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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/10440-0.txt b/10440-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..db98613 --- /dev/null +++ b/10440-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7916 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10440 *** + +TUTT AND MR. TUTT + +By Arthur Train + +1919 + + + + + + +CONTENTS + + +THE HUMAN ELEMENT + +MOCK HEN AND MOCK TURTLE + +SAMUEL AND DELILAH + +THE DOG ANDREW + +WILE _Versus_ GUILE + +HEPPLEWHITE TRAMP + +LALLAPALOOSA LIMITED + + + + +The Human Element + + + + Although men flatter themselves with their great actions, + they are not so often the result of great design as of chance. + --LA ROCHEFOUCAULD. + +"He says he killed him, and that's all there is about it!" said Tutt to +Mr. Tutt. "What are you going to do with a fellow like that?" The junior +partner of the celebrated firm of Tutt & Tutt, attorneys and counselors +at law, thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his yellow checked +breeches and, balancing himself upon the heels of his patent-leather +boots, gazed in a distressed, respectfully inquiring manner at his +distinguished associate. + +"Yes," he repeated plaintively. "He don't make any bones about it at +all. 'Sure, I killed him!' says he. 'And I'd kill him again, the ----!' +I prefer not to quote his exact language. I've just come from the Tombs +and had quite a talk with Serafino in the counsel room, with a +gum-chewing keeper sitting in the corner watching me for fear I'd slip +his prisoner a saw file or a shotgun or a barrel of poison. I'm all in! +These murder cases drive me to drink, Mr. Tutt. I don't mind grand +larceny, forgery, assault or even manslaughter--but murder gets my goat! +And when you have a crazy Italian for a client who says he's glad he did +it and would like to do it again--please excuse me! It isn't law; it's +suicide!" + +He drew out a silk handkerchief ornamented with the colors of the +Allies, and wiped his forehead despairingly. + +"Oh," remarked Mr. Tutt with entire good nature. "He's glad he did it +and he's quite willing to be hanged!" + +"That's it in a nutshell!" replied Tutt. + +The senior partner of Tutt & Tutt ran his bony fingers through the lank +gray locks over his left eye and tilted ceilingward the stogy between +his thin lips. Then he leaned back in his antique swivel chair, locked +his hands behind his head, elevated his long legs luxuriously, and +crossed his feet upon the fourth volume of the American and English +Encyclopedia of Law, which lay open upon the desk at Champerty and +Maintenance. Even in this inelegant and relaxed posture he somehow +managed to maintain the air of picturesque dignity which always made his +tall, ungainly figure noticeable in any courtroom. Indubitably Mr. +Ephraim Tutt suggested a past generation, the suggestion being +accentuated by a slight pedantry of diction a trifle out of character +with the rushing age in which he saw fit to practise his time-honored +profession. "Cheer up, Tutt," said he, pushing a box of stogies toward +his partner with the toe of his congress boot. "Have a weed?" + +Since in the office of Tutt & Tutt such an invitation like those of +royalty, was equivalent to a command, Tutt acquiesced. + +"Thank you, Mr. Tutt," said Tutt, looking about vaguely for a match. + +"That conscienceless brat of a Willie steals 'em all," growled Mr. Tutt. +"Ring the bell." + +Tutt obeyed. He was a short, brisk little man with a pronounced +abdominal convexity, and he maintained toward his superior, though but a +few years his junior, a mingled attitude of awe, admiration and +affection such as a dickey bird might adopt toward a distinguished owl. + +This attitude was shared by the entire office force. Inside the ground +glass of the outer door Ephraim Tutt was king. To Tutt the opinion of +Mr. Tutt upon any subject whatsoever was law, even if the courts might +have held to the contrary. To Tutt he was the eternal fount of wisdom, +culture and morality. Yet until Mr. Tutt finally elucidated his views +Tutt did not hesitate to hold conditional if temporary opinions of his +own. Briefly their relations were symbolized by the circumstance that +while Tutt always addressed his senior partner as "Mr. Tutt," the latter +accosted him simply as "Tutt." In a word there was only one Mr. Tutt in +the firm of Tutt & Tutt. + +But so far as that went there was only one Tutt. On the theory that a +lily cannot be painted, the estate of one seemingly was as dignified as +that of the other. At any rate there never was and never had been any +confusion or ambiguity arising out of the matter since the day, twenty +years before, when Tutt had visited Mr. Tutt's law office in search of +employment. Mr. Tutt was just rising into fame as a police-court lawyer. +Tutt had only recently been admitted to the bar, having abandoned his +native city of Bangor, Maine, for the metropolis. + +"And may I ask why you should come to me?" Mr. Tutt had demanded +severely from behind the stogy, which even at that early date had been +as much a part of his facial anatomy as his long ruminative nose. "Why +the devil should you come to me? I am nobody, sir--nobody! In this great +city certainly there are thousands far more qualified than I to further +your professional and financial advancement." + +"Because," answered the inspired Tutt with modesty, "I feel that with +you I should be associated with a good name." + +That had settled the matter. They bore no relationship to one another, +but they were the only Tutts in the city and there seemed to be a +certain propriety in their hanging together. Neither had regretted it +for a moment, and as the years passed they became indispensable to each +other. They were the necessary component parts of a harmonious legal +whole. Mr. Tutt was the brains and the voice, while Tutt was the eyes +and legs of a combination that at intervals--rare ones, it must be +confessed--made the law tremble, sometimes in fear and more often with +joy. + +At first, speaking figuratively, Tutt merely carried Mr. Tutt's +bag--rode on his coat tails, as it were; but as time went on his +activity, ingenuity and industry made him indispensable and led to a +junior partnership. Tutt prepared the cases for Mr. Tutt to try. Both +were well versed in the law if they were not profound lawyers, but as +the origin of the firm was humble, their practise was of a miscellaneous +character. + +"Never turn down a case," was Tutt's motto. + +"Our duty as sworn officers of the judicial branch of the Government +renders it incumbent upon us to perform whatever services our clients' +exigencies demand," was Mr. Tutt's way of putting it. + +In the end it amounted to exactly the same thing. As a result, in +addition to their own clientele, other members of the bar who found +themselves encumbered with matters which for one reason or another they +preferred not to handle formed the habit of turning them over to Tutt & +Tutt. A never-ending stream of peculiar cases flowed through the office, +each leaving behind it some residuum of golden dust, however small. The +stately or, as an unkind observer might have put it, the ramshackly form +of the senior partner was a constant figure in all the courts, from that +of the coroner on the one hand to the appellate tribunals upon the +other. It was immaterial to him what the case was about--whether it +dealt with the "next eventual estate" or the damages for a dog bite--so +long as he was paid and Tutt prepared it. Hence Tutt & Tutt prospered. +And as the law, like any other profession requires jacks-of-all-trades, +the firm acquired a certain peculiar professional standing of its own, +and enjoyed the good will of the bar as a whole. + +They had the reputation of being sound lawyers if not overafflicted with +a sense of professional dignity, whose word was better than their bond, +yet who, faithful to their clients' interests knew no mercy and gave no +quarter. They took and pressed cases which other lawyers dared not touch +lest they should be defiled--and nobody seemed to think any the less of +them for so doing. They raised points that made the refinements of the +ancient schoolmen seem blunt in comparison. No respecters of persons, +they harried the rich and taunted the powerful, and would have as soon +jailed a bishop or a judge as a pickpocket if he deserved it. Between +them they knew more kinds of law than most of their professional +brethren, and as Mr. Tutt was a bookworm and a seeker after legal and +other lore their dusty old library was full of hidden treasures, which +on frequent occasions were unearthed to entertain the jury or delight +the bench. They were loyal friends, fearsome enemies, high chargers, and +maintained their unique position in spite of the fact that at one time +or another they had run close to the shadowy line which divides the +ethical from that which is not. Yet Mr. Tutt had brought disbarment +proceedings against many lawyers in his time and--what is more--had them +disbarred. + +"Leave old Tutt alone," was held sage advice, and when other lawyers +desired to entertain the judiciary they were apt to invite Mr. Tutt to +be of the party. And Tutt gloried in the glories of Mr. Tutt. + +"That's it!" repeated Tutt as he lit his stogy, which flared up like a +burning bush, the cub of a Willie having foraged successfully in the +outer office for a match. "He's willing to be hanged or damned or +anything else just for the sake of putting a bullet through the other +fellow!" + +"What was the name of the unfortunate deceased?" + +"Tomasso Crocedoro--a barber." + +"That is almost a defense in itself," mused Mr. Tutt. "Anyhow, if I've +got to defend Angelo for shooting Tomasso you might as well give me a +short scenario of the melodrama. By the way, are we retained or assigned +by the court?" + +"Assigned," chirped Tutt. + +"So that all we'll get out of it is about enough to keep me in stogies +for a couple of months!" + +"And--if he's convicted, as of course he will be--a good chance of +losing our reputation as successful trial counsel. Why not beg off?" + +"Let me hear the story first," answered Mr. Tutt. "Angelo sounds like a +good sport. I have a mild affection for him already." + +He reached into the lower compartment of his desk and lifted out a +tumbler and a bottle of malt extract, which he placed carefully at his +elbow. Then he leaned back again expectantly. + +"It is a simple and naive story," began Tutt, seating himself in the +chair reserved for paying clients--that is to say, one which did not +have the two front legs sawed off an inch or so in order to make +lingering uncomfortable. "A plain, unvarnished tale. Our client is one +who makes an honest living by blacking shoes near the entrance to the +Brooklyn Bridge. He is one of several hundred original Tonys who conduct +shoe-shining emporiums." + +"Emporia," corrected his partner, pouring out a tumbler of malt extract. + +"He formed an attachment for a certain young lady," went on Tutt, +undisturbed, "who had previously had some sort of love affair with +Crocedoro, as a result of which her social standing had become slightly +impaired. In a word Tomasso jilted her. Angelo saw, pitied and loved +her, took her for better or for worse, and married her." + +"For which," interjected Mr. Tutt, "he is entitled to everyone's +respect." + +"Quite so!" agreed Tutt. "Now Tomasso, though not willing to marry the +girl himself, seems to have resented the idea of having anyone else do +so, and accordingly seized every opportunity which presented itself to +twit Angelo about the matter." + +"Dog in the manger, so to speak," nodded Mr. Tutt. + +"He not only jeered at Angelo for marrying Rosalina but he began to +hang about his discarded mistress again and scoff at her choice of a +husband. But Rosalina gave him the cold shoulder, with the result that +he became more and more insulting to Angelo. Finally one day our client +made up his mind not to stand it any longer, secured a revolver, sought +out Tomasso in his barber shop and put a bullet through his head. Now +however much you may sympathize with Angelo as a man and a husband there +isn't the slightest doubt that he killed Tomasso with every kind of +deliberation and premeditation." + +"If the case is as you say," replied Mr. Tutt, replacing the bottle and +tumbler within the lower drawer and flicking a stogy ash from his +waistcoat, "the honorable justice who handed it to us is no friend of +ours." + +"He isn't," assented his partner. "It was Babson and he hates Italians. +Moreover, he stated in open court that he proposed to try the case +himself next Monday and that we must be ready without fail." + +"So Babson did that to us!" growled Mr. Tutt. "Just like him. He'll pack +the jury and charge our innocent Angelo into the middle of hades." + +"And O'Brien is the assistant district attorney in charge of the +prosecution," mildly added Tutt. "But what can we do? We're assigned, +we've got a guilty client, and we've got to defend him." + +"Have you set Bonnie Doon looking up witnesses?" asked Mr. Tutt. "I +thought I saw him outside during the forenoon." + +"Yes," replied Tutt. "But Bonnie says it's the toughest case he ever had +to handle in which to find any witnesses for the defense. There aren't +any. Besides, the girl bought the gun and gave it to Angelo the same +day." + +"How do you know that?" demanded Mr. Tutt, frowning. + +"Because she told me so herself," said Tutt. "She's outside if you want +to see her." + +"I might as well give her what you call 'the once over,'" replied the +senior partner. + +Tutt retired and presently returned half leading, half pushing a +shrinking young Italian woman, shabbily dressed but with the features of +one of Raphael's madonnas. She wore no hat and