand dollars out of the estate and give it to Miss Burch at the expense
of anybody else!"
"Then you say the law won't let me pay this money to Sadie Burch whether
I am willing to or not?" asked Payson.
"Not as executor. As executor you're absolutely obliged to carry out the
terms of the will and disregard anything else. You must preserve the estate
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 residuary
legatee!" 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't borrow
trouble! Don't—if you'll pardon my saying so—be an idiot!"
There was silence for several minutes, finally broken by the lawyer who
came back again to the charge with renewed vigor.

"Why, this sort of thing comes up all the time. Take this sort of a case, for
instance. The law only lets a man will away a certain proportion of his
property to charity—says it isn't right for him to do so, if he leaves a family.
Now suppose your father had given all his property to charity, would you
feel obliged to impoverish yourself for the benefit of a Home for Aged
Mariners?"
"Really," replied the bewildered Payson. "I don't know. But anyway I'm
satisfied you're quite right and I'm tremendously obliged. However," he
added 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 try to
find out!"
Mr. Payson Clifford left the offices of Tutt & Tutt more recalcitrant against
fate and irritated with his family than when he had entered them. He had
found himself much less comfortably provided for than he had expected,
and the unpleasant impression created by the supposed paternal relatives at
his father's funeral had been heightened by the letter regarding Sadie Burch.
There was something even more offensively plebeian about them than that
of the vulgar Weng. It would have been bad enough to have had to consider
the propriety of paying over a large sum to a lady calling herself by an
elegant or at least debonair name like Claire Desmond or Lillian Lamar,—
but Sadie! And Burch! Ye gods! It was ignoble, 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 confessed that
his reflections upon that father's memory were far from filial. He told
himself that he'd always suspected something furtive about the old man,
who must have been under most unusual and extraordinary obligations to a
woman to whom he desired his son to turn over twenty-five thousand
dollars. It was pretty nearly half of his entire fortune! Would cut down his
income from around four thousand to nearly two thousand! The more he
pondered upon the matter the more the lawyer's arguments seemed
absolutely convincing. Lawyers knew more than other people about such
things, anyway. You paid them for their advice, and he would doubtless
have to pay Tutt for his upon this very subject, which, somehow, seemed to
be rather a good reason for following it. No, he would dismiss Sadie Burch

and the letter forever from his mind. Very likely she was dead anyway,
whoever she was. Four thousand a year! Not a bad income for a bachelor!
And while our innocent young Launcelot trudging uptown hardened his
heart against Sadie Burch, by chance that lady figured in a short but
poignant conversation between Mr. Ephraim Tutt and Miss Minerva Wiggin
on 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 an excuse
to linger on after the others had gone home and waylay him. Such
encounters were by no means infrequent and usually had a bearing upon the
ethical aspect of some proposed course of legal procedure on the part of the
firm.
Miss Minerva regarded Samuel Tutt as morally an abandoned and hopeless
creature. Mr. Ephraim Tutt she loved with a devotion rare among a sex with
whom devotion is happily a common trait, but there was a maternal quality
in her affection accounted for by the fact that although Mr. Tutt was, to be
sure, an old man in years, he had occasionally an elfin, Puck-like perversity
which was singularly boyish, at which times she felt it obligatory for her
own self-respect to call him to order. Thus, whenever Tutt seemed to be
incubating some evasion of law which seemed more subtly plausible than
ordinary she made it a point to call it to Mr. Tutt's attention. Also, whenever,
as in the present case, she felt that by following the advice given by the
junior member of the firm a client was about to embark upon some dubious
enterprise or questionable course of conduct she endeavored to counteract
his influence by appealing to the head of the firm.
During the interview between Tutt and Payson Clifford the door had been
open and she had heard all of it; moreover, after Payson had gone away Tutt
had called her in and gone over the situation with her. And she regarded
Tutt's advice to his client,—not the purely legal aspect of it, but the personal
and persuasive part of it,—as an interference with that young gentleman's
freedom of conscience.
"Dear me!—I didn't know you were still here, Minerva!" exclaimed her
employer as she confronted him in the outer office. "Is anything worrying
you?"

"Not dangerously!" she replied with a smile. "And perhaps it's none of my
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 and legs
of the firm and I may be some other portion of its anatomy, but you are its
heart and its conscience. Out with it! What rascality portends? What bird of
evil omen hovers above the offices of Tutt & Tutt? Spare not an old man
bowed down with the sorrows of this world! Has my shrewd associate
counseled the robbing of a bank or the kidnapping from a widowed 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 young man not to
carry out his father's wishes—expressed in a legally ineffective way—and I
think he succeeded—although I'm not quite sure."
"That must have been Payson Clifford," answered Mr. Tutt. "What were the
paternal wishes?"
"Mr. Tutt found a letter with the will in which the father asked the son to
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, our responsibility
stops with advising Mr. Payson Clifford that the letter has no legal effect.
Mr. Tutt went further and tried to induce Mr. Clifford not to respect the
request contained in it. That, it seems to me, 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 Miss
Wiggin 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 while a lawyer is
sometimes called upon to bolster up a guilty conscience, rarely is he
sincerely invited to act as spiritual adviser. Most men being worse than their
lawyers, prefer not to have the latter find them out. If they have made up
their minds to do a mean thing they do not wish to run the chance of having
their lawyer shame them out of it. That is their own business. And it should
be! The law presents sufficiently perplexing problems for the lawyer
without his seeking trouble in the dubious complexities of his client's
morals! Anyhow, that is the regulation way a lawyer looks at it and that is
the way to hold one's clients. 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 follow your advice in this single instance he probably will not return
again.
The paradoxical aspect of the matter with Mr. Tutt was that while he was
known as a criminal lawyer whenever he was asked for advice he
concerned himself quite as much with his client's moral as his legal duty.
The rather subtle reason for this was probably to be found in the fact that
since he found the law so easy to circumvent he preferred to disregard it
entirely as a sanction of conduct and merely to ask himself "Now is this
what a sportsman and a gentleman would do?" The fact that a man was a
technical criminal meant nothing to him at all; what interested him was
whether the man was or was not a "mean" man. If he was, to hell with him!
In a word, he applied to any given situation the law as it ought to be 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 laws upon the same
subject in as many different states of our political union, but how many
differing points of view upon any single moral question would you find
among as many citizens? The moral code of decent people is practically the

same all over the terrestrial ball, and fundamentally it has not changed since
the days of Hammurabi. The ideas of gentlemen and sportsmen as to what
"is done" and "isn't done" haven't changed since Fabius Tullius caught snipe
in the Pontine marshes.
Mr. Tutt was a crank on this general subject and he carried his enthusiasm
so far that he was always tilting like Don Quixote at some imaginary
windmill, dragging a very unwilling Sancho Panza after him in the form of
his reluctant partner. Moreover, he had a very keen sympathy for all kinds
of outcasts, deeming most of them victims of the sins of their own or
somebody's else fathers. So when he learned from Miss Wiggin that Tutt
had presumed to interfere with the financial prospects of the unknown Miss
Sadie Burch he was distinctly aggrieved, less on her account to be sure than
upon that of his client's whom he regarded more or less in his keeping. And,
as luck would have it, the object of his grievance, having forgotten
something, at that moment unexpectedly reentered the office to retrieve it.
"Hello, Mr. Tutt!" he exclaimed. "Not gone yet!"
His senior partner glanced at him sharply, while Miss Wiggin hastily
sidestepped into the corridor.
"Look here, Tutt!" said Mr. Tutt. "I don't know just what you've been telling
young Clifford, or how you've been interfering in his private affairs, but if
you've been persuading him to disregard any wish of his father plainly
expressed in his own handwriting and incorporated with his will you've
gone further than you've any right to go."
"But," expostulated Tutt, "you know how dangerous it is to meddle with
things like that. Our experience certainly shows that it's far wiser to let the
law settle all doubtful questions than to try to guess what the final
testamentary intention of a dead testator really was. Don't you remember
the Dodworth case? A hypersensitive conscience cost our widowed client
ten thousand dollars! I say, leave well enough alone."
"'Well enough'! 'Well enough'!" snarled Mr. Tutt. "Are you going to
constitute yourself the judge of what is well enough for a young man's soul?
I give you fair warning, Tutt: he's heard your side of it, but before 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 mentioned further,
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 mind and he
was going to stick to it. He had taken the opinion of counsel and was fully
satisfied with what he had done. Nobody was going to know anything about
it, anyway. When the proper time came he would burn the Sadie Burch
letter and forget Sadie Burch. That is, he thought he was going to and that
he could. But—as Plautus says: "Nihil est miserius quam animus hominis
conscius."
You see, Payson Clifford, having been sent to a decent school and a decent
college, irrespective of whether his father was a rotter or not, had imbibed
something of a sense of honor. Struggle as he would against it, the shadow
of Sadie Burch kept creeping athwart his mind. There were so many
possibilities! Suppose she was in desperate straits? Hadn't he better look her
up, anyhow? No, he most definitely didn't want to know anything about
her! Supposing she really had rendered some service to his father for which
she ought to be repaid as he had sought to repay her? These thoughts
obtruded themselves upon Payson's attention when he least desired it, but
they did not cause him to alter his intention to get his hooks into his father's
whole residuary estate and keep it for himself. He had, you observe, a
conscience, but it couldn't stand up against twenty-five thousand dollars
reinforced by perfectly sound legal arguments.
No, he had a good excuse for not being a gentleman and a sportsman and he
did not purpose to look for any reasons for doing differently. Then
unexpectedly he was invited to dinner by Mr. Ephraim Tutt in a funny old
ramshackle house on West Twenty-third Street with ornamented iron piazza
railings all covered with the withered stalks of long dead wistarias, and
something happened to him. "Payson Clifford's Twenty-five Thousand
Dollar Dinner." He had no suspicion, of course, what was coming to him
when he went there,—went, merely because Mr. Tutt was one of the very
few friends of his father that he knew. And he held towards the old lawyer

rather the same sort of patronizing attitude that he had had towards the old
man. It would be a rotten dinner probably followed by a deadly dull
evening with a snuffy old fossil who would tell him long-winded, rambling
anecdotes of what New York had been like when there were wild goats in
Central Park.
The snuffy old fossil, however, made no reference whatever to either old
New 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 library wall and
disclosing three long bottles, from which he partially filled a shining silver
receptacle containing cracked ice. This he shook with astonishing skill and
vigor, meantime uttering loud outcries of "Miranda! Fetch up the mint!"
Then a buxom colored lady in calico—with a grin like that which made
Aunt Sallie famous—having appeared, panting, with two large glasses and a
bundle of green herbage upon a silver salver, the old fossil poured out a
seething decoction—of which like only the memory remains—performed
an incantation over each glass with the odoriferous greens, smiled fondly
upon the work of his hands and remarked with amiable hospitality, "Well,
my son! Glad to see you!—Here's how!"
Almost immediately a benign animal magnetism pervaded the bosom of
Payson Clifford, and from his bosom reached out through his arteries and
veins, his arterioles and venioles, to the uttermost ends of his being. He
perceived in an instant that Mr. Tutt was no ordinary man and his house no
ordinary house; and this impression was intensified when, seated at his
host's shining mahogany table with its heavy cut glass and queer old silver,
he discovered that Miranda was no ordinary cook. He began to be inflated
over having discovered this Mr. Tutt, who pressed succulent oysters and
terrapin stew upon him, accompanied by a foaming bottle of Krug '98. He
found himself possessed of an astounding appetite and a prodigious thirst.
The gas lights in the old bronze chandelier shone like a galaxy of radiant
suns above his head and warmed him through and through. And after the
terrapin Miranda brought in a smoking wild turkey with two quail roasted
inside of it, and served with currant jelly, rice cakes, and sweet potatoes
fried in melted sugar. Then, as in a dream, he heard a soul-satisfying pop
and Miranda placed a tall, amber glass at his wrist and filled it with the
creaming redrose wine of ancient Burgundy. He heard himself telling Mr.
Tutt all about himself,—the most intimate secrets of his heart,—and saw