her hands and finger +nails were far from clean, but from the folds of her black shawl her +neck rose like a column of slightly discolored Carrara marble, upon +which her head with its coils of heavy hair was poised with the grace of +a sulky empress. + +"Come in, my child, and sit down," said Mr. Tutt kindly. "No, not in +that one; in that one." He indicated the chair previously occupied by +his junior. "You can leave us, Tutt. I want to talk to this young lady +alone." + +The girl sat sullenly with averted face, showing in her attitude her +instinctive feeling that all officers of the law, no matter upon which +side they were supposed to be, were one and all engaged in a mysterious +conspiracy of which she and her unfortunate Angelo were the victims. A +few words from the old lawyer and she began to feel more confidence, +however. No one, in fact, could help but realize at first glance Mr. +Tutt's warmth of heart. The lines of his sunken cheeks if left to +themselves automatically tended to draw together into a whimsical smile, +and it required a positive act of will upon his part to adopt the stern +and relentless look with which he was wont to glower down upon some +unfortunate witness in cross-examination. + +Inside Mr. Tutt was a benign and rather mellow old fellow, with a dry +sense of humor and a very keen knowledge of his fellow men. He made a +good deal of money, but not having any wife or child upon which to +lavish it he spent it all either on books or surreptitiously in quixotic +gifts to friends or strangers whom he either secretly admired or whom he +believed to be in need of money. There were vague traditions in the +office of presents of bizarre and quite impossible clothes made to +office boys and stenographers; of ex-convicts reoutfitted and sent +rejoicing to foreign parts; of tramps gorged to repletion and then +pumped dry of their adventures in Mr. Tutt's comfortable, dingy old +library; of a fur coat suddenly clapped upon the rounded shoulders of +old Scraggs, the antiquated scrivener in the accountant's cage in the +outer office, whose alcoholic career, his employer alleged, was marked +by a trail of empty rum kegs, each one flying the white flag of +surrender. + +And yet old Ephraim Tutt could on occasion be cold as chiseled steel, +and as hard. Any appeal from a child, a woman or an outcast always met +with his ready response; but for the rich, successful and those in power +he seemed to entertain a deep and enduring grudge. He would burn the +midnight oil with equal zest to block a crooked deal on the part of a +wealthy corporation or to devise a means to extricate some no less +crooked rascal from the clutches of the law, provided that the rascal +seemed the victim of hard luck, inheritance or environment. His +weather-beaten conscience was as elastic as his heart. Indeed when under +the expansive influence of a sufficient quantity of malt extract or +ancient brandy from the cellaret on his library desk he had sometimes +been heard to enunciate the theory that there was very little difference +between the people in jail and those who were not. + +He would work weeks without compensation to argue the case of some +guilty rogue before the Court of Appeals, in order, as he said, to +"settle the law," when his only real object was to get the miserable +fellow out of jail and send him back to his wife and children. He went +through life with a twinkling eye and a quizzical smile, and when he did +wrong he did it--if such a thing is possible--in a way to make people +better. He was a dangerous adversary and judges were afraid of him, not +because he ever tricked or deceived them but because of the audacity and +novelty of his arguments which left them speechless. He had the +assurance that usually comes with age and with a lifelong knowledge of +human nature, yet apparently he had always been possessed of it. + +Once a judge having assigned him to look out for the interests of a +lawyerless prisoner suggested that he take his new client into the +adjoining jury room and give him the best advice he could. Mr. Tutt was +gone so long that the judge became weary, and to find out what had +become of him sent an officer, who found the lawyer reading a newspaper +beside an open window, but no sign of the prisoner. In great excitement +the officer reported the situation to the judge, who ordered Mr. Tutt to +the bar. + +"What has become of the prisoner?" demanded His Honor. + +"I do not know," replied the lawyer calmly. "The window was open and I +suspect that he used it as a means of exit." + +"Are you not aware that you are a party to an escape--a crime?" hotly +challenged the judge. + +"I most respectfully deny the charge," returned Mr. Tutt. + +"I told you to take the prisoner into that room and give him the best +advice you could." + +"I did!" interjected the lawyer. + +"Ah!" exclaimed the judge. "You admit it! What advice did you give him?" + +"The law does not permit me to state that," answered Mr. Tutt in his +most dignified tones. "That is a privileged communication from the +inviolate obligation to preserve which only my client can release me--I +cannot betray a sacred trust. Yet I might quote Cervantes and remind +Your Honor that 'Fortune leaves always some door open to come at a +remedy!'" + +Now as he gazed at the tear-stained cheeks of the girl-wife whose +husband had committed murder in defense of her self-respect, he vowed +that so far as he was able he would fight to save him. The more +desperate the case the more desperate her need of him--the greater the +duty and the greater his honor if successful. + +"Believe that I am your friend, my dear!" he assured her. "You and I +must work together to set Angelo free." + +"It's no use," she returned less defiantly. "He done it. He won't deny +it." + +"But he is entitled to his defense," urged Mr. Tutt quietly. + +"He won't make no defense." + +"We must make one for him." + +"There ain't none. He just went and killed him." + +Mr. Tutt shrugged his shoulders. + +"There is always a defense," he answered with conviction. "Anyhow we +can't let him be convicted without making an effort. Will they be able +to prove where he got the pistol?" + +"He didn't get the pistol," retorted the girl with a glint in her black +eyes. "I got it. I'd ha' shot him myself if he hadn't. I said I was +goin' to, but he wouldn't let me." + +"Dear, dear!" sighed Mr. Tutt. "What a case! Both of you trying to see +which could get hanged first!" + + * * * * * + +The inevitable day of Angelo's trial came. Upon the bench the Honorable +Mr. Justice Babson glowered down upon the cowering defendant flanked by +his distinguished counsel, Tutt & Tutt, and upon the two hundred good +and true talesmen who, "all other business laid aside," had been dragged +from the comfort of their homes and the important affairs of their +various livelihoods to pass upon the merits of the issue duly joined +between The People of the State of New York and Angelo Serafino, +charged with murder. + +One by one as his name was called each took his seat in the witness +chair upon the _voir dire_ and perjured himself like a gentleman in +order to escape from service, shyly confessing to an ineradicable +prejudice against the entire Italian race and this defendant in +particular, and to an antipathy against capital punishment which, so +each unhesitatingly averred, would render him utterly incapable of +satisfactorily performing his functions if selected as a juryman. Hardly +one, however, but was routed by the Machiavellian Babson. Hardly one, +however ingenious his excuse--whether about to be married or immediately +become a father, whether engaged in a business deal involving millions +which required his instant and personal attention whether in the last +stages of illness or obligated to be present at the bedside of a dying +wife--but was browbeaten into helplessness and ordered back to take his +place amidst the waiting throng of recalcitrant citizens so disinclined +to do their part in elevating that system of trial by jury the failure +of which at other times they so loudly condemned. + +This trifling preliminary having been concluded, the few jurymen who had +managed to wriggle through the judicial sieve were allowed to withdraw, +the balance of the calendar was adjourned, those spectators who were +standing up were ordered to sit down and those already sitting down were +ordered to sit somewhere else, the prisoners in the rear of the room +were sent back to the Tombs to await their fate upon some later day, the +reporters gathered rapaciously about the table just behind the +defendant, a corpulent Ganymede in the person of an aged court officer +bore tremblingly an opaque glass of yellow drinking water to the bench, +O'Brien the prosecutor blew his nose with a fanfare of trumpets, Mr. +Tutt smiled an ingratiating smile which seemed to clasp the whole world +to his bosom--and the real battle commenced; a game in which every card +in the pack had been stacked against the prisoner by an unscrupulous +pair of officials whose only aim was to maintain their record of +convictions of "murder in the first" and who laid their plans with +ingenuity and carried them out with skill and enthusiasm to habitual +success. + +They were a grand little pair of convictors, were Babson and O'Brien, +and woe unto that man who was brought before them. It was even alleged +by the impious that when Babson was in doubt what to do or what O'Brien +wanted him to do the latter communicated the information to his +conspirator upon the bench by a system of preconcerted signals. But +indeed no such system was necessary, for the judge's part in the drama +was merely to sustain his colleague's objections and overrule those of +his opponent, after which he himself delivered the _coup de grace_ with +unerring insight and accuracy. When Babson got through charging a jury +the latter had always in fact been instructed in brutal and sneering +tones to convict the defendant or forever after to regard themselves as +disloyal citizens, oath violators and outcasts though the stenographic +record of his remarks would have led the reader thereof to suppose that +this same judge was a conscientious, tender-hearted merciful lover of +humanity, whose sensitive soul quivered at the mere thought of a prison +cell, and who meticulously sought to surround the defendant with every +protection the law could interpose against the imputation of guilt. + +He was, as Tutt put it, "a dangerous old cuss." O'Brien was even worse. +He was a bull-necked, bullet-headed, pugnosed young ruffian with beery +eyes, who had an insatiable ambition and a still greater conceit, but +who had devised a blundering, innocent, helpless way of conducting +himself before a jury that deceived them into believing that his +inexperience required their help and his disinterestedness their loyal +support. Both of them were apparently fair-minded, honest public +servants; both in reality were subtly disingenuous to a degree beyond +ordinary comprehension, for years of practise had made them sensitive to +every whimsy of emotion and taught them how to play upon the psychology +of the jury as the careless zephyr softly draws its melody from the +aeolian harp. In a word they were a precious pair of crooks, who for +their own petty selfish ends played fast and loose with liberty, life +and death. + +Both of them hated Mr. Tutt, who had more than once made them ridiculous +before the jury and shown them up before the Court of Appeals, and the +old lawyer recognized well the fact that these two legal wolves were in +revenge planning to tear him and his helpless client to pieces, having +first deliberately selected him as a victim and assigned him to +officiate at a ceremony which, however just so far as its consummation +might be concerned, was nothing less in its conduct than judicial +murder. Now they were laughing at him in their sleeves, for Mr. Tutt +enjoyed the reputation of never having defended a client who had been +convicted of murder, and that spotless reputation was about to be +annihilated forever. + +Though the defense had thirty peremptory challenges Mr. Tutt well knew +that Babson would sustain the prosecutor's objections for bias until the +jury box would contain the twelve automata personally selected by +O'Brien in advance from what Tutt called "the army of the gibbet." Yet +the old war horse outwardly maintained a calm and genial exterior, +betraying none of the apprehension which in fact existed beneath his +mask of professional composure. The court officer rapped sharply for +silence. + +"Are you quite ready to proceed with the case?" inquired the judge with +a courtesy in which was ill concealed a leer of triumph. + +"Yes, Your Honor," responded Mr. Tutt in velvet tones. + +"Call the first talesman!" + +The fight was on, the professional duel between traditional enemies, in +which the stake--a human life--was in truth the thing of least concern, +had begun. Yet no casual observer would have suspected the actual +significance of what was going on or the part that envy, malice, +uncharitableness, greed, selfishness and ambition were playing in it. He +would have seen merely a partially filled courtroom flooded with +sunshine from high windows, an attentive and dignified judge in a black +silk robe sitting upon a dais below which a white-haired clerk drew +little slips of paper from a wheel and summoned jurymen to a service +which outwardly bore no suggestion of a tragedy. + +He would have seen a somewhat unprepossessing assistant district +attorney lounging in front of the jury box, taking apparently no great +interest in the proceedings, and a worried-looking young Italian sitting +at the prisoner's table between a rubicund little man with a round red +face and a tall, grave, longish-haired lawyer with a frame