Mr. Tutt listening attentively, almost reverently. He perceived that he was
making an astonishing impression upon Mr. Tutt who obviously thought
him a great man; and after keeping him in reasonable doubt about it for
awhile he modestly admitted to Mr. Tutt that this was so. Then he drank
several more glasses of Burgundy and ate an enormous pile of waffles
covered with maple syrup. "I'se in town, honey!" Mr. Tutt had grown
several sizes larger—the whole room was full of him. Lastly he had black
coffee and some port. It was an occasion, he asserted,—er—always goo'
weather,—or somethin'—when goo' fellows got together! He declared with
an emphasis which was quite unnecessary, but which, however, did not
disturb him, that there were too few men like themselves in the world,—
men with the advantage of education,—men of ideals. He told Mr. Tutt that
he loved him. He no longer had a father, and, evidently relying on further
similar entertainments, he wanted Mr. Tutt for one. Mr. Tutt generously
assented to act in that capacity and as the first step assisted his guest
upstairs to the library where he opened the window a few inches.
Presently, Payson did not know how exactly, they got talking all about life,
—and Mr. Tutt said ruminatively that after all the only things that really
counted were loyalty and courage and kindness,—and that a little human
sympathy extended even in what sometimes seemed at first glance the
wrong direction often did more good—made more for real happiness—than
the most efficient organized charity. He spoke of the loneliness of age—the
inevitable loneliness of the human soul,—the thirst for daily affection. And
then they drifted off to college, and Mr. 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 of cognac,
began to think better of his old dad. He really hadn't paid him quite the
proper attention. He admitted it to Mr. Tutt—with the first genuine tears in
his eyes since he had left Cambridge;—perhaps, if he had been more to him
—. But Mr. Tutt veered off again—this time on university education; the
invaluable function of the university being, he said, to preserve intact and
untarnished in a materialistic age the spiritual ideals inherited from the past.
In this rather commonplace sentiment Payson agreed with him passionately.
He further agreed with equal enthusiasm when his host advanced the

doctrine that after all to preserve one's honor stainless was the only thing
that much mattered. Absolutely! declared Payson, as he allowed Mr. Tutt to
press another glass of port upon him.
Payson, in spite of the slight beading of his forehead and the blurr about 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 "two bottle man." If
he'd lived back in the good old sporting days very likely he could have done
better. But he's taken care of two full bottles, hadn't he? Mr. Tutt replied that
he'd taken care of them very well indeed. And with this opening the old
lawyer launched into his favorite topic,—to wit, that there were only two
sorts of men in the world—gentlemen, and those who were not. What made
a man a gentleman was gallantry and loyalty,—the readiness to sacrifice
everything—even life—to an ideal. The hero was the chap who never
counted the cost to himself. That was why people revered the saints,
acclaimed the cavalier, and admired the big-hearted gambler who was ready
to stake his fortune on the turn of a card. There was even, he averred, an
element of spirituality in the gambler's carelessness about money.
This theory greatly interested Payson, who held strongly with it, having
always had a secret, sneaking fondness for gamblers. On the strength of it
he mentioned Charles James Fox—there was a true gentleman and
sportsman for you! No mollycoddle—but a roaring, six bottle fellow—with
a big brain and a scrupulous sense of honor. Yes, sir! Charley Fox was the
right sort! He managed to intimate successfully that Charley 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 far removed as possible from
one based upon self-interest, opened the window a few more inches,
sauntered over to the mantel, lit a fresh stogy and spread his long legs in
front of the sea-coal fire like an elongated Colossus of Rhodes. He
commenced his dastardly countermining of his partner's advice by
complimenting Payson on being a man whose words, manner and
appearance proclaimed him to the world a true sport and a regular fellow.
From which flattering prologue he slid naturally into said regular fellow's
prospects and aims in life. He trusted that Payson Clifford, Senior, had left a
sufficient estate to enable Payson, Junior, to complete his education at
Harvard?—He forgot, he confessed just what the residue amounted to. Then
he turned to the fire, kicked it, knocked the ash off the end of his stogy and

waited—in order to give his guest a chance to come to himself,—for Mr.
Payson Clifford had suddenly turned a curious color, due to the fact that he
was unexpectedly confronted with the necessity of definitely deciding then
and there whether he was going to line up with the regular fellows or the
second raters, the gentlemen or the cads, the C.J. Foxes or the Benedict
Arnolds of mankind. He wasn't wholly the real thing, a conceited young ass,
if you choose, but on the other hand he wasn't by any means a bad sort. In
short, he was very much like all the rest of us. And he wasn't ready to sign
the pledge just yet. He realized that he had put himself at a disadvantage,
but he wasn't going to commit himself until he had had a good chance to
think it all over carefully. In thirty seconds he was sober as a judge—and a
sober judge at that.
"Mr. Tutt," he said in quite a different tone of voice. "I've been talking
pretty big, I guess,—bigger than I really am. The fact is I've got 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, even
though it had originated with Tutt & Tutt.
"How do I know really what he wanted? He may have changed his mind a
dozen times since he put it with his will."
"If he had he wouldn't have left it there, would he?" asked Mr. Tutt with a
smile.
"But perhaps he forgot all about it,—didn't remember that it was there,"
persisted the youth, still clinging desperately to the lesser Tutt. "And, if he
hadn't would have torn it up."
"That might be equally true of the provisions of his will, might it not?"
countered the lawyer.

"But," squirmed Payson, struggling to recall Tutt's arguments, previously so
convincing, "he knew how a will ought to be executed and as 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 legal force?"
"Yes," replied Mr. Tutt with entire equanimity, "I agree with you that it is
fair to assume that he did not intend it to have any legal effect."
"Well, then!" exclaimed Payson exultantly.
"But," continued the lawyer, "that does not prove that he did not intend it to
have a moral effect,—and expect you to honor and respect his wishes, just
as if he had whispered them to you with his dying breath."
There was something in his demeanor which, while courteous, had a touch
of severity, that made Payson feel abashed. He perceived that he could not
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 the only logical
straw in the entire controversy.
"Ah!" he said with an assumption of candor. "In that case I should know
positively that they were in fact my father's wishes."
"Exactly!" replied Mr. Tutt. "And you'd carry them out without a moment's
hesitation."
"Of course!" yielded Payson.
"Then the whole question is whether or not this paper does express a wish
of his. That problem is a real problem, and it is for you alone to solve,—
and, of course, you're under the disadvantage of having a financial 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 not
expressed in such a way as to be legally obligatory makes it all the more
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—or disregard it, either."

"I don't exactly see why this is any more binding than a provision in the will
itself!" protested Payson.
Mr. Tutt threw his stogy into the fire and fumbled for another in the long
box on the library table.
"Maybe it isn't," he conceded, "but I've always liked that specious anecdote
attributed to Sheridan who paid his gambling debts and let his tailor wait.
You remember it, of course? When the tailor demanded the reason for this
Sheridan told him that a gambling debt was a debt of honor and a tailor's
bill was not, since his fortunate adversary at the card table had only his
promise to pay, whereas the tailor possessed an action for an account which
he could prosecute in the courts.
"'In that case!' declared the tailor, 'I'll tear up my bill!' which he did, and
Sheridan thereupon promptly paid him. Have another nip of brandy?"
"No, thank you!" answered Payson. "It's getting late and I must be going.
I've—I've had a perfectly—er—ripping time!"
"You must come again soon!" said Mr. Tutt warmly, from the top of the
steps outside.
As Payson reached the sidewalk he looked back somewhat shamefacedly
and said:
"Do you think it makes any difference what sort of a person this Sadie
Burch is?"
In the yellow light of the street lamp it seemed to the collegian as if the face
of the old man bore for an instant a fleeting resemblance to that 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 miserable along
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 proposition clearly. 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 was his in law and no one

could deprive him of it. Why not sit tight and let Mr. Tutt go to the devil?
He need never see him again! And no one else would ever know! Twenty-
five thousand dollars? It would take him years to earn such a staggering
sum! Besides, there were two distinct sides to the question. Wasn't Tutt just
as good a lawyer as Mr. Tutt? Couldn't he properly decide in favor of
himself when the court was equally divided? And Tutt had said
emphatically that he would be a fool to surrender the money. As Payson
Clifford trudged along the shadows of the docks he became obsessed with a
curious feeling that Tutt and Mr. Tutt were both there before him; Mr. Tutt
—a tall, benevolent figure carrying a torch in the shape of a huge, black,
blazing stogy that beckoned him onward through the darkness; and behind
him Tutt—a little paunchy red devil with horns and a tail—who tweaked
him by the coat and twittered, "Don't throw away twenty-five thousand
dollars! The best way is to leave matters as they are and let the law settle
everything. Then you take no chances!"
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 the
Harvard Club on Forty-fourth Street, ordered three fried eggs done on one
side, two orders of bacon and a pot of coffee, and then wrote a letter which
he dispatched by a messenger to Tutt & Tutt.
"Gentlemen," it read: "Will you kindly take immediate steps to find Miss
Sarah Burch and pay over to her twenty-five thousand dollars from my
father's residuary estate. I am entirely satisfied that this was his wish. I am
returning to Cambridge to-day. If necessary you can communicate with me
there.
"Yours very truly,
"PAYSON CLIFFORD."

One might suppose that a legatee to twenty-five thousand dollars could be
readily found; but Miss Sadie Burch proved a most elusive person. No
Burches grew in Hoboken—according to either the telephone or the
business directory—and Mr. Tutt's repeated advertisements in the
newspapers of that city elicited no response. Three months went by and it
began to look as if the lady had either died or permanently absented herself

—and that Payson Clifford might be able to keep his twenty-five thousand
with a clear conscience. Then one day in May came a letter from a small
town in the central part of New Jersey from Sadie Burch. She had, she said,
only just learned entirely by accident that she was an object of interest to
Messrs. Tutt & Tutt. Unfortunately, it was not convenient for her to come to
New York City, but if she could be of any service to them she would be
pleased, etc.
"I think I'll give the lady the once-over!" remarked Mr. Tutt, as he looked
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 man
driving the flivver tractor nearby, as he inspected the motor carrying Mr.
Tutt. "She lives in the second house beyond the big elm—" and he started
plowing again with a great clatter.
The road glared white in the late afternoon sun. On either side stretched
miles of carefully cultivated fields, the country drowsed, the air hot, but
sweet with magnolia, lilac and apple blossoms. Miss Burch had obviously
determined that when she retired from the world of men she would make a
thorough job of it and expose herself to no temptation to return—eight
miles from the nearest railroad. Just beyond the elms they slowed up
alongside a white picket fence enclosing an old-fashioned garden whence
came to Mr. Tutt the busy murmur of bees. Then they came to 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. A green and gold
lizard poked its head out of the hedge and eyed Mr. Tutt rather 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 you
come up on the piazza?"
The voice was not the kind of voice Mr. Tutt had imagined as belonging to
Sadie Burch. But neither was the lady on the piazza that kind of lady. In the
shadow of the awning in a comfortable rocking chair sat a white-haired,

kindly-faced woman, knitting a baby jacket. She looked up at 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 can only
stay a few moments and I've been sitting in the motor most of the day. I
might as well come to the point at once. You have doubtless heard of the
death of Mr. Payson Clifford, Senior?"
Miss Burch laid down the baby-jacket and her lips quivered. Then the tears
welled in her faded blue eyes and she fumbled hastily in her bosom for her
handkerchief.
"You must excuse me!" she said in a choked voice. "—Yes, I read about it.
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 an old
client of mine—although I didn't know him very well."
"I owe this house to him," continued Miss Burch tenderly. "If it hadn't been
for Mr. Clifford I don't know what would have become of me. Now that
John is dead and I'm all alone in the world this little place—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 he instructed
his son to pay you twenty-five thousand dollars. I'm here to give it to you."
A puzzled look came over her face, and then she smiled again and shook
her head.
"That was just like him!" she remarked. "But it's all a mistake. He paid me
back that money five years ago. You see he persuaded John to go into some

kind of a business scheme with him and they lost all they put into it—
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 give the
money back. He must have written the letter before that and forgotten 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, of
Cuban Crucible, erstwhile of Athens, Ohio, was fully conscious that even if
she wasn't the smartest thing on Fifth Avenue, her snappy little car was. It
was, as she said, a "perfec' beejew!" The two robes of silver fox alone had
cost eighty-five hundred dollars, but that was nothing; Mrs. Pumpelly—in
her stockings—cost Pierpont at least ten times that every year. But he could
afford it with Cruce at 791. So, having moved from Athens to the
metropolis, they had a glorious time. Out home the Pierpont had been
simply a P. and no questions asked as to what it stood for; P. Pumpelly. But
whatever its past the P. had now blossomed definitely 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, but regarded
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, hospital
entertainments, Malted Milk for Freezing France, Inns for Indigent Italians,
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 it
happened to be an extremely gaudy butterfly indeed—was her next-door

neighbor, Mrs. Rutherford Wells, who obstinately refused to recognize her
existence.
At home, in Athens, Edna would have resorted to the simple expedient of
sending over the hired girl to borrow something. But here there was nothing
doing. Mrs. Rutherford had probably never seen her own chef and Mrs.
Pumpelly was afraid of hers. Besides, even Edna recognized the lamentable
fact that it was up to Mrs. Wells to call first, which she didn't. Once when
the ladies had emerged simultaneously from their domiciles Mrs. Pumpelly
had smilingly waddled forward a few steps with an ingratiating bow, but
Mrs. Wells had looked over her head and hadn't seen her.
Thereupon the iron had entered into Mrs. Pumpelly's soul and her life had
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, but somehow the
chance never seemed to come. She hated to be living on the same street
with that kind of nasty person. And who was this Wells woman? Her
husband never did a thing except play croquet or something at a club! He
probably was a drunkard—and a roo-ay. Mrs. Pumpelly soon convinced
herself that Mrs. Wells also must be a very undesirable, if not hopelessly
immoral lady. Anyhow, she made up her mind that she would certainly take
nothing further from her. Even if Mrs. Wells should have a change of heart
and see fit to call, she just wouldn't return it! So when she rolled up in the
diminutive car and found Mrs. Wells' lumbering limousine 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 done
her proud even in Athens, Ohio. Fire-breathing, she descended from her car
and, approaching the limousine, told the imperturbable chauffeur that even
if he did work for Mrs. Rutherford Wells, Mrs. Rutherford Wells was no
better than anybody else, and that gave him no right to block up the whole
street. She spoke loudly, emphatically, angrily, and right in the middle of it
the chauffeur, who had not deigned to look in her direction, slyly pressed
the electric button of his horn and caused it to emit a low scornful grunt.
Then a footman opened the door of the Wells mansion and Mrs. Rutherford

Wells herself came down the steps, and Mrs. Pumpelly told her to her face
exactly what she thought of her and ordered her to move her car along so
her own could get in front of the vestibule.
Mrs. Wells ignored her. Deliberately—and as if there were no such person
as Mrs. Pumpelly upon the sidewalk—she stepped into her motor and, 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. If she makes
any further disturbance call a policeman."
And the limousine rolled away with a sneer at Mrs. Pumpelly from the
exhaust. More than one king has been dethroned for far less cause!

"You telephone Mr. Edgerton," she almost shrieked at Simmons, the butler,
"that he should come right up here as fast as he can. I've got to 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 Crucible
and hence alert to obey the behests of the wives of the officers thereof, had
deposited his tall silk hat on the marble Renaissance table in the front hall
and was entering Mrs. Pumpelly's Louis Quinze drawing-room with the air
of a Sir Walter Raleigh approaching his Queen Elizabeth.
"Sit down, Mr. Edgerton!" directed the lady impressively. "No, you'll find
that other chair more comfortable; the one you're in's got a hump in the seat.
As I was saying to the butler before you came, I've been insulted and I
propose to teach that woman she can't make small of me no matter what it
costs—and Pierpont says you're no slouch of a charger at that."
"My dear madam!" stammered the embarrassed attorney. "Of course, there
are lawyers and lawyers. But if you wish the best I feel sure my firm
charges no more than others of equal standing. In any event you can be
assured of our devotion to your interests. Now what, may I ask, are the
circumstances of the case?"

"Mr. Edgerton," she began, "I just want you should listen carefully to what 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 drop the
curtain upon the first act of our legal comedy.

"I suppose we'll have to do it for her!" growled Mr. Wilfred Edgerton to his
brother on his return to their office. "She's a crazy idiot and I'm very much
afraid we'll all get involved in a good deal of undesirable publicity. Still,
she's the wife of the vice president of our best paying 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 in their tall
hats and cutaways.
"If you can imagine it," replied his brother irritably, "she insists on our
having Mrs. Wells arrested for obstructing the street in front of her house.
She asked me if it wasn't against the law, and I took a chance and told her it
was. Then she wanted to start for the police court at once, but as I'd never
been in one I said we'd have to prepare the 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 only last
week!"
"That's why Mrs. Pumpelly wants to have her arrested, I fancy!" replied Mr.
Wilfred gloomily. "Mrs. Wells has given her the cold shoulder. It's no use; I
tried to argue the old girl out of it, but I couldn't. She knows what she wants
and she jolly well intends to have it."
"I wish you joy of her!" mournfully rejoined the younger Edgerton. "But it's
your funeral. I can't help you. I never got anybody arrested and I haven't the
least idea how to go about it."

"Neither have I," admitted his brother. "Luckily my practise has not been of
that sort. However, it can't be a difficult matter. The main thing 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 it ourselves.
Besides, the lady wants distinguished counsel to represent her. No, for once
we've got to lay dignity aside. I think I'll send Maddox up to the Criminal
Courts Building and have him find out just what to do."
It may seem remarkable that neither of the members of a high-class law
firm in New York City should ever have been in a police court, but such a
situation is by no means infrequent. The county or small-town attorney
knows his business from the ground up. He starts with assault and battery,
petty larceny and collection cases and gradually works his way up, so to
speak, to murder and corporate reorganizations. But in Wall Street the
young student whose ambition is to appear before the Supreme Court of the
United States in some constitutional matter as soon as possible is apt to
spend his early years in brief writing and then become a specialist in real
estate, corporation, admiralty or probate law and perhaps never see the
inside of a trial court at all, much less a police court, which, to the poor and
ignorant, at any rate, is the most important court of any of them, since it is
here that the citizen must go to enforce his everyday rights.
Mr. Wilfred Edgerton suspected that a magistrate's court was a dirty sort of
hole, full of brawling shyster lawyers, and he didn't want to know any more
about such places than he could help. Theoretically he was aware that on a
proper complaint sworn to by a person supposing himself or herself
criminally aggrieved the judge would issue a warrant to an officer, who
would execute it on the person of the criminal and hale him or her to jail.
The idea of Mrs. Wells being dragged shrieking down Fifth Avenue or being
carted away from her house in a Black Maria filled him with dismay.
Yet that was what Mrs. Pumpelly proposed to have done, and unfortunately
he had to do exactly what Mrs. Pumpelly said; quickly too.

"Maddox," he called to a timid youth in a green eye-shade sitting in lonely
grandeur in the spacious library, "just run up to the—er—magistrate's court
on Blank Street and ascertain the proper procedure for punishing a person
for obstructing the highway. If you find an appropriate statute or ordinance
you may lay an information against Mrs. Rutherford Wells for violating it
this afternoon in front of the residence next to hers; and see that the proper
process issues in the regular way."
To hear him one would have thought he did things like that daily before
breakfast—such is the effect of legal jargon.
"Yes, sir," answered Maddox respectfully, making a note. "Do you wish to
have the warrant held or executed?"
Mr. Wilfred Edgerton bit his mustache doubtfully.
"We-ell," he answered at length, perceiving that he stood upon the brink of
a legal Rubicon, "you may do whatever seems advisable under all the
circumstances."
In his nervous condition he did not recall what, had he stopped calmly to
consider the matter, he must have known very well—namely, that no
warrant 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 he
would have used had he been a second footman at Mrs. Pumpelly's.
Thereafter both Edgertons, but particularly Wilfred, passed a miserable
hour. They realized that they had started something and they had no idea of
where, how or when what they had started would stop. Indeed they had
terrifying visions of Mrs. Wells being beaten into insensibility, if not into a
pulp, by a cohort of brutal police officers, and of their being held personally
responsible. But before anything of that sort actually happened Maddox
returned.
"Well," inquired Wilfred with an assumption of nonchalance, "what did you
find out?"

"The magistrate said that we would have to apply at the court in the district
where the offense occurred and that Mrs. Pumpelly would have to appear
there in person. Obstructing a highway is a violation of Section Two of
Article Two of the Police Department Regulations for Street Traffic, which
reads: 'A vehicle waiting at the curb shall promptly give way to a vehicle
arriving to take up or set down passengers.' It is not usual 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 or
imprisonment," 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 I hanker 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 right up
to Mrs. Pumpelly's house, conduct that lady to the nearest police court and
have her swear out the summons for Mrs. Wells herself. I'll telephone her
that you are coming."
Which was a wise conclusion, in view of the fact that Edna Pumpelly, née
Haskins, was much better equipped by nature to take care of Mr. Wilfred
Edgerton in the hectic environs of a police court than he was qualified to
take care of her. And so it was that just as Mrs. Rutherford Wells was about
to sit down to tea with several fashionable friends her butler entered,
bearing upon a salver a printed paper, which he presented to her, 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. "What a
horrible woman! What shall I do?"
Mr. John De Puyster Hepplewhite, one of the nicest men in New York, who
had himself once had a somewhat interesting experience in the criminal
courts in connection with the arrest of a tramp who had gone to sleep in a
pink silk bed in the Hepplewhite mansion on Fifth Avenue, smiled
deprecatingly, set down his Dresden-china cup and dabbed his mustache
decorously with a filigree napkin.
"Dear lady," he remarked with conviction, "in such distressing
circumstances I have no hesitation whatever in advising you to consult Mr.
Ephraim Tutt."

"I have been thinking over what you said the other day regarding the
relationship of crime to progress, Mr. Tutt, and I'm rather of the opinion that
it's rot," announced Tutt as he strolled across from his own office to that of
his senior partner for a cup of tea at practically the very moment when Mr.
Hepplewhite was advising Mrs. Wells. "In the vernacular—bunk."