not unlike +that of Abraham Lincoln, over whose wrinkled face played from time to +time the suggestion of a smile. Behind a balustrade were the reporters, +scribbling on rough sheets of yellow paper. Then came rows of benches, +upon the first of which, as near the jury box as possible, sat Rosalina +in a new bombazine dress and wearing a large imitation gold cross +furnished for the occasion out of the legal property room of Tutt & +Tutt. Occasionally she sobbed softly. The bulk of the spectators +consisted of rejected talesmen, witnesses, law clerks, professional +court loafers and women seeking emotional sensations which they had not +the courage or the means to satisfy otherwise. The courtroom was +comparatively quiet, the silence broken only by the droning voice of the +clerk and the lazy interplay of question and answer between talesman and +lawyer. + +Yet beneath the humdrum, casual, almost indifferent manner in which the +proceedings seemed to be conducted each side was watching every move +made by the other with the tension of a tiger ready to spring upon its +prey. Babson and O'Brien were engaged in forcing upon the defense a jury +composed entirely of case-hardened convictors, while Tutt & Tutt were +fighting desperately to secure one so heterogeneous in character that +they could hope for a disagreement. + +By recess thirty-seven talesmen had been examined without a foreman +having been selected, and Mr. Tutt had exhausted twenty-nine of his +thirty challenges, as against three for the prosecution. The court +reconvened and a new talesman was called, resembling in appearance a +professional hangman who for relaxation leaned toward the execution of +Italians. Mr. Tutt examined him for bias and every known form of +incompetency, but in vain--then challenged peremptorily. Thirty +challenges! He looked on Tutt with slightly raised eyebrows. + +"Patrick Henry Walsh--to the witness chair, please, Mr. Walsh!" called +the clerk, drawing another slip from the box. + +Mr. Walsh rose and came forward heavily, while Tutt & Tutt trembled. He +was the one man they were afraid of--an old-timer celebrated as a +bulwark of the prosecution, who could always be safely counted upon to +uphold the arms of the law, who regarded with reverence all officials +connected with the administration of justice, and from whose +composition all human emotions had been carefully excluded by the +Creator. He was a square-jawed, severe, heavily built person, with a +long relentless upper lip, cheeks ruddy from the open air; engaged in +the contracting business; and he had a brogue that would have charmed a +mavis off a tree. Mr. Tutt looked hopelessly at Tutt. + +Babson and O'Brien had won. + +Once more Mr. Tutt struggled against his fate. Was Mr. Walsh sure he had +no prejudices against Italians or foreigners generally? Quite. Did he +know anyone connected with the case? No. Had he any objection to the +infliction of capital punishment? None whatever. The defense had +exhausted all its challenges. Mr. Tutt turned to the prospective foreman +with an endearing smile. + +"Mr. Walsh," said he in caressing tones, "you are precisely the type of +man in whom I feel the utmost confidence in submitting the fate of my +client. I believe that you will make an ideal foreman I hardly need to +ask you whether you will accord the defendant the benefit of every +reasonable doubt, and if you have such a doubt will acquit him." + +Mr. Walsh gazed suspiciously at Mr. Tutt. + +"Sure," he responded dryly, "Oi'll give him the benefit o' the doubt, +but if Oi think he's guilty Oi'll convict him." + +Mr. Tutt shivered. + +"Of course! Of course! That would be your duty! You are entirely +satisfactory, Mr. Walsh!" + +"Mr. Walsh is more than satisfactory to the prosecution!" intoned +O'Brien. + +"Be sworn, Mr. Walsh," directed the clerk; and the filling of the jury +box in the memorable case of People versus Serafino was begun. + +"That chap doesn't like us," whispered Mr. Tutt to Tutt. "I laid it on a +bit too thick." + +In fact, Mr. Walsh had already entered upon friendly relations with Mr. +O'Brien, and as the latter helped him arrange a place for his hat and +coat the foreman cast a look tinged with malevolence at the defendant +and his counsel, as if to say "You can't fool me. I know the kind of +tricks you fellows are all up to." + +O'Brien could not repress a grin. The clerk drew forth another name. + +"Mr. Tompkins--will you take the chair?" + +Swiftly the jury was impaneled. O'Brien challenged everybody who did not +suit his fancy, while Tutt & Tutt sat helpless. + +Ten minutes and the clerk called the roll, beginning with Mr. Walsh, and +they were solemnly sworn a true verdict to find, and settled themselves +to the task. + +The mills of the gods had begun to grind, and Angelo was being dragged +to his fate as inexorably and as surely, with about as much chance of +escape, as a log that is being drawn slowly toward a buzz saw. + +"You may open the case, Mr. O'Brien," announced Judge Babson, leaning +back and wiping his glasses. + +Then surreptitiously he began to read his mail as his fellow conspirator +undertook to tell the jury what it was all about. One by one the +witnesses were called--the coroner's physician, the policeman who had +arrested Angelo outside the barber shop with the smoking pistol in his +hand, the assistant barber who had seen the shooting, the customer who +was being shaved. Each drove a spike into poor Angelo's legal coffin. +Mr. Tutt could not shake them. This evidence was plain. He had come into +the shop, accused Crocedoro of making his wife's life unbearable +and--shot him. + +Yet Mr. Tutt did not lose any of his equanimity. With the tips of his +long fingers held lightly together in front of him, and swaying slightly +backward and forward upon the balls of his feet, he smiled benignly down +upon the customer and the barber's assistant as if these witnesses were +merely unfortunate in not being able to disclose to the jury all the +facts. His manner indicated that a mysterious and untold tragedy lay +behind what they had heard, a tragedy pregnant with primordial vital +passions, involving the most sacred of human relationships, which when +known would rouse the spirit of chivalry of the entire panel. + +On cross-examination the barber testified that Angelo had said: "You +maka small of my wife long enough!" + +"Ah!" murmured Mr. Tutt, waving an arm in the direction of Rosalina. Did +the witness recognize the defendant's young wife? The jury showed +interest and examined the sobbing Rosalina with approval. Yes, the +witness recognized her. Did the witness know to what incident or +incidents the defendant had referred by his remark--what the deceased +Crocedoro had done to Rosalina--if anything? No, the witness did not. +Mr. Tutt looked significantly at the row of faces in the jury box. + +Then leaning forward he asked significantly: "Did you see Crocedoro +threaten the defendant with his razor?" + +"I object!" shouted O'Brien, springing to his feet. "The question is +improper. There is no suggestion that Crocedoro did anything. The +defendant can testify to that if he wants to!" + +"Oh, let him answer!" drawled the judge. + +"No--" began the witness. + +"Ah!" cried Mr. Tutt. "You did not see Crocedoro threaten the defendant +with his razor! That will do!" + +But forewarned by this trifling experience, Mr. O'Brien induced the +customer, the next witness, to swear that Crocedoro had not in fact made +any move whatever with his razor toward Angelo, who had deliberately +raised his pistol and shot him. + +Mr. Tutt rose to the cross-examination with the same urbanity as before. +Where was the witness standing? The witness said he wasn't standing. +Well, where was he sitting, then? In the chair. + +"Ah!" exclaimed Mr. Tutt triumphantly. "Then you had your back to the +shooting!" + +In a moment O'Brien had the witness practically rescued by the +explanation that he had seen the whole thing in the glass in front of +him. The firm of Tutt & Tutt uttered in chorus a groan of outraged +incredulity. Several jurymen were seen to wrinkle their foreheads in +meditation. Mr. Tutt had sown a tiny--infinitesimally tiny, to be +sure--seed of doubt, not as to the killing at all but as to the complete +veracity of the witness. + +And then O'Brien made his coup. + +"Rosalina Serafino--take the witness stand!" he ordered. + +He would get from her own lips the admission that she bought the pistol +and gave it to Angelo! + +But with an outburst of indignation that would have done credit to the +elder Booth Mr. Tutt was immediately on his feet protesting against the +outrage, the barbarity, the heartlessness, the illegality of making a +wife testify against her husband! His eyes flashed, his disordered locks +waved in picturesque synchronization with his impassioned gestures +Rosalina, her beautiful golden cross rising and falling hysterically +upon her bosom, took her seat in the witness chair like a frightened, +furtive creature of the woods, gazed for one brief instant upon the +twelve men in the jury box with those great black eyes of hers, and then +with burning cheeks buried her face in her handkerchief. + +"I protest against this piece of cruelty!" cried Mr. Tutt in a voice +vibrating with indignation. "This is worthy of the Inquisition. Will not +even the cross upon her breast protect her from being compelled to +reveal those secrets that are sacred to wife and motherhood? Can the law +thus indirectly tear the seal of confidence from the Confessional? Mr. +O'Brien, you go too far! There are some things that even you--brilliant +as you are--may not trifle with." + +A juryman nodded. The eleven others, being more intelligent, failed to +understand what he was talking about. + +"Mr. Tutt's objection is sound--if he wishes to press it," remarked the +judge satirically. "You may step down, madam. The law will not compel a +wife to testify against her husband. Have you any more witnesses, Mister +District Attorney?" + +"The People rest," said Mr. O'Brien. "The case is with the defense." + +Mr. Tutt rose with solemnity. + +"The court will, I suppose, grant me a moment or two to confer with my +client?" he inquired. Babson bowed and the jury saw the lawyer lean +across the defendant and engage his partner in what seemed to be a +weighty deliberation. + +"I killa him! I say so!" muttered Angelo feebly to Mr. Tutt. + +"Shut up, you fool!" hissed Tutt, grabbing him by the leg. "Keep still +or I'll wring your neck." + +"If I could reach that old crook up on the bench I would twist his +nose," remarked Mr. Tutt to Tutt with an air of consulting him about the +Year Books. "And as for that criminal O'Brien, I'll get him yet!" + +With great dignity Mr. Tutt then rose and again addressed the court: + +"We have decided under all the circumstances of this most extraordinary +case, Your Honor, not to put in any defense. I shall not call the +defendant--" + +"I killa him--" began Angelo, breaking loose from Tutt and struggling +to his feet. It was a horrible movement. But Tutt clapped his hand over +Angelo's mouth and forced him back into his seat. + +"The defense rests," said Mr. Tutt, ignoring the interruption. "So far +as we are concerned the case is closed." + +"Both sides rest!" snapped Babson. "How long do you want to sum up?" + +Mr. Tutt looked at the clock, which pointed to three. The regular hour +of adjournment was at four. Delay was everything in a case like this. A +juryman might die suddenly overnight or fall grievously ill; or some +legal accident might occur which would necessitate declaring a mistrial. +There is, always hope in a criminal case so long as the verdict has not +actually been returned and the jury polled and discharged. If possible +he must drag his summing up over until the following day. Something +might happen. + +"About two hours, Your Honor," he replied. + +The jury stirred impatiently. It was clear that they regarded a two-hour +speech from him under the circumstances as an imposition. But Babson +wished to preserve the fiction of impartiality. + +"Very well," said he. "You may sum up until four-thirty, and have half +an hour more to-morrow morning. See that the doors are closed, Captain +Phelan. We do not want any interruption while the summations are going +on." + +"All out that's goin' out! Everybody out that's got no business, with +the court!" bellowed Captain Phelan. + +Mr. Tutt with an ominous heightening of the pulse realized that the real +ordeal was at last at hand, for the closing of the case had wrought in +the old lawyer an instant metamorphosis. With the words "The defense +rests" every suggestion of the mountebank, the actor or the shyster had +vanished. The awful responsibility under which he labored; the +overwhelming and damning evidence against his client; the terrible +consequences of the least mistake that he might make; the fact that only +the sword of his ability, and his alone, stood between Angelo and a +hideous death by fire in the electric chair--sobered and chastened him. +Had he been a praying man in that moment he would have prayed--but he +was not. + +For his client was foredoomed--foredoomed not only by justice but also +by trickery and guile--and was being driven slowly but surely towards +the judicial shambles. For what had he succeeded in adducing in his +behalf? Nothing but the purely apocryphal speculation that the dead +barber might have threatened Angelo with his razor and that the +witnesses might possibly have drawn somewhat upon their imaginations in +giving the details of their testimony. A sorry defense! Indeed, no +defense at all. All the sorrier in that he had not even been able to get +before the jury the purely sentimental excuses for the homicide, for he +could only do this by calling Rosalina to the stand, which would have +enabled