"What did he say?" asked Miss Wiggin, rinsing out with hot water Tutt's
special blue-china cup, in the bottom of which had accumulated some
reddish-brown dust from Mason & Welsby's Admiralty and Divorce
Reports upon 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 the
onward urge of humanity toward a new and perhaps better social order; a
natural impulse to rebel against existing abuses; and he made the claim that
though an unsuccessful revolutionary was of course regarded as a criminal,
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 rebelling
against. I don't see how a murderer could ever be regarded as assisting in
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 continue in
a state of combustion. "If you murdered a tyrant wouldn't you be
contributing toward progress?"
"No," retorted Miss Wiggin, "you wouldn't; and you know it. In certain
cases where the laws are manifestly unjust, antiquated or perhaps do not
really represent the moral sense of the community their violation may
occasionally call attention to their absurdity, like the famous blue laws of
Connecticut, for example; but as the laws as a whole do crystallize the
general opinion of what is right and desirable in matters of conduct a
movement toward progress would be exhibited not by breaking laws but by
making laws."
"But," argued Mr. Tutt, abandoning his stogy, "isn't the making of a new
law the same thing as changing an old law? And isn't changing a law
essentially the same thing as breaking it?"
"It isn't," replied Miss Wiggin tartly. "For the obvious and simple reason
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. Tutt
means."
"Oh, I see what he means!" sniffed Miss Wiggin. "I was only combating
what he said!"
"But the making of laws does not demonstrate progress," perversely insisted
Mr. Tutt. "The more statutes you pass the more it indicates that you need
'em. An ideal community would have no laws at all."
"There's a thought!" interjected Tutt. "And there wouldn't be any lawyers
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 has not
yet dawned. However, Mr. Tutt's argument is blatantly fallacious. Of course,
the making of new laws indicates an impulse toward social betterment—
and therefore toward progress."
"It seems to me," ventured Tutt, "that this conversation is more than usually
theoretical—not to say specious! The fact of the matter is that the law is a
part of our civilization and the state of the law marks the stage 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 our protection against
what is harmful to us. It is only one of our sanctions of conduct, and a very
crude one at that. Did you ever stop to think that compared with religion the
efficacy of the law was almost nil? The law deals with conduct, but only at
a certain point. We are apt to find fault with it because it makes what appear
to us to be arbitrary and unreasonable distinctions. That in large measure is
because 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 people straight is not

criminal statutes but their own sense of decency, conscience or whatever
you may choose to call it. Doubtless you recall the famous saying of
Diogenes Laertius: 'There is a written and an unwritten law. The one by
which we regulate our constitutions in our cities is the written law; that
which arises from custom is the unwritten law.' I see that, of course you do!
As I was saying only the other day, infractions of good taste and of
manners, civil wrongs, sins, crimes—are in essence one and the same,
differing only in degree. Thus the man who goes out to dinner without a
collar violates the laws of social usage; if he takes all his clothes off and
walks the streets he commits a crime. In a measure it simply depends on
how many clothes he has on what grade of offense he commits. From that
point of view the man who is not a gentleman is in a sense a criminal. But
the law can't make a man a gentleman."
"I should say not!" murmured Miss Wiggin.
"Well," continued Mr. Tutt, "we have various ways of dealing with these
outlaws. The man who violates our ideas of good taste or good manners is
sent 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 if he
crosses a certain line we arrest him and lock him up—either from public
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 an
honest burglar is a sympathetic human being, may yet never violate a
criminal statute."
"That's so!" said Tutt. "Take Badger, for instance."
"How often we defend cases," ruminated his partner, "where the
complainant 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 of criminals
who are criminals from perfectly good motives. Take the man, for instance,
who thrashes a bystander who insults his wife—the man's wife, I mean,
naturally."

"Only in those cases where we elect to take the law into our own hands we
ought to be willing to accept the consequences like gentlemen and
sportsmen," commented the senior partner.
"This is all very interesting, no doubt," remarked Miss Wiggin, "but as a
matter of general information I should like to know why the criminal law
doesn't punish the sinners—as well as the criminals."
"I guess one reason," replied Tutt, "is that people don't wish to be kept from
sinning."
"Thou hast spoken!" agreed Mr. Tutt. "And another reason is that the
criminal law was not originally devised for the purpose of eradicating sin—
which, after all, is the state into which it is said man was born—but was
only intended to prevent certain kinds of physical violence and lawlessness
—murder, highway robbery, assault, and so on. The church was supposed to
take care of sin, and there was an elaborate system of ecclesiastical courts.
In point of fact, though there is a great deal of misconception on the subject,
the criminal law does not deal with sin as sin at all, or even with wrongs
merely as wrongs. It has a precise and limited purpose—namely, to prevent
certain kinds of acts and to compel the performance of other acts.
"The state relies on the good taste and sense of decency, duty and justice 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 trifling peccadillos; it generally
couldn't. It merely says that if a man's conscience and idea of fair play aren't
enough to make him behave himself, why, then, when he gets too
obstreperous we'll lock him up. And different generations have had entirely
different ideas about what was too obstreperous to be overlooked. In the
early days the law only punished 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't necessarily mean that it is a crime. The law is artificial and not
founded on any general attempt to prohibit what is unethical, but simply to
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 we choose
so long as we don't harm anybody else," said Miss Wiggin.

"Yet," her employer continued, "unfortunately—or perhaps fortunately from
our professional point of view—our lawmakers from time to time get rather
hysterical and pass such a multiplicity of statutes that nobody knows
whether he is committing crime or not."
"In this enlightened state," interposed Tutt, "it's a crime to advertise as a
divorce lawyer; to attach a corpse for payment of debt; to board a train
while it is in motion; to plant oysters without permission; or without
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 volume
which he opened at a point marked by a burned match thrust between the
leaves.
"My old friend Joseph H. Choate," he remarked, "in his memorial of his
partner, Charles H. Southmayde, who was generally regarded as one of the
greatest lawyers of our own or any other generation, says, 'The ever-
growing list of misdemeanors, created by statute, disturbed him, and he
even employed counsel to watch for such statutes introduced into the
legislature—mantraps, as he called them—lest he might, without knowing
it, commit offenses which might involve the penalty of imprisonment.'"
"We certainly riot in the printed word," said Miss Wiggin. "Do you know
that last year alone to interpret all those statutes and decide the respective
rights of our citizens the Supreme Court of this state wrote five 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. "And
the defeated litigants; the successful ones merely read the final paragraphs."

"But coming back to crime for a moment," said Miss Wiggin, pouring
herself out a second cup of tea; "I had almost forgotten that the criminal law
was originally intended only to keep down violence. That explains a lot of
things. I confess to being one of those who unconsciously assumed that the
law is a sort of official Mrs. Grundy."
"Not at all! Not at all!" corrected Mr. Tutt. "The law makes no pretense of
being an arbiter of morals. Even where justice is concerned it expects the
mere sentiment of the community to be capable of dealing with trifling
offenses. The laws of etiquette and manners, devised for 'the purpose of
keeping fools at a distance,' are reasonably adapted to enforcing the dictates
of good taste and to dealing with minor offenses against our ideas of
propriety."
"I wonder," hazarded Miss Wiggin thoughtfully, "if there isn't some
sociological law about crimes, like the law of diminishing returns in
physics?"
"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 a warship, for
instance."
"What's that got to do with crime?"
"Why, the more statutes you pass and more new crimes you create the
harder it becomes to enforce obedience to them, until finally you can't
enforce them at all."
"That is rather a profound analogy," observed Mr. Tutt. "It might well repay
study."
"Miss Wiggin has no corner on analogies," chirped Tutt. "Passing statutes
creating new crimes is like printing paper money without anything back of
it; in the one case there isn't really any more money than there was before
and in the other there isn't really any more crime either."
"Only it makes more business for us."

"I've got another idea," continued Tutt airily, "and that is that crime is 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 criminal
lawyers to attack the law, the state would never find out the weaknesses in
its statutes. Therefore the more crime there is the more the protective power
of the state is built up, just as the fever engendered by vaccine renders the
human body immune from smallpox! Eh, what?"
"I never heard such nonsense!" exclaimed Miss Wiggin. "Do let me give
you some more tea! Eh, what?"
But at that moment Willie announced that Mr. Rutherford Wells was calling
to see Mr. Tutt and tea was hastily adjourned. Half an hour later the old
lawyer rang for Bonnie Doon.
"Bonnie," he said, "one of our clients has been complained against by her
next-door neighbor, a got-rich-quick lady, for obstructing the street with her
motor. It's obviously a case of social envy, hatred and malice. Just take a run
up there in the morning, give Mrs. Pierpont Pumpelly and her premises the
once-over and let me know of any violations 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 new
ordinance governing the filling of garbage cans?"
"I think there is," nodded Mr. Tutt. "And meantime I think I'll drop over and
see Judge O'Hare."

"I'll settle her hash for her, the hussy!" declared Mrs. Pumpelly to her
husband at dinner the following evening. "I'll teach her to insult decent
people and violate the law. Just because her husband belongs to a swell club
she thinks she can do as she likes! But I'll show her! Wait till I get her in
court to-morrow!"
"Well, of course, Edna, I'll stand back of you and all that," Pierpont assured
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 of
myself most anywheres—good and plenty!"
"Of course you can, dearie!" he protested in a soothing tone. "But these
shyster lawyers who hang around those places—you 'member Jim O'Leary
out home to Athens? Well, they don't know a lady when they see one, and
they wouldn't care if they did; and they'll try and pry into your past life—"
"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 never broke a
law in all my days—"
"Excuse me, madam," interposed Simmons, with whom the second footman
had just held a whispered conference behind the screen, "but James informs
me 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 nine o'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. "What
was he obnoxious about?"
"'E 'as a paper 'e says 'e wants to serve on you personal," answered James in
agitation. "'E says if you will hallow 'm to step into the dining-room 'e won't
take a minute."
"Perhaps we'd better let him come in," mildly suggested Pierpont. "It's
always 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!" she retorted.

"Well, let's have him in, anyway," he urged. "I can't digest my food with
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 Roony
removed his cap, politely he unbuttoned several yards of blue overcoat and
fumbled in the caverns beneath. Eventually he brought forth a square sheet
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 to make
sure and serve you personal."
"That's all right! That's all right!" said Pierpont with an effort at bonhomie.
"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 of
East Fourteenth Street. "Which way?"
"Come with me!" intoned Simmons with the exalted gesture of an
archbishop conducting an ecclesiastical ceremonial.
"What does it say?" asked her husband hurriedly as the butler led the cop to
it.
"Sh-h!" warned Mrs. Pumpelly. "James, kindly retire!"
James retired, and the lady examined the paper by the tempered light of the
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 ——— District
Magistrate's Court, Borough of Manhattan, City of New York, on the tenth
day of May, 1920, at ten o'clock in the forenoon, to answer to the charge
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 left side to
the curb on a street other than a one-way traffic street; and also for violation
of Section Seventeen, Article Two of Chapter Twenty-four of the Code of
Ordinances of the City of New York in that on the date aforesaid, being the
owner of a vehicle subject to Subdivision One of said section and riding
therein, you caused or permitted the same to proceed at a rate of speed
greater than four miles an hour in turning corner of intersecting highways,
to wit, Park Avenue and Seventy-third Street; 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 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, worried over
the possibility of having wasted a slug of the real thing on an unreal 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 such
person! You better call up Mr. Edgerton right away and see what the law
is."

"I hope he knows!" countered Mr. Pumpelly. "Four miles an hour—that's a
joke! A baby carriage goes faster than four miles an hour. You wouldn't
arrest a baby!"
"Well, call him up!" directed Mrs. Pumpelly. "Tell him he should come right
round over here."
The summons from his client interrupted Mr. Edgerton in the middle of an
expensive dinner at his club and he left it in no good humor. He didn't like
being ordered round like a servant the way Mrs. Pumpelly was ordering
him. It wasn't dignified. Moreover, a lawyer out of his office was like a
snail out of its shell—at a distinct disadvantage. You couldn't just make an
excuse to step into the next office for a moment and ask somebody what the
law was. The Edgertons always kept somebody in an adjoining office who
knew the law—many lawyers do.
On the Pumpelly stoop the attorney found standing an evil-looking and very
shabby person holding a paper in his hand, but he ignored him until the
grilled iron cinquecento door swung open, revealing James, the retiring
second man.
Then, before he could enter, the shabby person pushed past him and asked
in 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. "Happy
days!"
Mr. Wilfred Edgerton beneath the medieval tapestry of the Pumpelly marble
hall glanced at the dirty sheet in James' hand and, though unfamiliar with
the form of the document, perceived it to be a summons issued on the
application of one Henry J. Goldsmith and returnable next day, for violating
Section Two Hundred and Fifteen of Article Twelve of Chapter Twenty of
the Municipal Ordinances for keeping and maintaining a certain bird, to wit,
a cockatoo, which by its noise did disturb the quiet and repose of a certain
person in the vicinity to the detriment of the health of such person, to wit,
Henry J. Goldsmith, aforesaid, and upon her failure to appear, and so on.