the prosecution to cross-examine her in regard to the purchase +of the pistol and the delivery of it to her husband--the strongest +evidence of premeditation. Yet he must find some argument, some plea, +some thread of reason upon which the jury might hang a disagreement or a +verdict in a lesser degree. + +With a shuffling of feet the last of the crowd pushed through the big +oak doors and they were closed and locked. An officer brought a corroded +tumbler of brackish water and placed it in front of Mr. Tutt. The judge +leaned forward with malicious courtesy. The jury settled themselves and +turned toward the lawyer attentively yet defiantly, hardening their +hearts already against his expected appeals to sentiment. O'Brien, +ostentatiously producing a cigarette, lounged out through the side door +leading to the jury room and prison cells. The clerk began copying his +records. The clock ticked loudly. + +And Mr. Tutt rose and began going through the empty formality of +attempting to discuss the evidence in such a way as to excuse or +palliate Angelo's crime. For Angelo's guilt of murder in the first +degree was so plain that it had never for one moment been in the +slightest doubt. Whatever might be said for his act from the point of +view of human emotion only made his motive and responsibility under the +statues all the clearer. There was not even the unwritten law to appeal +to. Yet there was fundamentally a genuine defense, a defense that could +not be urged even by innuendo: the defense that no accused ought to be +convicted upon any evidence whatever, no matter how conclusive in a +trial conducted with essential though wholly concealed unfairness. + +Such was the case of Angelo. No one could demonstrate it, no one could +with safety even hint at it; any charge that the court was anything but +impartial would prove a boomerang to the defense; and yet the facts +remained that the whole proceeding from start to finish had been +conducted unfairly and with illegality, that the jury had been duped and +deceived, and that the pretense that the guilty Angelo had been given an +impartial trial was a farce. Every word of the court had been an +accusation, a sneer, an acceptance of the defendant's guilt as a matter +of course, an abuse far more subversive of our theory of government than +the mere acquittal of a single criminal, for it struck at the very +foundations of that liberty which the fathers had sought the shores of +the unknown continent to gain. + +Unmistakably the proceedings had been conducted throughout upon the +theory that the defendant must prove his innocence and that presumably +he was a guilty man; and this as well as his own impression that the +evidence was conclusive the judge had subtly conveyed to the jury in his +tone of speaking, his ironical manner and his facial expression. Guilty +or not Angelo was being railroaded. That was the real defense--the +defense that could never be established even in any higher court, except +perhaps in the highest court of all, which is not of earth. + +And so Mr. Tutt, boiling with suppressed indignation weighed down with +the sense of his responsibility, fully realizing his inability to say +anything based on the evidence in behalf of his client, feeling twenty +years older than he had during the verbal duel of the actual +cross-examination, rose with a genial smile upon his puckered old face +and with a careless air almost of gaiety, which seemed to indicate the +utmost confidence and determination, and with a graceful compliment to +his arch enemy upon the bench and the yellow dog who had hunted with +him, assured the jury that the defendant had had the fairest of fair +trials and that he, Mr. Tutt, would now proceed to demonstrate to their +satisfaction his client's entire innocence; nay, would show them that he +was a man not only guiltless of any wrong-doing but worthy of their +hearty commendation. + +With jokes not too unseemly for the occasion he overcame their +preliminary distrust and put them in a good humor. He gave a historical +dissertation upon the law governing homicide, on the constitutional +rights of American citizens, on the laws of naturalization, marriage, +and the domestic relations; waxed eloquent over Italy and the Italian +character, mentioned Cavour, Garibaldi and Mazzini in a way to imply +that Angelo was their lineal descendant; and quoted from D'Annunzio back +to Horace, Cicero and Plautus. + +"Bunk! Nothing but bunk!" muttered Tutt, studying the twelve faces +before him. "And they all know it!" + +But Mr. Tutt was nothing if not interesting. These prosaic citizens of +New York County, these saloon and hotel keepers, these contractors, +insurance agents and salesmen were learning something of history, of +philosophy, of art and beauty. They liked it. They felt they were +hearing something worth while, as indeed they were, and they forgot all +about Angelo and the unfortunate Crocedoro in their admiration for Mr. +Tutt, who had lifted them out of the dingy sordid courtroom into the +sunlight of the Golden Age. And as he led them through Greek and Roman +literature, through the early English poets, through Shakespeare and the +King James version, down to John Galsworthy and Rupert Brooke, he +brought something that was noble, fine and sweet into their grubby +materialistic lives; and at the same time the hand of the clock crept +steadily on until he and it reached Château-Thierry and half past four +together. + +"Bang!" went Babson's gavel just as Mr. Tutt was leading Mr. Walsh, Mr. +Tompkins and the others through the winding paths of the Argonne forests +with tin helmets on their heads in the struggle for liberty. + +"You may conclude your address in the morning, Mr. Tutt," said the judge +with supreme unction. "Adjourn court!" + +Gray depression weighed down Mr. Tutt's soul as he trudged homeward. He +had made a good speech, but it had had absolutely nothing to do with the +case, which the jury would perceive as soon as they thought it over. It +was a confession of defeat. Angelo would be convicted of murder in the +first degree and electrocuted, Rosalina would be a widow, and somehow he +would be in a measure responsible for it. The tragedy of human life +appalled him. He felt very old, as old as the dead-and-gone authors from +whom he had quoted with such remarkable facility. He belonged with them; +he was too old to practise his profession. + +"Law, Mis' Tutt," expostulated Miranda, his ancient negro handmaiden, as +he pushed away the chop and mashed potato, and even his glass of claret, +untasted, in his old-fashioned dining room on West Twenty-third Street, +"you ain't got no appetite at all! You's sick, Mis' Tutt." + +"No, no, Miranda!" he replied weakly. "I'm just getting old." + +"You's mighty spry for an old man yit," she protested. "You kin make dem +lawyer men hop mighty high when you tries. Heh, heh! I reckon dey ain't +got nuffin' on my Mistah Tutt!" + +Upstairs in his library Mr. Tutt strode up and down before the empty +grate, smoking stogy after stogy, trying to collect his thoughts and +devise something to say upon the morrow, but all his ideas had flown. +There wasn't anything to say. Yet he swore Angelo should not be offered +up as a victim upon the altar of unscrupulous ambition. The hours passed +and the old banjo clock above the mantel wheezed eleven, twelve; then +one, two. Still he paced up and down, up and down in a sort of trance. +The air of the library, blue with the smoke of countless stogies, +stifled and suffocated him. Moreover he discovered that he was hungry. +He descended to the pantry and salvaged a piece of pie, then unchained +the front door and stepped forth into the soft October night. + +A full moon hung over the deserted streets of the sleeping city. In +divers places, widely scattered, the twelve good and true men were +snoring snugly in bed. To-morrow they would send Angelo to his death +without a quiver. He shuddered, striding on, he knew not whither, into +the night. His brain no longer worked. He had become a peripatetic +automaton self-dedicated to nocturnal perambulation. + +With his pockets bulging with stogies and one glowing like a headlight +in advance of him he wandered in a sort of coma up Tenth Avenue, crossed +to the Riverside Drive, mounted Morningside Heights, descended again +through the rustling alleys of Central Park, and found himself at Fifth +Avenue and Fifty-ninth Street just as the dawn was paling the electric +lamps to a sickly yellow and the trees were casting strange unwonted +shadows in the wrong direction. He was utterly exhausted. He looked +eagerly for some place to sit down, but the doors of the hotels were +dark and tightly closed and it was too cold to remain without moving in +the open air. + +Down Fifth Avenue he trudged, intending to go home and snatch a few +hours' sleep before court should open, but each block seemed miles in +length. Presently he approached the cathedral, whose twin spires were +tinted with reddish gold. The sky had become a bright blue. Suddenly all +the street lamps went out. He told himself that he had never realized +before the beauty of those two towers reaching up toward eternity, +typifying man's aspiration for the spiritual. He remembered having heard +that a cathedral was never closed, and looking toward the door he +perceived that it was open. With utmost difficulty he climbed the steps +and entered its dark shadows. A faint light emanated from the tops of +the stained-glass windows. Down below a candle burned on either side of +the altar while a flickering gleam shone from the red cup in the +sanctuary lamp. Worn out, drugged for lack of sleep, faint for want of +food, old Mr. Tutt sank down upon one of the rear seats by the door, and +resting his head upon his arms on the back of the bench in front of him +fell fast asleep. + +He dreamed of a legal heaven, of a great wooden throne upon which sat +Babson in a black robe and below him twelve red-faced angels in a double +row with harps in their hands, chanting: "Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!" An +organ was playing somewhere, and there was a great noise of footsteps. +Then a bell twinkled and he raised his head and saw that the chancel was +full of lights and white-robed priests. It was broad daylight. Horrified +he looked at his watch, to find that it was ten minutes after ten. His +joints creaked as he pulled himself to his feet and his eyes were half +closed as he staggered down the steps and hailed a taxi. + +"Criminal Courts Building--side door. And drive like hell!" he muttered +to the driver. + +He reached it just as Judge Babson and his attendant were coming into +the courtroom and the crowd were making obeisance. Everybody else was in +his proper place. + +"You may proceed, Mr. Tutt," said the judge after the roll of the jury +had been called. + +But Mr. Tutt was in a daze, in no condition to think or speak. There was +a curious rustling in his ears and his sight was somewhat blurred. The +atmosphere of the courtroom seemed to him cold and hostile; the jury sat +with averted faces. He rose feebly and cleared his throat. + +"Gentlemen of the jury," he began, "I--I think I covered everything I +had to say yesterday afternoon. I can only beseech you to realize the +full extent of your great responsibility and remind you that if you +entertain a reasonable doubt upon the evidence you are sworn to give the +benefit of it to the defendant." + +He sank back in his chair and covered his eyes with his hands, while a +murmur ran along the benches of the courtroom. The old man had +collapsed--tough luck--the defendant was cooked! Swiftly O'Brien leaped +to his feet. There had been no defense. The case was as plain as a +pike-staff. There was only one thing for the jury to do--return a +verdict of murder in the first. It would not be pleasant, but that made +no difference! He read them the statute, applied it to the facts, and +shook his fist in their faces. They must convict--and convict of only +one thing--and nothing else--murder in the first degree. They gazed at +him like silly sheep, nodding their heads, doing everything but bleat. + +Then Babson cleared his decks and rising in dignity expounded the law to +the sheep in a rich mellow voice, in which he impressed upon them the +necessity of preserving the integrity of the jury system and the +sanctity of human life. He pronounced an obituary of great beauty upon +the deceased barber--who could not, as he pointed out, speak for +himself, owing to the fact that he was in his grave. He venomously +excoriated the defendant who had deliberately planned to kill an +unarmed man peacefully conducting himself in his place of business, and +expressed the utmost confidence that he could rely upon the jury, whose +character he well knew, to perform their full duty no matter how +disagreeable that duty might be. The sheep nodded. + +"You may retire, gentlemen." + +Babson looked down at Mr. Tutt with a significant gleam in his eye. He +had driven in the knife to the hilt and twisted it round and round. +Angelo had almost as much chance as the proverbial celluloid cat. Mr. +Tutt felt actually sick. He did not look at the jury as they went out. +They would not be long--and he could hardly face the thought of their +return. Never in his long experience had he found himself in such a +desperate situation. Heretofore there had always been some argument, +some construction of the facts upon which he could make an appeal, +however fallacious or illogical. + +He leaned back and closed his eyes. The judge was chatting with O'Brien, +the court officers were betting with the reporters as to the length of +time in which it would take the twelve to agree upon a verdict of murder +in the first. The funeral rites were all concluded except for the final +commitment of