Wilfred had some sort of vague idea of a law about keeping birds, but he
couldn't exactly recall what it was. There was something incongruous about
Mrs. Pierpont Pumpelly keeping a cockatoo. What did anybody want of a
cockatoo? He concluded that it must be an ancestral hereditament from
Athens, Ohio. Nervously he ascended the stairs to what Edna called the
saloon.
"So you've come at last!" cried she. "Well, what have you got to say to this?
Is it against the law to go round a corner at more than four miles an 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 had never
read the building code or the health ordinances or the traffic regulations,
and in the present instance the latter were to the point while the former were
not. Thus he was confronted with the disagreeable alternative of admitting
his ignorance or bluffing it through. He chose the latter, unwisely.
"Of course not! Utter nonsense!" replied he blithely. "The lawful rate of
speed is at least fifteen miles an hour."
"Excuse me, madam," said James, appearing once more in the doorway. "A
man 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' being fictitious:
"You are hereby summoned to appear ... for violating Section Two Hundred
and Forty-eight of Article Twelve of Chapter Twenty of the Health
Ordinances in that you did upon the seventh day of May, 1920, fail to keep
a certain tin receptacle used for swill or garbage, in shape and form a barrel,
within the building occupied and owned by you until proper time for its
removal and failed to securely bundle, tie up and pack the newspapers and
other light refuse and rubbish contained therein, and, further, that you
caused and permitted certain tin receptacles, in the shape and form of
barrels, containing such swill or garbage, to be filled to a greater height
with such swill or garbage than a line within such receptacle four inches
from the top thereof."

"Now what do you know about that?" remarked the vice president of Cuban
Crucible to the senior partner of Edgerton & Edgerton.
"I don't know anything about it!" answered the elegant Wilfred miserably. "I
don't know the law of garbage, and there's no use pretending 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 likely it 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,
upon which was depicted the sinking of the Spanish Armada. "Officer
Roony is back again with two more papers. 'E says it isn't necessary for him
to see you again, as once is enough, but 'e was wondering whether being as
it was rather chilly—"
"Lead him to it!" hastily directed Pierpont, who was beginning to get a
certain amount of enjoyment out of the situation. "But tell him he needn't
call again."
"Give 'em here!" snapped Mrs. Pumpelly, grasping the documents. "This is
a little too much! 'Lulu' this time. Fictitious as usual. Who's Julius
Aberthaw? He says I caused a certain rug to be shaken in such place and
manner that certain particles of dust passed therefrom into the public street
or highway, to wit, East Seventy-third Street, contrary to
"What's the other one?" inquired her husband with a show of sympathy.
"For violating Section Fifteen of Article Two of Chapter Twenty, in that on
May 7, 1920, I permitted a certain unmuzzled dog, to wit, a Pekingese

brown spaniel dog, to be on a public highway, to wit, East Seventy-third
Street 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 the law,"
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 know
much more about the law—this kind of law, anyway—than I do. I bet it is
against the law to go round a corner at more than four miles! Do you want
to bet me?"
"No, I don't!" snapped Edgerton. "What you want is a police-court lawyer—
if you're goin' in for this sort of thing."
"My Lord! What's this now, Simmons?" she raved as the butler
deprecatingly made his appearance again with another paper.
"I think, madam," he answered soothingly, "that it's a summons for allowing
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 young gentleman
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' the
window boxes, but that if you'd care to speak to him perhaps the matter
might 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 of
Chapter Twenty-three in that you did place, keep and maintain upon a
certain window sill of the premises now being occupied by you in the City
of New York a window box for the cultivation or retention of flowers,
shrubs, vines or other articles or things without the same being firmly
protected by iron railings—'"
"Heavens," ejaculated Mr. Pumpelly, "there'll be somebody here in a minute
complaining that I don't use the right length of shaving stick."
"I understand," remarked Mr. Edgerton, "that in a certain Western state they
regulate the length of bed sheets!"
"What's that for?" asked Edna with sudden interest.
"About seeing this feller?" hurriedly continued Mr. Pumpelly. "Seems to me
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 this
possibility of a diversion. "It cannot do any harm."
"What is his name?"
"Mr. Bonright Doon," answered Simmons encouragingly. "And he is a very
pleasant-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 Bonnie
Doon only casually, they yet have seen enough of him to realize that he is
an up-and-coming sort of young person with an elastic conscience and an
ingratiating smile. Indeed the Pumpellys were rather taken with his breezy
"Well, here we all are again!" manner as well as impressed by the fact 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 caused
to be issued against her yesterday," he announced pleasantly by way of
introduction. "Mrs. Wells, you see, was a little annoyed by being referred to
in the papers as Jane when her proper name is Beatrix. Besides, she felt that
the offense charged against her was—so to speak—rather trifling. However
—be that as it may—she and her friends in the block are not inclined to be
severe with you if you are disposed to 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 have been
consistently violating a large number of city ordinances—keeping parrots,
beating rugs, allowing unmuzzled dogs at large, overfilling your 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 of
papers.
"One for neglecting to have your chauffeur display his metal badge on the
outside of his coat—Section Ninety-four of Article Eight of Chapter
Fourteen.
"One for allowing your drop awnings to extend more than six feet from the
house line—Section Forty-two of Article Five of Chapter Twenty-two.
"One for failing to keep your curbstone at a proper level—Section One
Hundred and Sixty-four of Article Fourteen of Chapter Twenty-three.

"One for maintaining an ornamental projection on your house—a statue, I
believe, of the Goddess Venus—to project more than five feet beyond the
building line—Section One Hundred and Eighty-one of Article Fifteen of
Chapter Twenty-three.
"One for having your area gate open outwardly instead of inwardly—
Section One Hundred and Sixty-four of Article Fourteen of Chapter
Twenty-three.
"And one for failing to affix to the fanlight or door the street number of
your house—Section One Hundred and Ten of Article Ten of Chapter
Twenty-three.
"I dare say there are others."
"I'd trust you to find 'em!" agreed Mr. Pumpelly. "Now what's your
proposition? What does it cost?"
"It doesn't cost anything at all! Drop your proceedings and we'll drop ours,"
answered Bonnie genially.
"What do you say, Edgerton?" said Pumpelly, turning to the disgruntled
Wilfred and for the first time in years assuming charge of his own domestic
affairs.
"I should say that it was an excellent compromise!" answered the lawyer
soulfully. "There's something in the Bible, isn't there, about pulling the mote
out of your own eye before attempting to remove the beam from anybody'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 good
you did me!"
"By the way, young man," asked Mr. Pumpelly, "whom do you say you
represent?"

"Tutt & Tutt," cooed Bonnie, instantly flashing one of the firm's cards.
"Thanks," said Pumpelly, putting it carefully into his pocket. "I may need
you sometime—perhaps even sooner. Now, if by any chance you'd care for
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 Proposes
to Embrace the Career of Art, "we come to those vocations which are at
once decisive and precise; to the men who are born with the love of
pigments, the passion of drawing, the gift of music, or the impulse to create
with words, just as other and perhaps the same men are born with the love
of hunting, or the sea, or horses, or the turning lathe. These are predestined;
if a man love the labor of any trade, apart from any question of success or
fame, the gods have called him."
Had anybody told Danny Lowry that the gods had called him he would
have stigmatized his informant as a liar—yet they had. For apart from any
question of success or fame he had loved horses from the day when as a
baby he had first sprawled in the straw of his Uncle Mike Aherne's livery
and hitching stable in Dublin City. He had grown up to the scrape and
whiffle of the currycomb, breathing ammonia, cracking the skin of his
infantile knuckles with harness soap. Out of the love that he bore for the
beautiful dumb brutes grew an understanding that in time became almost
uncanny. All the jockeys and hostlers said there was magic in the lad's
hands. He could ride anything on hoofs with a slack rein; and the worst
biter in the stable would take a bridle from him as it were an apple.
"Oft, now, I hear him talkin' to 'em, so I do." Mike Aherne was wont to say
between spits. "An' they know what he says, I'm tellin' ye. He's a charmer,
he is; like the Whisperin' Blacksmith. You've heard tell of him, belike?
Well, Danny can spake to 'em widout even a whisper, so he can that!"
That was near seventy years agone, and now Danny was a shrunken little
white-haired old wastrel who haunted Mulqueen's Livery over on Twenty-

fourth Street near Tenth Avenue, disappearing in and out of the cellar and
loft and stalls like a leprechaun haunts a hollow tree. Nobody knew where
he had come from or where he lived except that he could 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 he had 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 do with 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 those
thousands of little cast-iron negro boys who stand so patiently on the green
grass strips along village streets waiting to hold long-forgotten bridle 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 who lived and moved and
had their being by ministering to the needs of the horse. The gas engine was
to them what the mechanical bobbin was to the spinners of Liverpool and
Belfast. With the coming of the motor the race of coachmen, grooms and
veterinaries began to perish from the earth. Among the last was Danny
Lowry, at the very zenith of his fortunes an unofficial vet to most of the
swell stables belonging to the carriage people of Fifth Avenue. One by one
these stables had been converted into garages, and the broughams and C-
spring victorias, the landaus and basket phaetons had been dragged to the
auction room or shoved into dim corners to make room for snappy motors;
and the horses Danny knew and loved 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 to the
trucking stable, and from the trucking stable to the last remaining decrepit
boarding and liveries of the remote West Side. The tragedy of the horse is
the tragedy of all who loved them. Danny was one of these tragedies, but he
still picked up a precarious living by doing odd jobs at Mulqueen's and
acting as a veterinary when called upon, and he could generally be found
either loafing in the smelly little office or smoking his T D pipe on the steps
outside.

He and Mr. Ephraim Tutt, the lawyer, who lived in the rickety old house
with the tall windows and piazzas protected by railings of open ironwork
round which twisted the stems of extinct wistarias, had long been friends.
Many a summer evening the two old men had sat together and discoursed of
famous jockeys and still more famous horses, of Epsom and Ascot, until
Mr. Tutt's cellaret was empty and never a stogy left in the box at all.
Probably no one save the odd lanky old attorney, who himself seemed to
belong to a bygone era, knew the story of Danny's glorious past—how he
had risen from his Uncle Aherne's livery in Dublin first to being paddock
groom to Lord Ashburnham and then to jockey, finally to ride the Derby
under the Farringdon gold and crimson, and to carry away Katherine Brady,
the second housemaid, as Mrs. Lowry when he went back to 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, and hard times; and Danny, a
heartbroken man, had fled from bereavement and pauperism and possibly
from prison to seek his fortune in America. And then 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 his seventeen-year-old
granddaughter, Katie, who kept house for him and of whose existence few,
even of Danny's friends, were aware excepting Mr. Tutt.
There was, in fact, a striking parallel between these two old men, the one so
ignorant, the other so essentially a man of culture, in that they were both
humanitarians in a high sense. It is improbable that Ephraim Tutt 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 of each was
love—in the case of the man of law for those of his fellow men who
suffered through foolishness or poverty or weaknesses or misfortune; and in
that of his more humble counterpart, whose limitations precluded his
understanding of more endowed human beings, for the dumb animals, who
must mutely suffer through the foolishness or poverty or weakness or
misfortune of their owners and masters.
Danny had sat up all night with only a horse blanket drawn over his legs,
taking care of a roan mare with the croup. The helpless thing had lain flat
on her side in the straw struggling for breath, and Danny, his heart racked
with pity, had sat in the stall beside her, every hour giving her steam and
gently pouring his own secret mixture down her throat. Nobody but Danny

cared what became of the mare, left there two weeks before by a stranger
who had not returned for it; stolen, probably. Cramped, stiff with
rheumatism, half dead from fatigue and suffering from a bad cough himself,
he left the stable at eight o'clock next morning, hopeful that the miserable
beast would pull through, and stepped round to Salvatore's lunch cart for a
bowl of coffee and a hot dog. He was just lighting his pipe preparatory to
going back to the stable when a stranger pulled up to the curb in a mud-
splashed depot wagon.
"'Morning," he remarked pleasantly. "Can you tell me if Mulqueen's livery
stable is anywhere about here?"
Danny removed his pipe and spat politely.
"Sure," he replied, taking in the horse, which besides being lame and having
a glaring spavin on its off hind leg was a mere bone bag fit only for 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 the animal,
which, as soon as relieved of the shafts, hung its head between its legs,
evidently all in. The stranger handed Danny a cigar.
"I'm lookin' for a vet," said he. "My horse ought to have something done for
him."
"I can well see that!" agreed Danny. "He needs a poultice and hot bandages.
A bit of rest wouldn't do him no harm, neither."
"Well, I'm no vet," returned the stranger with an apologetic grin, "but it
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 a
spavin and wind a bandage as well as the next. How long will you be leavin'
him?"