the corpse to mother earth. + +And then without warning Angelo suddenly rose and addressed the court in +a defiant shriek. + +"I killa that man!" he cried wildly. "He maka small of my wife! He no +good! He bad egg! I killa him once--I killa him again!" + +"So!" exclaimed Babson with biting sarcasm. "You want to make a +confession? You hope for mercy, do you? Well, Mr. Tutt, what do you wish +to do under the circumstances? Shall I recall the jury and reopen the +case by consent?" + +Mr. Tutt rose trembling to his feet. + +"The case is closed, Your Honor," he replied. "I will consent to a +mistrial and offer a plea of guilty of manslaughter. I cannot agree to +reopen the case. I cannot let the defendant go upon the stand." + +The spectators and reporters were pressing forward to the bar, anxious +lest they should lose a single word of the colloquy. Angelo remained +standing, looking eagerly at O'Brien, who returned his gaze with a grin +like that of a hyena. + +"I killa him!" Angelo repeated. "You killa me if you want." + +"Sit down!" thundered the judge. "Enough of this! The law does not +permit me to accept a plea to murder in the first degree, and my +conscience and my sense of duty to the public will permit me to accept +no other. I will go to my chambers to await the verdict of the jury. +Take the prisoner downstairs to the prison pen." + +He swept from the bench in his silken robes. Angelo was led away. The +crowd in the courtroom slowly dispersed. Mr. Tutt, escorted by Tutt, +went out in the corridor to smoke. + +"Ye got a raw deal, counselor," remarked Captain Phelan, amiably +accepting a stogy. "Nothing but an act of Providence c'd save that +Eyetalian from the chair. An' him guilty at that!" + +An hour passed; then another. At half after four a rumor flew along the +corridors that the jury in the Serafino case had reached a verdict and +were coming in. A messenger scurried to the judge's chambers. Phelan +descended the iron stairs to bring up the prisoner, while Tutt to +prevent a scene invented an excuse by which he lured Rosalina to the +first floor of the building. The crowd suddenly reassembled out of +nowhere and poured into the courtroom. The reporters gathered +expectantly round their table. The judge entered, his robes, gathered in +one hand. + +"Bring in the jury," he said sharply. "Arraign the prisoner at the bar." + +Mr. Tutt took his place beside his client at the railing, while the +jury, carrying their coats and hats, filed slowly in. Their faces were +set and relentless. They looked neither to the right nor to the left. +O'Brien sauntered over and seated himself nonchalantly with his back to +the court, studying their faces. Yes, he told himself, they were a +regular set of hangmen--he couldn't have picked a tougher bunch if he'd +had his choice of the whole panel. + +The clerk called the roll, and Messrs. Walsh, Tompkins, _et al._, stated +that they were all present. + +"Gentlemen of the jury, have you agreed upon a verdict?" inquired the +clerk. + +"We have!" replied Mr. Walsh sternly. + +"How say you? Do you find the defendant guilty or not guilty?" + +Mr. Tutt gripped the balustrade in front of him with one hand and put +his other arm round Angelo. He felt that now in truth murder was being +done. + +"We find the defendant not guilty," said Mr. Walsh defiantly. + +There was a momentary silence of incredulity. Then Babson and O'Brien +shouted simultaneously: "What!" + +"We find the defendant not guilty," repeated Mr. Walsh stubbornly. + +"I demand that the jury be polled!" cried the crestfallen O'Brien, his +face crimson. + +And then the twelve reiterated severally that that was their verdict and +that they hearkened unto it as it stood recorded and that they were +entirely satisfied with it. + +"You are discharged!" said Babson in icy tones. "Strike the names of +these men from the list of jurors--as incompetent. Haven't you any other +charge on which you can try this defendant?" + +"No, Your Honor," answered O'Brien grimly. "He didn't take the stand, so +we can't try him for perjury; and there isn't any other indictment +against him." + +Judge Babson turned ferociously upon Mr. Tutt: + +"This acquittal is a blot upon the administration of criminal justice; a +disgrace to the city! It is an unconscionable verdict; a reflection upon +the intelligence of the jury! The defendant is discharged. This court is +adjourned." + +The crowd surged round Angelo and bore him away, bewildered. The judge +and prosecutor hurried from the room. Alone Mr. Tutt stood at the bar, +trying to grasp the full meaning of what had occurred. + +He no longer felt tired; he experienced an exultation such as he had +never known before. Some miracle had happened! What was it? + +Unexpectedly the lawyer felt a rough warm hand clasped over his own upon +the rail and heard the voice of Mr. Walsh with its rich brogue saying: +"At first we couldn't see that there was much to be said for your side +of the case, Mr. Tutt; but when Oi stepped into the cathedral on me way +down to court this morning and spied you prayin' there for guidance I +knew you wouldn't be defendin' him unless he was innocent, and so we +decided to give him the benefit of the doubt." + + + + +Mock Hen and Mock Turtle + + + "Oh, East is East and West is West, and never the + twain shall meet." + --BALLAD OF EAST AND WEST. + + + "But the law of the jungle is jungle law only, and the + law of the pack is only for the pack." + --OTHER SAYINGS OF SHERE KHAN. + +A half turn from the clattering hubbub of Chatham Square and you are in +Chinatown, slipping, within ten feet, through an invisible wall, from +the glitter of the gin palace and the pawn-shop to the sinister shadows +of irregular streets and blind alleys, where yellow men pad swiftly +along greasy asphalt beneath windows glinting with ivory, bronze and +lacquer; through which float the scents of aloes and of incense and all +the subtle suggestion of the East. + +No one better than the Chink himself realizes the commercial value of +the taboo, the bizarre and the unclean. Nightly the rubber-neck car +swinging gayly with lanterns stops before the imitation joss house, the +spurious opium joint and tortuous passage to the fake fan-tan and faro +game, with a farewell call at Hong Joy Fah's Oriental restaurant and the +well-stocked novelty store of Wing, Hen & Co. The visitors see what they +expect to see, for the Chinaman always gives his public exactly what it +wants. + +But a dollar does not show you Chinatown. To some the ivories will +always be but crudely carven bone, the jades the potter's sham, the musk +and aloes the product of a soap factory, the joss but a cigar-store +Indian, and the Oriental dainties of Hong Fah the scrappings of a Yankee +grocery store. Yet behind the shoddy tinsel of Doyers and Pell Streets, +as behind Alice's looking-glass, there is another Chinatown--a strange, +inhuman, Oriental world, not necessarily of trapdoors and stifled +screams, but one moved by influences undreamed of in our banal +philosophies. Hearken then to the story of the avenging of Wah Sing. + + _'Tis a tale was undoubtedly true + In the reign of the Emperor Hwang_. + +In the murky cellar of a Pell Street tenement seventeen Chinamen sat +cross-legged in a circle round an octagonal teakwood table. To an +Occidental they would have appeared to differ in no detail except that +of a varying degree of fatness. An oil lamp flickered before a joss near +by, and the place reeked with the odor of starch, sweat, tobacco, rice +whisky and the incense that rose ceilingward in thin, shaking columns +from two bowls of Tibetan soapstone. An obese Chinaman with a walnutlike +countenance in which cunning and melancholy were equally commingled was +speaking monotonously through long, rat-tailed mustaches, while the +others listened with impassive decorum. It was a special meeting of the +Hip Leong Tong, held in their private clubrooms at the Great Shanghai +Tea Company, and conducted according to rule. + +"Therefore," said Wong Get, "as a matter of honor it is necessary that +our brother be avenged and that no chances be taken. A much too long +time has already elapsed. I have written the letter and will read it." + +He fumbled in his sleeve and drew forth a roll of brown paper covered +with heavy Chinese characters unwinding it from a strip of bamboo. + + + _To the Honorable Members of the On Gee Tong:_ + + Whereas it has pleased you to take the life of our beloved + friend and relative Wah Sing, it is with greatest courtesy + and the utmost regret that we inform you that it is + necessary for us likewise to remove one of your esteemed + society, and that we shall proceed thereto without delay. + + Due warning being thus honorably given I subscribe + myself with profound appreciation, + + For the Hip Leong Tong, + WONG GET. + +He ceased reading and there was a perfunctory grunt of approval from +round the circle. Then he turned to the official soothsayer and directed +him to ascertain whether the time were propitious. The latter tossed +into the air a handful of painted ivory sticks, carefully studied their +arrangement when fallen, and nodded gravely. + +"The omens are favorable, O honorable one!" + +"Then there is nothing left but the choice of our representatives," +continued Wong Get. "Pass the fateful box, O Fong Hen." + +Fong Hen, a slender young Chinaman, the official slipper, or messenger, +of the society, rose and, lifting a lacquered gold box from the table, +passed it solemnly to each member. + +"This time there will be four," said Wong Get. + +Each in turn averted his eyes and removed from the box a small sliver of +ivory. At the conclusion of the ceremony the four who had drawn red +tokens rose. Wong Get addressed them. + +"Mock Hen, Mock Ding, Long Get, Sui Sing--to you it is confided to +avenge the murder of our brother Wah Sing. Fail not in your purpose!" + +And the four answered unemotionally: "Those to whom it is confided will +not fail." + +Then pivoting silently upon their heels they passed out of the cellar. + +Wong Get glanced round the table. + +"If there is no further business the society will disperse after the +customary refreshment." + +Fong Hen placed thirteen tiny glasses upon the table and filled them +with rice whisky scented with aniseed and a dash of powdered ginger. At +a signal from Wong Get the thirteen Chinamen lifted the glasses and +drank. + +"The meeting is adjourned," said he. + + * * * * * + +Eighty years before, in a Cantonese rabbit warren two yellow men had +fought over a white woman, and one had killed the other. They had +belonged to different societies, or tongs. The associates of the +murdered man had avenged his death by slitting the throat of one of the +members of the other organization, and these in turn had retaliated thus +establishing a vendetta which became part and parcel of the lives of +certain families, as naturally and unavoidably as birth, love and death. +As regularly as the solstice they alternated in picking each other off. +Branches of the Hip Leong and On Gee tongs sprang up in San Francisco +and New York--and the feud was transferred with them to Chatham Square, +a feud imposing a sacred obligation rooted in blood, honor and religion +upon every member, who rather than fail to carry it out would have +knotted a yellow silken cord under his left ear and swung himself gently +off a table into eternal sleep. + +Young Mock Hen, one of the four avengers, had created a distinct place +for himself in Chinatown by making a careful study of New York +psychology. He was a good-looking Chink, smooth-faced, tall and supple; +he knew very well how to capitalize his attractiveness. By day he +attended Columbia University as a special student in applied +electricity, keeping a convenient eye meanwhile on three coolies whom he +employed to run The College Laundry on Morningside Heights. By night he +vicariously operated a chop-suey palace on Seventh Avenue, where +congregated the worst elements of the Tenderloin. But his heart was in +the gambling den which he maintained in Doyers Street, and where anyone +who knew the knock could have a shell of hop for the asking, once Mock +had given him the once-over through the little sliding panel. + +Mock was a Christian Chinaman. That is to say, purely for business +reasons--for what he got out of it and the standing that it gave him--he +attended the Rising Star Mission and also frequented Hudson House, the +social settlement where Miss Fanny Duryea taught him to play ping-pong +and other exciting parlor games, and read to him from books adapted to +an American child of ten. He was a great favorite at both places, for he +was sweet-tempered and wore an expression of heaven-born innocence. He +had even been to church with Miss Duryea, temporarily absenting himself +for that purpose of a Sunday morning from the steam-heated flat +where--unknown to her, of course--he lived with his white wife, Emma +Pratt, a lady of highly miscellaneous antecedents. + +Except when engaged in transacting legal or oilier business with the +municipal, sociologic or religious world--at which times his vocabulary +consisted only of the most rudimentary pidgin--Mock spoke a fluent and +even vernacular English learned at night school. Incidentally he was the +head of the syndicate which controlled and dispensed the loo, faro, +fan-tan and other gambling privileges of Chinatown. + + * * * * * + +Detective Mooney, of the Second, detailed to make good District Attorney +Peckham's boast that there had never been so little trouble with the +foreign element since the administration--of which he was an +ornament--came into office, saw Quong Lee emerge from his doorway in +Doyers Street just before four o'clock the following Thursday and slip +silently along under the shadow of the eaves toward Ah Fong's +grocery--and instantly sensed something peculiar in the Chink's walk. + +"Hello, Quong!" he called, interposing himself. "Where you goin'?" + +Quong paused with a deprecating gesture of widely spread open palms. + +"'Lo yourself!" replied blandly. "Me go buy li'l' glocery." + +Mooney ran his hands over the rotund body, frisking him for a possible +forty-four. + +"For the love of Mike!" he exclaimed, tearing open Quong's blouse. "What +sort of an undershirt is that?" Quong grinned broadly as the detective +lifted the suit of double-chain mail which swayed heavily under his blue +blouse from his shoulders to his knees. + +"So-ho!" continued the plain-clothes man. "Trouble brewin', eh?" + +He knew already that something was doing in the tongs from his +lobby-gow, Wing Foo. + +"Must weigh eighty pounds!" he whistled. "I'd like to see the pill that +would go through that!" It was, in fact, a medieval corselet of finest +steel mesh, capable of turning an elephant bullet. + +"Go'long!" ordered Mooney finally. "I guess you're safe!" + +He turned back in the direction of Chatham Square, while Quong resumed +his tortoiselike perambulation toward Ah Fong's. Pell and Doyers Streets +were deserted save for an Italian woman carrying a baby, and were +pervaded by an unnatural and suspicious silence. Most of the shutters on +the lower windows were down. Ah Fong's subsequent story of what happened +was simple, and briefly to the effect that Quong, having entered his +shop and priced various litchi nuts and pickled starfruit, had purchased +some powdered lizard and, with the package in his left hand, had opened +the door to go out. As he stood there with his right hand upon the knob +and facing the afternoon sun four shadows fell aslant the window and a +man whom he positively identified as Sui Sing emptied a bag of +powder--afterward proved to be red pepper--upon Quong's face; then +another, Long Get, made a thrust at him with a knife, the effect of +which he did not observe, as almost at the same instant Mock Hen felled +him with a blow upon the head with an iron bar, while a fourth, Mock +Ding, fired four shots at his crumpling body with a revolver one of +which glanced off and fractured a very costly Chien Lung vase and ruined +four boxes of mandarin-blossom tea. In his excitement he ducked behind +the counter, and when sufficiently revived he crawled forth to find what +had once been Quong lying across the threshold, the murderers gone, and +the Italian woman prostrate and shrieking with a hip splintered by a +stray bullet. On the sidewalk outside the window lay the remnants of the +bag of pepper, a knife broken short off at the handle, a heavy bar of +soft iron slightly bent, and a partially emptied forty-four-caliber +revolver. Quong's suit of mail had effectually protected him from the +knife thrust and the revolver shots, but his skull was crushed beyond +repair. Thus was the murder of Wah Sing avenged in due and proper form. + +Detective Mooney, distant not more than two hundred feet, rushed back to +the corner at the sound of the first shot--just in time to catch a side +glimpse of Mock Hen as he raced across Pell Street and disappeared into +the cellar of the Great Shanghai Tea Company. The Italian woman was +filling the air with her outcries, but the detective did not pause in +his hurtling pursuit. He was too late, however. The cellar door +withstood all his efforts to break it open. + +Bull Neck Burke, the wrestler, who tied Zabisko once on the stage of the +old Grand Opera House in 1913, had been promenading with Mollie Malone, +of the Champagne Girls and Gay Burlesquers Company. Both heard the +fusillade and saw Mock--a streak of flying blue--pass within a few feet +of them. + +"God!" ejaculated Mollie. "Sure as shootin', that's Mock Hen--and he's +murdered somebody!" + +"It's Mock all right!" agreed Bull Neck. "That puts us in as witnesses +or strike me!" And he looked at his watch--four one. + +"Here, Burke, put your shoulder to this!" shouted Mooney from the cellar +steps. "Now then!" + +The two of them threw their combined weight against it, the lock flew +open and they fell forward into the darkness. Three doors leading in +different directions met the glare of Mooney's match. But the fugitive +had a start of at least four minutes, which was three and a half more +than he required. + + * * * * * + +Mock Hen took the left-hand of the three doors and crept along a passage +opening into an empty opium parlor back of the Hip Leong clubroom. + +Diving beneath one of the bunks he inserted his body between the lower +planking at the back and the cellar wall, wormed his way some twelve +feet, raised a trap and emerged into a tunnel by means of which and +others he eventually reached the end of the block and the rooms of his +friend Hong Sue. + +Here he changed from the Oriental costume according to Chinese etiquette +necessary to the homicide, into a nobby suit of American clothes, put on +a false mustache, and walked boldly down Park Row, while just behind +him Doyers and Pell Streets swarmed with bluecoats and excited +citizenry. + +Hudson House, the social settlement presided over by Miss Fanny and +affected for business reasons by Mock Hen, was a mile and a half away. +But Mock took his time. Twenty-five full minutes elapsed before he +leisurely climbed the steps and slipped into the big reading room. There +was no one there and Mock deftly turned back the hand of the automatic +clock over the platform to three-fifty-five. Then he began to whistle. +Presently Miss Fanny entered from the rear room, her face lighting with +pleasure at the sight of her pet convert. + +"Good afternoon, Mock Hen! You are early to-day." + +Mock took her hand and stroked it affectionately. + +"I go Fulton Mark' buy li'l' terrapin. Stop in on way to see dear Miss +Fan'." + +They stood thus for a moment, and while they did so the clock struck +four. + +"I go now!" said Mock suddenly. "Four o'clock already." + +"It's early," answered Miss Fanny. "Won't you stay a little while?" + +"I go now," he repeated with resolution. "Good-by li'l' teacher!" + +She watched until his lithe figure passed through the door, and +presently returned to the back room. Mock waited outside until she had +disappeared. + +Then he changed back the clock. + + * * * * * + +"We've got you, you blarsted heathen!" cried Mooney hoarsely as he and +two others from the Central Office threw themselves upon Mock Hen on the +landing outside the door of his flat. "Look out, Murtha. Pipe that thing +under his arm!" + +"It's a bloody turtle!" gasped Murtha, shuddering + +"What's the matter, boys?" inquired Mock. "Leggo my arm, can't yer? +What'd yer want, anyway?" + +"We want you, you yellow skunk!" retorted Mooney. "Open that door! +Lively now!" + +"Sure!" answered Mock amiably. "Come on in! What's bitin' yer?" + +He unlocked the door and threw it open. + +"Take a chair," he invited them. "Have a cigar? You there, Emma?" + +Emma Pratt, clad in a wrapper and lying on the big double brass bedstead +in the rear room, raised herself on one elbow. + +"Yep!" she called through the passage. "Got the bird?" + +Mock looked at Murtha, who was carrying the terrapin. + +"Sure!" he called back. "Sit down, boys. What'd yer want? Can't yer +tell a feller?" + +"We want you for croaking Quong Lee!" snapped Mooney. "Where have you +been?" + +"Fulton Market--and Hudson House. I left here quarter of four. I haven't +seen Quong Lee. Where was he killed?" + +Mooney laughed sardonically. + +"That'll do for you, Mock! Your alibi ain't worth a damn this time. I +saw you myself." + +"You saw someone else," Mock assured him politely. "I haven't been in +Chinatown." + +"Say, what yer doin' wit' my Chink?" demanded Emma, appearing in the +doorway. "He was sittin' here wit' me all the afternoon, until about +just before four I sent him over to Fulton Market to buy a bird. Who's +been croaked, eh?" + +"Aw, cut it out, Emma!" replied Mooney. "That old stuff won't go here. +Your Chink's goin' to the chair. Murtha, look through the place while we +put Mock in the wagon. Hell!" he added under his breath. "Won't this +make Peckham sick!" + + * * * * * + +Mr. Ephraim Tutt just finished his morning mail when he was informed +that Mr. Wong Get desired an interview. Though the old lawyer did not +formally represent the Hip Leong Tong he was frequently retained by its +individual members, who held him in high esteem, for they had always +found him loyal to their interests and as much a stickler for honor as +themselves. Moreover, between him and Wong Get there existed a curious +sympathy as if in some previous state of existence Wong Get might have +been Mr. Tutt, and Mr. Tutt Wong Get. Perhaps, however, it was merely +because both were rather weary, sad and worldly wise. + +Wong Get did not come alone. He was accompanied by two other Hip Leongs, +the three forming the law committee appointed to retain the best +available counsel to defend Mock Hen. In his expansive frock coat and +bowler hat Wong might easily have excited mirth had it not been for the +extreme dignity of his demeanor. They were there, he stated, to request +Mr. Tutt to protect the interests of Mock Hen, and they were prepared to +pay a cash retainer and sign a written contract binding themselves to a +balance--so much if Mock should be convicted; so much if acquitted; so +much if he should die in the course of the trial without having been +either convicted or acquitted. It was, said Wong Get gently, a matter of +grave importance and they would be glad to give Mr. Tutt time to think +it over and decide upon his terms. Suppose, then, that they should +return at noon? With this understanding, accordingly, they departed. + +"There's no point in skinning a Chink just because he is a Chink," said +the junior Tutt when his partner had explained the situation to him. +"But it isn't the highest-class practise and they ought to pay well." + +"What do you call well?" inquired Mr. Tutt. + +"Oh, a thousand dollars down, a couple more if he's convicted, and five +altogether if he's acquitted." + +"Do you think they can raise that amount of money?" + +"I think so," answered Tutt. "It might be a good deal for an individual +Chink to cough up on his own account, but this is a coöperative affair. +Mock Hen didn't kill Quong Lee to get anything out of it for himself, +but to save the face of his society." + +"He didn't kill him at all!" declared Mr. Tutt, hardly moving a muscle +of his face. + +"Well, you know what I mean!" said Tutt. + +"He wasn't there," insisted Mr. Tutt. "He was way over in Fulton Market +buying a terrapin." + +"That is what, if I were district attorney, I should call a Mock Hen +with a mockturtle defense!" grunted Tutt. + +Mr. Tutt chuckled. + +"I shall have to get that off myself at the beginning of the case, or it +might convict him," he remarked. "But he wasn't there--unless the jury +find that he was." + +"In which case he will--or shall--have been there--whatever the verb +is," agreed Tutt. "Anyhow they'll tax every laundry and chop-suey palace +from the Bronx to the Battery to pay us." + +"I'd hate to take our fee in bird's-nest soup, shark's fin, +bamboo-shoots salad and ya ko main," mused Mr. Tutt. + +"Or in ivory chopsticks, oolong tea, imitation jade, litchi nuts and +preserved leeches!" groaned Tutt. "Be sure and get the thousand down; it +may be all the cash we'll ever see!" + +Promptly at twelve the law committee of the Hip Leong Tong returned to +the office of Tutt & Tutt. With them came a venerable Chinaman in native +costume, his wrinkled face as inscrutable as that of a snapping turtle. +The others took chairs, but this high dignitary preferred to sit upon +his heels on the floor, creating something of the impression of an +ancient slant-eyed Buddha. + +Wong Get translated for his benefit the arrangement proposed by Mr. +Tutt, after which there was a long pause while His Eminence remained +immovable, without even the flicker of an eyelid. Then he delivered +himself in an interminable series of gargles and gurgles, supplemented +by a few cough-like hisses, while Wong Get translated with rapid +dexterity, running verbally in and out among his words like a carriage +dog between the wheels of a vehicle. + +It was, declared Buddha, an affair of great moment touching upon and +appertaining to the private honor of the Duck, the Wong, the Fong, the +Long, the Sui and various other families, both in America and China. The +life of one of their members was at stake. Their face required that the +proceedings should be as dignified as possible. The price named by Mr. +Tutt was quite inadequate. + +Mr. Tutt, repressing a smile, passed a box of stogies. What amount, he +inquired through Wong Get, would satisfy the face of the Duck family? A +somewhat lengthy discussion ensued. Then Buddha rendered his decision. + +The honor of the Ducks, Longs and Fongs would not be satisfied unless +Mr. Tutt received five thousand dollars down, five more if Mock Hen was +convicted, three more if he died before the conclusion of the trial, and +twenty thousand if he was acquitted. + +Mr. Tutt, assuming an equal impassivity, pondered upon the matter for +about an inch of stogy and then informed the committee that the terms +were eminently satisfactory. Buddha thereupon removed from the folds of +his tunic a gigantic roll of soiled bills of all denominations and +carefully counting out five thousand dollars placed it upon the table. + +"H'm!" remarked Tutt when he learned of the proceeding. "_His_ face is +_our_ fortune!" + + * * * * * + +"Look here," expostulated District Attorney Peckham in his office to Mr. +Tutt a month later. "What's the use of our both wasting a couple of +weeks trying a Chinaman who is bound to be convicted? Your time's too +valuable for that sort of thing, and so is mine. We've got three