"Oh, a day or two, I guess. Well, if you're a veterinary I leave him in your
care. My name's Simon—Dr. Joseph R. Simon, of Hempstead, Long
Island."
Danny worked all the morning over the horse, doing his best to make it
comfortable. Indeed, before he had concluded his treatment the animal was
probably more comfortable than he, for the night in the cold stall had given
him a chill and when he left the stable to go home for lunch he was in a
high fever. Doctor Simon was outside on the sidewalk talking to Mulqueen.
"Well, doctor," said he, "what did you find was the matter with my horse?"
"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 right when
the thought occurred to him that here was an opportunity to secure medical
treatment for himself.
"If you'll give me something to stop a fever we'll call it even," he suggested.
"That's easy!" returned Doctor Simon heartily. "Come into the office and I'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 put a
thermometer under his tongue, chatting amicably meanwhile, and when he
had 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 much to
do as I used. These be hard times for those as have to do with horses."
He got up painfully.
"Well, now," said Doctor Simon, "I'd feel better if I paid you for treating my
horse. Just put this five-dollar bill in your pocket. I guess you need it more
than I do."

Danny shook his head. "That's all right!" he said weakly, for he was feeling
very ill. "It's a stand-off."
"Oh, go ahead, take it!" urged Doctor Simon, shoving the bill into the
pocket of Danny's overcoat. "By the way, have you got your card? I might
be able to send a little business your way."
When his magic skill with horses was matter of common knowledge among
the upper circle of Long Island grooms and coachmen Danny had had a few
cards struck off by a friendly printer. A couple of fly-blown specimens still
lingered in the drawer of Mulqueen's desk. Danny searched until he found
one:

DANIEL LOWRY
VETERINARY
212 WEST 53D STREET
NEW YORK CITY

"Here, sor," said he, his head swimming, "that's my name, but the address is
wrong."
Doctor Simon put it in his pocketbook.
"Thanks," he remarked. "Much obliged for fixing up my horse." Then in a
businesslike manner, he threw back his coat and displayed a glittering
badge. "Now," he added brusquely, "I must arrest you for practising
veterinary medicine without a license. Just come along with me to the
nearest police station."

When Mr. Tutt returned home that evening after attending one of the
weekly sessions at the Colophon Club, where he had reluctantly contributed
the sum of fifty-seven dollars to relieve the immediate needs of certain
impecunious persons gathered there about a green-baize-covered table in a
remote corner of the card room, he perceived by the light of an adjacent
street lamp that someone was sitting upon the top of the steps leading to his
front door.
"Are you Mr. Tutt?" inquired Katie Lowry, getting up and making a timid
curtsy. "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 under a
gray shawl gathered over a pair of narrow, pinched shoulders.
"They've taken grandfather away to prison," she replied with a catch in her
throat. "He didn't come in to lunch nor to supper, and when I went to the
stable Mr. Mulqueen said a detective had arrested grandfather for doctoring
horses without a license and he had pleaded guilty and they'd locked him
up. I went to the police station, but they said he wasn't there 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 for
him, sir? He thinks so much of you! He often has told me what a grand man
you were and so kind, besides being such a clever lawyer and all the judges
afraid of you!"
"Danny Lowry in the Tombs!" cried Mr. Tutt. "What an outrage! Of course
I'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 hot
toast and tea and bring it up to the library. Now, my dear, take off your
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 long man
who smoked such queer long cigars, sipping her tea only when she had to
pause for breath, poured out the story of her grandfather's fight with poverty
and misfortune, while her auditor's wrinkled face grew soft and hard by
turns as he watched her through the gray clouds from his stogy. An hour
later he left her at the door of her flat, happy and encouraged, with a
twenty-dollar bill crumpled in her hand.

"But what do you expect me to do about it?" retorted District Attorney
Peckham in his office next morning when Mr. Tutt had explained to him the
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 sufferings of
animals. He's a genuine Samaritan."
"That's like saying that a thief has done good with his plunder, isn't it?"
commented Peckham. "Look here, Tutt, of course I hope you get your man
off and all that, but if I personally threw the case out I'd have all the vets in
the city on my neck. You see the motors have pretty nearly put 'em all out of
business. There aren't enough sick horses to go round, so they've been
conducting a sort of crusade. Tough luck—but the law is the law. And I
have to enforce it—ostensibly, anyway."
"Very well," answered the old lawyer amiably but defiantly. "Then if you've
got to enforce the law against a fine old chap like that I've got to do my
darnedest to smash that law higher than a kite. And I'll tell you something,
Peckham—which is that the human heart is a damn sight bigger than the
human conscience."

Danny Lowry had lived for years in fear of the blow which had so suddenly
struck him down, for there had never been any blinking of the obvious fact
that in acting as an unlicensed veterinary he was brazenly violating the law.
On the other hand, not being able to read or write, and having no technical
knowledge of medicine, all his experience, all his skill, all his love of
animals could avail him nothing so far as securing a license was concerned.
He could not read an examination paper, but he could interpret the
symptoms seen in a trembling neck and a lack-luster eye. Danny had no
choice but to break the law or abandon the only career for which he had an
aptitude, or by which he could hope to earn a living at his age. His crime
was malum prohibitum, not malum in se, but it was, nevertheless, a
violation of a most necessary law. Certainly none of us wish to be doctored
by tyros or humbugs, or to have our animals treated by them. Only Danny
was neither a tyro nor a humbug, and had he not been a lawbreaker the
world would have been to some 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, a self-confessed
lawbreaker, giving his own bond and the house on Twenty-third Street as
security. Still more so, as more unblushingly ostentatious, was his taking

the criminal over to Pont's and giving him the very best dinner that Signor
Faccini, proprietor of that celebrated hostelry, 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 ducks and
drakes with conscience? Does it blind the eye of reason? Rather, does it not
illumine and expose the fallacies of logic and the falsities of the syllogism?
Do two and two make four in human polity as in mathematics? Sometimes
it would not seem so.
Certainly you would have picked Mr. Bently Gibson, of The Gibson
Woolen Mills, as a model juror. One look at him as a prospective talesman
in a murder case and you would have unhesitatingly murmured, "The
defense challenges peremptorily!" His broad forehead, large well-shaped
nose, firm chin and clear calm eye evidenced his common sense, his
conscientiousness and his uncompromising adherence to principle. His
customs declarations were complete to the smallest item, his income-tax
returns models of self-sacrifice, he was patriotic and civic, he belonged to
the Welfare League and the Citizens' Union, and—I hesitate to confess it—
he subscribed to the annual deficit of the Society for the Suppression of Sin.
On the face of it, he was the kind of man the district attorney tries to select
as foreman of a jury when he has to prosecute a woman who had kidnaped
her own child out of a foundling asylum.
The heelers and hangers-on of the criminal courts would have described
him as a highbrow and as a holier-than-thou; perhaps he might in a moment
of jocularity have even so described himself—for he had his human—
perhaps I should have said, his weaker—side. Surely he seemed human
enough when he kissed Eleanor good-by at the door of their country place
on the Sound the morning he had been subpoenaed to serve as a juryman in
Part Five of the General Sessions. He had planned to take a week's holiday
that spring, and he had gone to infinite trouble to arrange his business in
order to have it, for they had become engaged eleven years before at the
moment when the apple blossoms and the dogwoods were at the height of
their glory, even as they were now.
When, however, he found the brown subpoena at his office directing him to
present himself for service the following Monday he simply gave a half

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 chief bulwark of the
Constitution, the cornerstone of liberty. Had he only been disingenuous
enough he need never have served on any jury, for no lawyer for the
defense hearing him enlarge on what he considered the duties of a juryman
to be, would ever have allowed him in the box. But when other chaps on the
panel presented their excuses to the judge and managed to persuade him of
the imperative needs of family or business, and slipped—grinning
discreetly—out of the court room, he merely inaudibly called them welshers
and pikers. No, he regarded jury service as a duty and a privilege, one not to
be lightly avoided—the one common garden governmental function in
which Uncle Sam expected every citizen to do his duty.
"I won't let any of the rogues get by me!" he shouted gaily to his wife over
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 the five-fifteen as
usual."
Alas, poor Bently! Alas for human frailty and all those splendid visions in
which he pictured himself as the anchor of the ship of justice, a prop and
stay of the structure of democracy.
His train was a trifle late and the roll of the jury had already been called,
and the perennial excuses heard, when he entered the court room; but the
clerk, who knew him, nodded in a welcoming manner, checked him off as
present and dropped his name card in the revolving wheel. It was a well-
known scene to Bently, a veteran of fifteen years' service. Even the actors
were familiar friends—the pink-faced judge with his snow-white whiskers,
who at times suggested to Bently an octogenarian angel, and, at others, a
certain ancient baboon once observed in the Primates cage at the Bronz
Zoo; the harried, anxious little clerk with his paradoxically grandiloquent
intonation; the comedy assistant district attorney with his wheezy voice
emanating from a Falstaffian body, who suffered from a soporific malady
and was accustomed to open a case and then let it take care of itself while
he slumbered audibly beneath the dais; even Ephraim Tutt, the gaunt,
benignly whimsical-looking attorney, in his rusty-black frock coat and
loose-hanging tie; his rotund partner, whose birdlike briskness and fat
paunch inevitably brought to mind a distended robin in specs; and the

dégagé Bonnie Doon in his cut-in-at-the-waist checked suit—he knew them
all of old.
"Well, call your first case, Mister District Attorney!" directed the judge,
nodding encouragingly at Bently, well knowing that in him he had a staunch
upholder of the law-as-it-is, who could be depended upon to bolster up his
weaker or more sentimental brother talesmen into the proper 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 Daniel
Lowry," and looked round in a pseudo-helpless way as if not knowing
exactly what to do.
There was a slight stir, and from the back of the court room came forward a
funny little bow-legged old man, carrying in both hands a funny little flat-
topped derby hat, and took his seat timidly at the bar of justice beside Mr.
Tutt, who smiled down at him affectionately and put his arm about the
threadbare shoulders as if to protect him from the evils of the world. They
made a quaint and far from unpleasing picture, thought Bently Gibson, the
ideal juror, and he wondered what the poor old devil could be up for.
A jury was impaneled, Bently among them; the balance of the panel was
excused until two o'clock; the court room was cleared of loafers; the judge
perused the indictment with a practised eye; Tom Hingman rose again,
wheezed and grinned at the embattled jury; and the mill of justice began to
grind.
Now the mill of justice, at least in the General Sessions of New York
County, grinds exceeding fine, so far as the number of convictions is
concerned. Of those brought to the bar for trial few escape; for modern
talesmen, being hard-headed men, regard the whole thing as a matter of
business and try to get through with it as quickly and as efficiently as
possible. The bombastic spread-eagle orator, the grandiloquent gas bag, the
highfaluting stump speaker gain few verdicts and win small applause except
from their clients. And district attorneys who ape the bloodhound in their
mien and tactics win scant approval and less acquiescence from the bored