white +witnesses that saw him do it, and a couple of dozen Chinks besides. He +doesn't stand a chance; but just because he is a Chink, and to get the +case out of the way, I'll let you plead him to murder in the second +degree. What do you say?" + +He tried to conceal his anxiety by nervously lighting a cigar. He would +have given a year's salary to have Mock Hen safely up the river, even on +a conviction for manslaughter in the third, for the newspapers were +making his life a burden with their constant references to the seeming +inability of the police department and district attorney's office to +prevent the recurrence of feud killings in the Chinatown districts. What +use was it, they demanded, to maintain the expensive machinery of +criminal justice if the tongs went gayly on shooting each other up and +incidentally taking the lives of innocent bystanders? Wasn't the law +intended to cover Chinamen as much as Italians, Poles, Greeks and +niggers? And now that one of these murdering Celestials had been caught +red-handed it was up to the D.A. to go to it, convict him, and send him +to the chair! They did not express themselves precisely that way, but +that was the gist of it. But Peckham knew that it was one thing to catch +a Chinaman, even red-handed, and another to convict him. And so did Mr. +Tutt. + +The old lawyer smiled blandly--after the fashion of the Hip Leong Tong. +Of course, he admitted, it would be much simpler to dispose of the case +as Mr. Peckham suggested, but his client was insistent upon his +innocence and seemed to have an excellent alibi. He regretted, +therefore, that he had no choice except to go to trial. + +"Then," groaned Peckham, "we may as well take the winter for it. After +this there's going to be a closed season on Chinamen in New York City!" + +Now though it was true that Mock Hen insisted upon his innocence, he had +not insisted upon it to Mr. Tutt, for the latter had not seen him. In +fact, the old lawyer, recognizing what the law did not, namely that a +system devised for the trial and punishment of Occidentals is totally +inadequate to cope with the Oriental, calmly went about his affairs, +intrusting to Mr. Bonnie Doon of his office the task of interviewing the +witnesses furnished by Wong Get. There was but one issue for the jury to +pass upon. Quong Lee was dead and his honorable soul was with his +illustrious ancestors. He had died from a single blow upon the head, +delivered with an iron bar, there present, to be in evidence, marked +"Exhibit A." Mock Hen was alleged to have done the deed. Had he? There +would be nothing for Mr. Tutt to do but to cross-examine the witnesses +and then call such as could testify to Mock's alibi. So he made no +preparation at all and dismissed the case from his mind. He had hardly +seen a dozen Chinamen in his life--outside of a laundry. + + * * * * * + +On the morning set for the trial Mr. Tutt, having been delayed by an +accident in the Subway, entered the Criminal Courts Building only a +moment or two before the call of the calendar. Somewhat preoccupied, he +did not notice the numerous Chinamen who dawdled about the entrance or +the half dozen who crowded with him into the elevator, but when Pat the +elevator man called, "Second floor!--Part One to your right!--Part Two +to the left!" and he stepped out into the marble-floored corridor that +ran round the inside of the building, he was confronted with an unusual +and somewhat ominous spectacle. + +The entire hallway on two sides of the building was lined with +Chinamen! They sat there motionless as blue-coated images, faces front, +their hands in their laps, their legs crossed beneath them. If anyone +appeared in the offing a couple of hundred pairs of glinting eyes +shifted automatically and followed him until he disappeared, but +otherwise no muscle quivered. + +"Say," growled Hogan, Judge Bender's private attendant, who was the +first to run the gantlet, "those Chinks are enough to give you the +Willies! Their eyes scared me to death, sticking me through the back!" + +Even dignified Judge Bender himself as he stalked along the hall, +preceded by two police officers, was not immune from a slight feeling of +uncanniness, and he instinctively drew his robe round his legs that it +might not come into contact with those curious slippers with felt soles +that protruded across the marble slabs. + +"Eyes right!" They had picked him up the instant he stepped out of the +private elevator--the four hundred of them. If he turned and looked they +were seemingly not watching him, but if he dropped his glance they swung +back in a single moment and focused themselves upon him. And every one +of them probably had a gun hidden somewhere in his baggy pants! The +judge confessed to not liking these foreign homicide cases. You never +could tell what might happen or when somebody was going to get the death +sign. There was Judge Deasy--he had the whole front of his house blown +clean out by a bomb! That had been a close call! And these Chinks--with +their secret oaths and rituals--they'd think nothing at all of jabbing a +knife into you. He didn't fancy it at all and, as he hurried along, +supremely conscious of the deadly cumulative effect of those beady eyes, +he fancied it less and less. What was there to prevent one of them from +getting right up in court and putting a bullet through you? He shivered, +recalling the recent assassination of a judge upon the bench by a Hindu +whom he had sentenced. When he reached his robing room he sent for +Captain Phelan. + +"See here, captain," he directed sharply, "I want you to keep all those +Chinamen out in the corridor; understand?" + +"I've got to let some of 'em in, judge," urged Phelan. "You've got to +have an interpreter--and there's a Chinese lawyer associated with Tutt & +Tutt--and of course Mr. O'Brien has to have a couple of 'em so's he'll +know what's going on. Y' see, judge, the On Gee Tong is helping the +prosecution against the Hip Leongs, so both sides has to be more or less +represented." + +"Well, make sure none of 'em is armed," ordered Judge Bender. "I don't +like these cases." + +Now the judge, being recently elected and unfamiliar with the situation, +did not realize that nothing could have been farther from the Oriental +mind or intention than an attack upon the officers engaged in the +administration of local justice, whom they regarded merely as nuisances. +What these Chinamen supremely desired was to be allowed to settle their +own affairs in their own historic and traditional way--the way of the +revolver, the silken cord, the knife and the iron bar. Once enmeshed in +Anglo-Saxon juridical procedure, to be sure, they were not averse to +letting it run its course on the bare chance that it might automatically +accomplish their revenge. But they distrusted it, being brought up +according to a much more effective system--one which when it wanted to +punish anybody simply reached out, grabbed him by the pigtail, yanked +him to his knees and sliced off his head. This so-called American +justice was all talk--words, words, words! From their point of view +judges, jurymen and prosecutors were useless pawns in life's game of +chess. Perhaps they are! Who knows! + +When Judge Bender entered the court room it was, in spite of his +injunction, full of blue blouses. A special panel of two hundred +talesmen filled the first half dozen rows of benches, the others being +occupied by witnesses both Chinese and white, policemen and the +miscellaneous human flotsam and jetsam that always manages somehow or +other to find its way to a murder trial. Inside the rail O'Brien, the +assistant district attorney, was busy in conversation with three cueless +Chinamen in American clothes. At the bar sat Mock Hen with Mr. Tutt +beside him, flanked by Wong Get, Tutt, Bonnie Doon and Buddha. + +The judge beckoned Mr. Tutt and O'Brien to the front of the bench. + +"Is there any chance of disposing of this case by a plea?" he inquired. + +O'Brien looked expectantly at Mr. Tutt, who shook his head. The judge +shrugged his shoulders. + +"Well, how long is it going to take?" + +"About six weeks," answered the old lawyer quietly. + +"What!" ejaculated judge and prosecutor in unison. + +"A day or two less, perhaps," affirmed Mr. Tutt, "but, likely as not, +considerably longer." + +"I shall cut it down as much as I can," announced the judge, appalled at +the prospect. "I shall not permit this trial to be dragged out +indefinitely." + +"Nothing would please me better, Your Honor," said Mr. Tutt with the +shadow of a smile. "Shall we proceed to select the jury?" + +The accuracy of Mr. Tutt's prophecy as to the probable length of the +trial was partially demonstrated when it developed that most of the +talesmen had a pronounced antipathy to Chinese murder cases, and a +deep-rooted prejudice against the race as a whole. In fact, a certain +subconscious influence affecting most of them was formulated by the +thirty-ninth talesman to be rejected, who, in a moment of resentment, +burst forth, "I don't mind trying decent American criminals, but I hold +it isn't any part of a citizen's duty to try Chinamen!" and was promptly +struck off the jury list. + +"I say, chief," disgustedly declared O'Brien to Peckham at the noon +recess as they clinked glasses over the bar at Pont's, "you've handed me +a ripe, juicy Messina all right! I won't be able to get a jury. We've +been at it since ten o'clock and we haven't lured a single sucker into +the box!" + +"What's the matter?" inquired the D.A. apprehensively. + +"I can't quite make out," answered O'Brien. "But most of 'em seem to +have a sort of idea that to kill a Chinaman ain't a crime but a virtue!" + +"Well, don't tell anybody," whispered Peckham, "but I'm somewhat of that +way of thinking myself. Set 'em up again, John!" + +However, by invoking the utmost celerity a jury was at last selected and +sworn at the end of the nineteenth day of the trial. As a jury O'Brien +confidentially admitted to Peckham it wasn't much! But what could you +expect of a bunch who were willing to swear that they hadn't any +prejudice against a Chink and would as soon acquit him as a white man? +The truth was that they were all gentlemen who, having lost their jobs, +were willing to swear to anything that would bring them in two dollars a +day. The more days the better! And it is historic fact that during the +sixty-nine days of Mock Hen's prosecution not one of them protested at +being kept away from his wife and children, his business or his +pleasure. On the contrary they all slumbered peacefully from ten until +four--and when the trial ended, on the whole they rather regretted that +it was over, the only genuine opinion regarding the case being that the +Chinks were all as funny as hell and that Mr. Tutt was a bully old boy. + +The evidence respecting the death of the unfortunate Quong Lee made +little impression upon them. Seemingly they regarded the story much as +they did that of Elisha and the bears or Bel and the dragon--as a sort +of apocryphal narrative which they were required to listen to, but in no +wise bound to believe. They were much interested in Quong's suit of +chain mail, however, and from time to time awoke to enjoy the various +verbal encounters between the judge and Mr. Tutt. As factors in the +proceedings they did not count, except to receive their two dollars per +diem, board, lodging and hack fare. + +The trial of Mock Hen being conducted in a foreign language, the first +judicial step was the swearing of an interpreter. The On Gees had +promptly produced one, whom O'Brien told the court was a very learned +man; a graduate of the Imperial University at Peking, and a Son of the +Sacred Dragon. Be that as it may, he was not prepossessing in his +appearance and Mr. Tutt assured Judge Bender that far from being what +the district attorney pretended, the man was a well-known gambler, who +made his living largely by blackmail. He might be a son of a dragon or +he might not; anyway he was a son of Belial. An interpreter was the +conduit through which all the evidence must pass. If the official were +biased or corrupt the testimony would be distorted, colored or +suppressed. + +Now he--Mr. Tutt--had an interpreter, the well-known Dr. Hong Su, +against whom nothing could be said, and upon whose fat head rested no +imputation of partiality; a graduate of Harvard, a writer of note, a-- + +O'Brien sprang to his feet: "My interpreter says your interpreter is an +opium smuggler, that he murdered his aunt in Hong Kong, that he isn't a +doctor at all, and that he never graduated from anything except a +chop-suey joint," he interjected. + +"This is outrageous!" cried Mr. Tutt, palpably shocked at such language. + +"Gentlemen! Gentlemen!" groaned Judge Bender. "What am I to do? I don't +know anything about these men. One looks to me about the same as the +other. The court has no time to inquire into their antecedents. They may +both be learned scholars or they may each be what the other says he +is--I don't know. But we've got to begin to try this case sometime." + +It was finally agreed that in order that there might be no possible +question of partiality there should be two interpreters--one for the +prosecution and one for the defense. Both accordingly were sworn and the +first witness, Ah Fong, was called. + +"Ask him if he understands the nature of an oath," directed O'Brien. + +The interpreter for the state turned to Ah Fong and said something +sweetly to him in multitudinous words. + +Instantly Doctor Su rose indignantly. The other interpreter was not +putting the question at all, but telling the witness what to say. +Moreover, the other interpreter belonged to the On Gee Tong. He stood +waving his arms and gobbling like an infuriated turkey while his +adversary replied in similar fashion. + +"This