gentlemen who are forced to listen to them. Nowadays—whatever may
have been the case two generations ago—each side briefly states its claims
and tries to win on points.
People were apt to wonder why each succeeding administration inevitably
retained stuffy old Tom Hingman at seventy-five hundred dollars a year to
handle the calendar in Part Five. Yet those on the inside knew why very
well. It was because Tom long ago, in his prehistoric youth, had learned that
the way to secure verdicts was to appear not to care a tinker's dam whether
the jury found the defendant guilty or not. He pretended never to know
anything about any case in advance, to be in complete ignorance as to who
the witnesses might be and to what they were going to testify, and to be
terribly sorry to have to prosecute the unfortunate at the bar, though he
wasn't to blame for that any more than the 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 pretended all this, yet it was more than half true, for
Tom was a kind-hearted old bird. But the point was that, whether true or
not, it got convictions. The jury sucking it all up in its entirety felt sorrier
for the simple-minded old softy of a Tom, which they believed him to be,
than they did for the defendant, who they concluded was a good deal
cleverer than the assistant district attorney.
In a word, it put them on their honor as public officers not to let the
administration of justice suffer merely because the A.D.A. was too old and
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 it all 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 to have
been indicted for the crime of practising medicine without a license—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 friend Tutt made a
motion to transfer the case from the Special to the General Sessions on the
theory that he would stand more chance with a jury than three—er—
hardened judges. Well, maybe he will—I don't know! I gather from the
papers that Mr. Lowry here, after holding himself out to be a properly

licensed veterinary, treated a horse belonging to the complainant. It is not a
very serious offense, and you and I have no great interest in the case, but of
course the public has got to be protected from charlatans, and the only way
to do it is to brand as guilty those who pretend they are duly licensed to
practise medicine when they are not. If you had a sick baby, Mr. Foreman,
and you saw a sign 'A.S. Smith, M.D., Children's Specialist,' you would
want to be sure you were not going to hire a plumber, eh? You see! That's
all there is to this case!"
"All there is to this case!" murmured Mr. Tutt audibly, raising his eyes
ceilingward.
"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 jury in a
professional manner. He had, he told them, been a detective employed by
the state board of health for over sixteen years. It was his duty to go round
and arrest people who pretended to be licensed practitioners of medicine
and assumed to doctor other people and animals. 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 of the
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 he
calls 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 the
bench.

"I'm tellin' you, judge," protested Brown vigorously. "This here defendant
—"
"You've said that three times!" retorted the baboon. "Get along, can't you?
What did he do?"
"He treated my horse for spavin here in New York at 500 West 24th Street
at my request on the twentieth of last March and I paid him five dollars. 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 was
emitting sounds like those from a saxophone.
"That is plain, simple testimony, Mr. Tutt," remarked the judge. "Go ahead
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 round
arresting 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 of
medicine but not a doctor of veterinary medicine—and beg him to treat

your 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, looking
about 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 were
listening with intent appreciation.
Mr. Brown leaned forward, a sickening smile of sneering superiority curling
about his yellow molars.
"Ah!" he cried. "That's where I have you, sir! I only pretended to treat him.
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 that attitude of piety
which we frequently observe upon effigies of defunct ecclesiastics—"so
you did the very thing for which you threw this old man at my side into jail
—and for which he is now on trial! You lied to him about being a doctor!
You deceived him about giving him the medical treatment he so much
needed! And you arrested him after he had worked for hours to relieve the
sufferings of a sick animal. By the way, it was a sick animal, wasn't it?"
"The sickest I could find," replied Brown airily.
"And he did relieve its sufferings, did he not?" continued Mr. Tutt gently.
"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 the
witness chair like the genii who mushroomed so unexpectedly out of the
fisherman's bottle in the Arabian Nights Entertainments.
"You were not interested in ministering to a poor horse, so sick it could
hardly stand! You were only interested in imprisoning and depriving of his
only form of livelihood this old man whose heart was not hardened like
yours! May I ask at whose instance you went and lied to him?"
"Mr. Tutt! Mr. Tutt!" interjected the octogenarian angel. "Your examination
is exceeding the bounds of judicial propriety."
Ephraim Tutt bowed low.
"A thousand pardons, Your Honor! My emotions swept me away! I most
humbly apologize! But when this witness so unblushingly confesses how he
played the scoundrel's part, aged case hardened practitioner as I am, my
heart cries out against such infamous treachery—"
Bang! went the judge's gavel.
"You are only making it worse!" declared the court severely. "Proceed with
your examination."
"Very well, Your Honor!" replied Mr. Tutt, his lips trembling with well-
simulated indignation. "Now, sir, who instigated this miserable deception—
I beg Your Honor's pardon! Who put you up to this game—I mean, this
course of conduct?"
"Nobody," replied Brown in a surly tone.
"Did you ever hear of the United Association of Veterinaries of the Greater
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 heard it
was called a Horse Leeches' Union."

"Didn't one of its officers come to you and say that unless something was
done to reduce competition they'd have to go out of business—owing to the
decrease in horses in New York?"
"I don't remember," answered Brown slowly. "One of 'em may have said
something of the sort to me. But that's my business!"
"Yes!" roared Mr. Tutt suddenly. "It's your business to pretend you're a
doctor when you're not, and you walk the streets a free man; and you want
to send my client to Sing Sing for the same offense! That is all! I am done
with you! Get down off the stand! Do not let me detain you from the
practise of your unlicensed profession!"
"Mr. Tutt!" again admonished His Honor as the lawyer threw himself
angrily into his chair. "This really won't do at all!"
"I beg Your Honor's pardon—a thousand times!" said Mr. Tutt in tones so
humble and sincere that he almost made the angel-faced baboon believe
him.
I should like to go on and describe the whole course of Danny Lowry's trial
item by item, witness by witness, and tell what Mr. Tutt did to each. But I
can't; there isn't room. I can only dwell upon the tactics of Mr. Tutt long
enough to state that at the conclusion of the case against Daniel Lowry,
wherein it was clearly, definitely and convincingly established that Danny
had been practising veterinary medicine for a long time without the faintest
legal right, the lawyer rose and declared emphatically to the jury that his
client was absolutely, totally and unquestionably innocent, as they would
see by giving proper attention to the evidence he would produce—so that he
would not take up any more of their valuable time in talk.
And having made this opening statement with all the earnestness and
solemnity of which he was capable Mr. Tutt called to prove the defendant's
good reputation, first, Father Plunkett, the priest to whom Danny made his
monthly confession and who told the jury that he knew no better man in all
his parish; second, Mulqueen, who described Danny's love of horses, his
knowledge of them, his mysterious intuition concerning 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 up with a sick or dying animal to

relieve its pain without thought of himself or of any earthly reward; then,
man after man and woman after woman from the neighborhood of West
Twenty-third Street who gave Danny the best of characters, including
policemen, firemen, delicatessens, hotel keepers, and Salvatore, the
proprietor of the night lunch frequented by Mr. Tutt.
And last of all little Katie Lowry. It was she who found the crack in Bently's
moral armor. For Eleanor his wife was of Irish ancestry and of the colleen
type, like Katie; and Bently had always played up to her Irish side when
courting her as a humorous short cut to a quasi familiarity, for you may call
a girl "acushla" and "Ellin darlint" when otherwise you are fully aware, but
for the Irish of it, she would have to be referred to as Miss Dodworth. And
this wisp of a girl with her big black-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 alabaster of her neck was a shade off color—faith, an' it might
have been Eleanor hersilf! It is obvious that any juryman who allows his
mind to be influenced by the mere fact that one of the witnesses for the
defense is a pretty woman—even if she recalls to him his wife or sweet-
heart—is a poor weakling, a silly ass.
Otherwise all a crook need do would be to hire a half dozen of Ziegfeld's
midnight beauties to testify for him by day; and the slender darlings could
work in double shifts and be whisked in auto busses from roof garden to
court room. Bently was no weakling, but Katie—perhaps because it was the
moment of apple blossoms and dogwood and the anniversary of his
wedding day—Katie got him. Kathleen Mavourneen, and all! No man could
have brought up a fatherless and motherless girl like that and keep her so
simple, frank and innocent unless there was something fine about him. You
see, highbrows and lowbrows are all alike below the collar bone.
And here's the catch in it. Bently had told Eleanor that very morning that
none of the rogues would get by him, and he had meant it. None of them
ever had—in all his years of jury service. Time and again he had been the
one stubborn man to hang out all night for a verdict of guilty against eleven
outraged and indignant fellow talesmen who wanted to acquit. But quite
unconsciously he found himself saying that this old fellow at the bar wasn't
a rogue at all. If he was a criminal he was so at most only in a Pickwickian
sense. All the previous cases in which he had sat had been for murder or

arson, robbery or theft, burglary, blackmail or some other outrageous
offense against common morals or decency. But here was a man who had
never done anything but good in his life, and was at the bar of justice
charged with crime merely because some cold-blooded mercenaries thought
he was interfering with their business! Bently was in a recalcitrant and
indignant frame of mind against the prosecution long before the defense
began. The whole proceeding seemed to him an outrageous farce. That
wasn't what they were there for at all! So swiftly does the acid of sympathy
corrode and weaken the stoutest conscience, the most logical of minds!
Mr. Tutt did not put Danny on the stand—why should he?—and the
octogenarian judge declared the case closed on both sides. Then everybody
made a speech, in which he told the jury to disregard everything everybody
else said.
Mr. Tutt spoke first. He thanked the gaping jury for their attention and
courtesy and kindness and intelligence and for taking the trouble to listen to
him. He told them what a wise and upright judge the old baboon on the
bench was; and what a sterling, honest, kindly chap the fat assistant district
attorney really was. They were the highest type of public officers—but paid
—he accentuated the "paid" very slightly—to do their duty as they
interpreted it. Now, Mr. Hingman would have to claim that Danny Lowry
was a criminal; whereas, thank heaven! they all of 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 heaven in protest. Why, one look at him
would create a reasonable doubt! But the case against him failed absolutely
for the following reasons:
Daniel Lowry had not practised veterinary medicine without a license in
taking care of Brown's sick horse, because he had not claimed to be a
veterinary; he had not been paid for his services; and because all he had
done was to help a suffering animal, as any man who called himself a
Christian 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 in Holy
Writ! The highest law!
There was no evidence against Danny at all, because Brown was an
accomplice and his testimony was not corroborated; at any rate he was a

procurer and instigator of crime, an agent provocateur, a despicable liar,
hypocrite and violator of the very law he was paid to uphold; and as he had
held himself out as a physician to Danny Lowry everything that passed
between them was privileged as a confidential communication and must be
disregarded as if it had never been said.
Daniel Lowry was a man of the highest reputation, of such character that he
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 enough to 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
all his professional life and he was a peach, but they mustn't believe what he
said or let him put anythin' over on 'em, for he was pretty slick even if he
was a fine old feller. Now the plain fact was, as they all knew 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 there to enforce it—much as
they hated to do so—and there was nothing to it but to convict and let the
judge deal with the defendant with that mercy and leniency and forbearance
for which he was so justly famous. He panted a few times and sat down.
Then the judge took his crack. He told the jury, in so many words, to pay no
attention to either the A.D.A. or to Mr. Tutt, and to listen only to him,
because he was the whole thing. The question was: Had the defendant
assumed to give medical treatment to Brown's horse, for any kind of
valuable consideration? In determining this they should consider all the
evidence, including the fact that the prisoner had claimed to be a veterinary,
had been paid for treating Brown's horse as such, had pleaded guilty in the
police court, and that none of the alleged facts upon which the charge was
based had been denied before them in present trial.
As he said this the pink-and-white baboon looked at them steadily and
significantly for several seconds over his eyeglasses. They should consider
the business card which the defendant had given to the complaining witness
and in which he held himself out as a veterinary. The testimony of the
complainant stood uncontradicted. The complainant was 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 had passed between the

complainant and defendant privileged as a confidential 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 not
practise veterinary medicine without a license? It was not controverted but
that he had said he was a veterinary, administered medicine to a sick horse,
offered to compound payment for medical treatment for himself, finally
taken five dollars, and admitted his guilt before the magistrate. If they had
any reasonable doubt—and such a doubt might of course be raised by
evidence of previous good character—they would of course give it to the
defendant and acquit him, but such a doubt must be no mere whim, guess or
conjecture that the defendant might not after all be guilty even if the
evidence seemed so to demonstrate; it must be a substantial doubt based on
the evidence and such a one as would influence them in the important
matters of their own daily, domestic and business lives. That was all there
was to it! Let them take the case and decide it! It should not take 'em very
long. The question of how the defendant should be punished, if at all, did
not concern them. He would take care of that. They might safely leave it to
him! He bowed and turned to his papers. The jury gathered up their coats
and straggled after 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 fer that son of a gun on
the back row, Gibson! He's a bad one! I've known him for years! He'd
convict his own mother of petit larceny!"
"So? So?" murmured Mr. Tutt, producing a leather case the size of a
doctor's instrument bag from his inside pocket and removing a couple of
stogies therefrom. "Well, it's too late now to do anything about it. I'm going
out to stretch my legs and have a smoke."
Mr. Tutt loitered into the corridor, stepped unostentatiously behind a pillar,
slipped into the adjoining court room—which happened to be empty—and
thence back into the passage upon which the jury rooms opened. He found
Cap Phelan standing before one of these with a finger to his lips.
"Pst! They're at it a-ready!" whispered Phelan as Mr. Tutt slipped him a
stogy.

The transom above was open and through it drifted out a faint blue cloud. A
great hubbub was going on inside. Suddenly above it a harsh voice rang
out: "That ain't a reasonable doubt! I tell you, that ain't a reasonable doubt!
Aw, you give me a pain, you do!"
"I've got 'em!" grinned Mr. Tutt contentedly. "Phelan, bring me a chair!"
Now right here is where this story begins—only here.
"Vell, gen'l'muns," said the foreman, who was a glove merchant and looked
like Sam Bernard, as they took their seats round the battered oak table. "Vot
you say? Shall we disguss or take a vote?"
"Let's take a smoke!" amended a real-estate broker. "No use goin' back right
off and getting stuck onto another damn case! Where's that cuspidor?"
"Speakin' of veterinaries," chuckled a man with three rolls of fat on his
neck, "did y'ever hear the story of the negro and the mule with the cough?"
None of them apparently ever had, so the stout brother told all about how—
ha, ha!—the mule coughed first.
"I remember that story now," remarked one of the jury reminiscently while
the fat man glared at him. "If I had my way all these veterinaries would be
in jail! They're a dangerous lot. I had a second cousin once who'd paid a
hundred dollars—a hundred dollars!—for a horse and it got 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. "There was
some mistake about what he gave the horse—wood alcohol or something—
I forget what it was. Anyhow, I think they're all a dangerous lot. They all
ought to be locked up. I move to convict!"
"But neither of these fellers is a veterinary!" retorted a sad-looking
gentleman in black. "The charge is that one of 'em pretended to be—but
wasn't. So if he wasn't how could you convict him of being a veterinary?"
"Well, if he had been I'd have convicted him all right," asserted the first.
"They're dangerous—like all these clairvoyants and soothsayers."

"Will somebody tell me?" requested a tall man who had been looking
intently out of the window, "whether a veterinary is the same thing as a
veterinarian? I always supposed a veterinarian was a sort of religion, like a
Unitarian. Veteran means old—I thought it was some old form of religion;
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 he
did."
"Let's take a vote," suggested Bently.
"Vell, let's understand vat we're doin'," admonished the foreman. "Do you
gen'l'muns all understand that we're tryin' to convict this feller for 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!" suddenly
announced 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 same place as
me in the summer—Cottage Point. If any of you gentlemen want a good
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 had
brought over two others to conviction, so that the jury was now evenly
divided, Bently voting irresponsibly for acquittal.
"Look here!" proposed the man in black. "Let's argue this out. Suppose I put
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 say
aye."
"Wait a minute!" interposed the tall man, who was still standing by the
window. "Maybe I am a nut. But I wish someone would explain to me
which is 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! The other one is the
complainant!"
"The only one that had any complaint was the horse", protested the tall
man. "But I understand now—we're tryin' the defendant. I've never served
on a jury before. Now, what's the question?"
"Did the defendant—ant—claim to be a licensed veterinary—when he
wasn't?"
"Now wait a second," objected the tall man again. "I want to get this
straight. Is it the point that if this old man pretended he was a horse doctor
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're
simple-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 in the
bolice gourt."

"Sure!" "That's so!" "Pass the box again!" came from all hands.
When the foreman had counted the ballots Bently was horrified to discover
that ten jurors now thought the defendant guilty, and only two believed him
innocent.
"May I suggest," said he earnestly, "that perhaps this old man did not
understand in the magistrate's court the elements that went to make up the
offense charged against him? He merely stood ready to admit freely
whatever the facts were. His opinion on the purely legal question of his own
guilt was not of much value. Anyhow, his subsequent plea of not guilty to
the indictment neutralizes the significance of the original plea."
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 business card?"
"It seems to me," argued Bently, "that the card plays no particular part in
this case. In the first place the question before us is not whether Lowry ever
did—in the past—hold himself out as a veterinary, but whether he did so on
the day alleged in the indictment. The fact that he gave the detective a card
which he had had printed perhaps years before only tends to show that at
some time or other he may have pretended to be a licensed veterinary. And
you will recall, gentlemen, that the testimony is merely that he said to the
detective in reference to the card: 'That is my name.' He did not say
anything to him about being a veterinary."
This somewhat disingenuous argument created a profound impression.
"Say, now you've said something!" declared the salesman. "You'd oughta
been a lawyer yourself. Let's take another vote."
Curiously enough Bently's argument seemed to have had a revolutionary
effect, for the jury now stood ten to two for acquittal. He began to feel
encouraged. If ever there was a case— Then he heard an altercation going
on fiercely between the salesman and Brown's summer friend, the latter
insisting loudly that the detective was a perfect gentleman and entirely all
right.

"Nobody questions Mr. Brown's entire honesty," interposed Bently hastily,
in a friendly way. "The question before us is the sufficiency of the evidence.
Upon this, it seems to me, there is what might fairly be called a reasonable
doubt."
"And you have to give that to the defendant—it's the law!" shouted the
salesman in fury.
It was at this point that Mr. Tutt and Phelan had taken up their positions
outside the door, and the friend of Brown had told the salesman that he gave
him a pain; that his doubt wasn't a reasonable doubt.
"Gentlemen! Gentlemen!" protested Bently. "Let us discuss this matter
calmly."
"But I'm a reasonable man!" shouted the salesman. "And so, if I have any
doubt, my doubt is bound to be reasonable."
"You—a reasonable man?" sneered Brown's friend. "You're nothin' but a
damn fool!"
"I am, am I?" yelled the salesman, starting to remove his coat. "I'll show
you—"
"Oh, cut it out!" expostulated the fat man complacently. "Settle all that
afterward! We ain't interested."
"Vell, take annoder vote," mildly suggested the foreman.
This time it stood eleven to one for acquittal. All concentrated upon the
friend of Brown, over whose face had settled a look of grim determination.
But a similar expression occupied the features of Mr. Bently Gibson,
erstwhile the exponent of the-law-as-it-is, the bulwark of the jury system,
now adrift upon the ship of justice, blindly determined that no matter what
—law or no law, principles or no principles—that old man was going to be
acquitted.
"My friend," he remarked solemnly, taking the floor, "of course you want to
do justice in this case. We have nothing against Mr. Brown at all. He is
doubtless a very honest and efficient officer. But surely the good character

of this defendant may well create a reasonable doubt—and the rest of us
feel that it does."
"Sure! 'Course it does!" came from all sides. Mr. Brown's red-faced friend
having escaped the salesman's wrath began to show somewhat less
aggressiveness.
"I don't care a damn about Brown!" he assured them. "He can go to hell for
all of me! But I don't see how you can acquit this feller when the evidence
is uncontradicted that he told Brown he was a veterinary and treated his
horse. I'd be violating my oath if I voted for acquittal after that testimony. I
ain't going to commit perjury for nobody! I'd like to oblige you gentlemen,
too, and vote your way, but I just can't with that evidence stickin' in my
crop. If it wasn't for that—"
"He could 'a' treated the horse without doing it as a veterinary, just as Mr.
Tutt said!" interjected the tall man.
"Good for you!" said the salesman, fully restored to equanimity. "You're
gettin' intelligent. Serve on a few more juries—"
"But he said he was a veterinary," insisted Brown's friend. "How could he
have treated the horse as anything else but as a veterinary when he said he
was treating him as a veterinary?"
"Maybe he just thought he was doing it as a veterinary", commented the
gloom 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 he was a
vet and he treated the horse as a vet and got five dollars for it."
"How do you know he did?" unexpectedly asked Bently.
"Because he said so himself. That was part of the conversation between
Brown and Lowry," declared the obstinate summer friend of Brown. "If it
wasn'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 a
privileged communication between a doctor—Brown—and his patient—
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'd like 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 between Mr.
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 was for
the purpose of declaring the defendant guilty, scowled.
"The rule is," said he wearily, "that conversations between a doctor and his
patient are privileged and cannot be testified to without the consent of the
patient. If Brown had been a doctor—which he is not—it is possible that I
might have sustained Mr. Tutt's objection on the ground and struck out the
conversation. But he only pretended to be a doctor, and no privilege exists
under those circumstances even if in some cases it seems to work a hardship
upon the one who is deceived. The conversation in this instance is part of
the record. You may retire."
But Bently, with a light upon his countenance such as theretofore had ne'er
been seen on sea or land, suddenly held up his hand.
"One question, Your Honor. If Brown had been a doctor you would have
excluded 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 fact that
there is in evidence a conversation in which Lowry is claimed to have said
that he was a veterinary and had been acting as such all his life. Mr. Tutt
says that that conversation is privileged and should be disregarded because
it was a confidential communication between a doctor and a patient. The
judge says it is not privileged for the reason that Mr. Brown was not in fact
a doctor—but he says further that if Brown were a doctor we should have to
disregard that part of the evidence—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; but he
lied about everything else he told Lowry, and he may have been lying about
that too. And if he lied to Lowry he may have been lying to us here to-day. I
say that there is a reasonable doubt right there as to whether Brown is really
a doctor or not. Such a doubt belongs to the defendant. 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 a
tremendous scuffling of feet and scraping of chairs.
"Phelan!" gasped Mr. Tutt. "Who shall ever again have the temerity to
suggest 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 as the
model juror jumped off the train. "I was terribly afraid you wouldn'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 after all!"
"Really!" she cried, delighted. "You clever boy! How did you manage it?"
"Well," he answered a little shamefacedly as he lit a cigarette, "the fact is
that when the jury I was on returned their verdict this afternoon the judge
said he wouldn't require our services any longer."

It was at about the same moment that two other good and true friends stood
at the foot of the steps leading up to Mr. Tutt's ramshackle front door.
"Sorr!" Danny was saying in a trembling voice, the tears in his faded eyes.
"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 I was 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 of heaven before God, the Judge,
and the jury of all his holy angels, if there be none else to defend ye, sure
old Danny Lowry'll be there to do that same."

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