won't do!" snapped the judge. "This trial will degenerate into +nothing but a cat fight if we are not careful." Then a bright idea +suggested itself to his Occidental mind. "Suppose I appoint an official +umpire to say which of the other two interpreters is correct--and let +them decide who he shall be?" + +This proposition was received with grunts of satisfaction by the two +antagonists, who conferred together with astonishing amiability and +almost immediately conducted into the court room a tall, emaciated +Chinaman who they alleged was entirely satisfactory to both of them. He +was accordingly sworn as a third interpreter, and the trial began again. + +It was observed that thereafter there was no dispute whatever regarding +the accuracy of the testimony, and as each interpreter was paid for his +services at the rate of ten dollars a day it was rumored that the whole +affair had been arranged by agreement between the two societies, which +divided the money, amounting to some eighteen hundred dollars, between +them. But, as O'Brien afterward asked Peckham, "How in thunder could you +tell?" + +The court's troubles had, however, only begun. Ah Fong was a +whimsical-looking person, who gave an impression of desiring to make +himself generally agreeable. He was, of course, the star witness--if a +Chinaman can ever be a star witness--and presumably had been carefully +schooled as to the manner in which he should give his testimony. He and +he alone had seen the whole tragedy from beginning to end. He it was, if +anybody, who would tuck Mock Hen comfortably into his coffin. + +The problem of the interpreters having been solved Fong settled himself +comfortably in the witness chair, crossed his hands upon his stomach and +looked complacently at Mock Hen. + +"Well, now let's get along," adjured His Honor. "Swear the witness." + +Mr. Tutt immediately rose. + +"If the court please," said he, "I object to the swearing of the witness +unless it is made to appear that he will regard himself as bound by the +oath as administered. Now this man is a Chinaman. I should like to ask +him a preliminary question or two." + +"That seems fair, Mr. O'Brien," agreed the court. "Do you see any reason +why Mr. Tutt shouldn't interrogate the witness?" + +"Oh, let me qualify my own witness!" retorted O'Brien fretfully. "Ah +Fong, will you respect the oath to testify truthfully, about to be +administered to you?" + +The interpreter delivered a broadside of Chinese at Ah Fong, who +listened attentively and replied at equal length. Then the interpreter +went at him again, and again Ah Fong affably responded. It was +interminable. + +The two muttered and chortled at each other until O'Brien, losing +patience, jumped up and called out: "What's all this? Can't you ask him +a simple question and get a simple answer? This isn't a debating +society." + +The interpreter held up his hand, indicating that the prosecutor should +have patience. + +"_Ah-ya-ya-oo-aroo-yung-ung-loy-a-a-ya oo-chu-a-oy-ah-ohay-tching_!" he +concluded. + + +"_A-yah-oy-a-yoo-oy-ah-chuck-uh-ung-loy-oo-ayah-a-yoo-chung-chung-szt- +oo-aha-oy-ou-ungaroo--yah-yah-yah!_" replied Ah Fong. + +"Thank heaven, that's over!" sighed O'Brien. + +The interpreter drew himself up to his full height. + +"He says yes," he declared dramatically. + +"It's the longest yes I ever heard!" audibly remarked the foreman, who +was feeling his oats. + +"Does not that satisfy you?" inquired the court of Mr. Tutt. + +"I am sorry to say it does not!" replied the latter. "Mr. O'Brien has +simply asked whether he will keep his oath. His reply sheds no light on +whether his religious belief is such that it would obligate him to +respect an oath." + +"Well, ask him yourself!" snorted O'Brien. + +"Ah Fong, do you believe in any god?" inquired Mr. Tutt. + +"He says yes," answered the interpreter after the usual interchange. + +"What god do you believe in?" persisted Mr. Tutt. + +Suddenly Ah Fong made answer without the intervention of the +interpreter. + +"When I in this country," he replied complacently in English, "I b'lieve +Gees Clist; when I in China I b'lieve Chinese god." + +"Does Your Honor hold that an obliging acquiescence in local theology +constitutes such a religious belief as to make this man's oath sacred?" +inquired Mr. Tutt. + +The judge smiled. + +"I don't see why not!" he declared. "There isn't any precedent as far as +I am aware. But he says he believes in the Deity. Isn't that enough?" + +"Not unless he believes that the Deity will punish him if he breaks his +oath," answered Mr. Tutt. "Let me try him on that?" + +"Ah Fong, do you think God will punish you if you tell a lie?" + +Fong looked blank. The interpreter fired a few salvos. + +"He says it makes a difference the kind of oath." + +"Suppose it is a promise to tell the truth?" + +"He says what kind of a promise?" + +"A promise on the Bible," answered Mr. Tutt patiently. + +"He says what god you mean!" countered the interpreter. + +"Oh, any god!" roared Mr. Tutt. + +The interpreter, after a long parley, made reply. + +"Ah Fong says there is no binding oath except on a chicken's head." + +Judge Bender, O'Brien and Mr. Tutt gazed at one another helplessly. + +"Well, there you are!" exclaimed the lawyer. "Mr. O'Brien's oath wasn't +any oath at all! What kind of a chicken's head?" + +"A white rooster." + +"Quite so!" nodded Mr. Tutt. "Your Honor, I object to this witness being +sworn by any oath or in any form except on the head of a white rooster!" + +"Well, I don't happen to have a white rooster about me!" remarked +O'Brien, while the jury rocked with glee. "Ask him if something else +won't do. A big book for instance?" + +The interpreter put the question and then shook his head. According to +Ah Fong there was no virtue in books whatever, either large or small. On +some occasions an oath could be properly taken on a broken plate--also +white--but not in murder cases. It was chicken or nothing. + +"Are you not willing to waive the formality of an oath, Mr. Tutt?" asked +the judge in slight impatience. + +"And wave my client into the chair?" demanded the lawyer. "No, sir!" + +"I don't see what we can do except to adjourn court until you can +procure the necessary poultry," announced Judge Bender. "Even then we +can't slaughter them in court. We'll have to find some suitable place!" + +"Why not kill one rooster and swear all the witnesses at once?" +suggested Mr. Tutt in a moment of inspiration. + + * * * * * + +"My God, chief!" exclaimed O'Brien at four o'clock. "There ain't a white +rooster to be had anywhere! Hens, yes! By the hundred! But roosters are +extinct! Tomorrow will be the twenty-first day of this prosecution and +not a witness sworn yet." + +However, a poultryman was presently discovered who agreed simply for +what advertising there was in it to furnish a crate of white roosters, +a hatchet and a headsman's block, and to have them in the basement of +the building promptly at ten o'clock. + +Accordingly, at that hour Judge Bender convened Part IX of the General +Sessions in the court room and then adjourned downstairs, where all the +prospective witnesses for the prosecution were lined up in a body and +told to raise their right hands. + +Meantime Clerk McGuire was handed the hatchet, and approached the coop +with obvious misgivings. Ah Fong had already given a dubious approval to +the sex and quality of the fowls inside and naught remained but to +submit the proper oath and remove the head of the unfortunate victim. A +large crowd of policemen, witnesses, reporters, loafers, truckmen and +others drawn by the unusual character of the proceedings had assembled +and now proceeded without regard for the requirements of judicial +dignity to encourage McGuire in his capacity of executioner, by profane +shouts and jeers, to do his deadly deed. + +But the clerk had had no experience with chickens and in bashfully +groping for the selected rooster allowed several other occupants of the +crate to escape. Instantly the air was filled with fluttering, squawking +fowls while fifty frenzied police officers and Chinamen attempted +vainly to reduce them to captivity again. In the midst of the mêlée +McGuire caught his rooster, and fearful lest it should escape him +managed somehow to decapitate it. The body, however, had been flopping +around spasmodically several seconds upon the floor before he realized +that the oath had not been administered, and his voice suddenly rose +above the pandemonium in an excited brogue. + +"Hold up your hands, you! You do solemnly swear that in the case of The +People against Mock Hen you will tell the truth, the whole truth and +nothing but the truth so help you God!" + +But the interpreter was at that moment engaged in clasping to his bosom +a struggling rooster and was totally unable to fulfill his functions. +Meantime the jury, highly edified at this illustration of the +administration of justice, gazed down upon the spectacle from the +stairs. + +"This farce has gone far enough!" declared Judge Bender disgustedly. "We +will return to the court room. Put those roosters back where they +belong!" + +Once more the participants ascended to Part IX and Ah Fong took his seat +in the witness chair. The interpreter's blouse was covered with +pin-feathers and one of his thumbs was bleeding profusely. + +"Ask the witness if the oath that he has now taken will bind his +conscience?" directed the court. + +Again the interpreter and Ah Fong held converse. + +"He says," translated that official calmly, "that the chicken oath is +all right in China, but that it is no good in United States, and that +anyway the proper form of words was not used." + +"Good Lord!" ejaculated O'Brien. "Where am I?" + +"Me tell truth, all light," suddenly announced Ah Fong in English. "Go +ahead! Shoot!" And he smiled an inscrutable age-long Oriental smile. + +The jury burst into laughter. + +"He's stringing you!" the foreman kindly informed O'Brien, who cursed +silently. + +"Go on, Mister District Attorney, examine the witness," directed the +judge. "I shall permit no further variations upon the established forms +of procedure." + +Then at last and not until then--on the morning of the twenty-first +day--did Ah Fong tell his simple story and the jury for the first time +learn what it was all about. But by then they had entirely ceased to +care, being engrossed in watching Mr. Tutt at his daily amusement of +torturing O'Brien into a state of helpless exasperation. + +Ah Fong gave his testimony with a clarity of detail that left nothing +to be desired, and he was corroborated in most respects by the Italian +woman, who identified Mock Hen as the Chinaman with the iron bar. Their +evidence was supplemented by that of Bull Neck Burke and Miss Malone, +who also were positive that they had seen Mock running from the scene of +the murder at exactly four-one o'clock. + +Mr. Tutt hardly cross-examined Fong at all, but with Mr. Burke he +pursued very different tactics, speedily rousing the wrestler to such a +condition of fury that he was hardly articulate, for the old lawyer +gently hinted that Mr. Burke was inventing the whole story for the +purpose of assisting his friends in the On Gee Tong. + +"But I tell yer I don't know no Chinks!" bellowed Burke, looking more +like a bull than ever. "This here Mock Hen run right by me. My goil saw +him too. I looked at me ticker to get the time!" + +"Ah! Then you expected to be a witness for the On Gee Tong!" + +"Naw! I tell yer I was walkin' wit' me goil!" + +"What is the lady's name?" + +"Miss Malone." + +"What is her occupation?" + +"She's a gay burlesquer." + +"A gay burlesquer?" + +"Sure--champagne goil and gay burlesquer." + +"A champagne girl!" + +"Dat's what I said." + +"You mean that she is upon the stage?" + +"Sure--dat's it!" + +"Oh!" Mr. Tutt looked relieved. + +"What had you and Miss Malone been doing that afternoon?" + +"I told yer--walkin'." + +Mr. Tutt coughed slightly. + +"Is that all?" + +"Say, watcha drivin' at?" + +Mr. Tutt elevated his bushy eyebrows. + +"How do you earn your living?" he demanded, changing his method of +attack. + +Bull Neck allowed his head to sink still farther into the vast bulk of +his immense torso, strangely resembling, in this position, the fabled +anthropophagi whose heads are reputed thus to "grow beneath their +shoulders." + +Then throwing out his jaw he announced proudly between set teeth: "I'm a +perfessor of physical sculture!" + +The jury sniggered. Mr. Tutt appeared politely puzzled. + +"A professor of what?" + +"A perfessor of physical sculture!" repeated Bull Neck with great +satisfaction. + +"Oh! A professor of physical sculpture!" exclaimed Mr. Tutt, light +breaking over his wrinkled countenance. "And what may that be?" + +Bull Neck looked round disgustedly at the jury as if to say: "What +ignorance!" + +"Trainin' an' developin' prominent people!" he explained. + +"Um!" remarked Mr. Tutt. "Who invited you to testify in this case?" + +"Mr. Mooney." + +"Oh, you're a friend of Mooney's! That is all!" + +Now it is apparent from these questions and answers that Mr. Burke had +testified to nothing to his discredit and had conducted himself as a +gentleman and a sportsman according to his best lights. Yet owing to the +subtle suggestions contained in Mr. Tutt's inflections and demeanor the +jury leaped unhesitatingly to the conclusion that here was a man so +ignorant and debased that if he were not deliberately lying he was being +made a cat's-paw by the police in the interest of the On Gee Tong. + +Miss Malone fared even worse, for after a preliminary skirmish she +flatly refused to give Mr. Tutt or the jury any information whatever +regarding her past life, while Mooney, of course, labored from the +beginning to the end of his testimony under the curse of being a +policeman, one of that class whom most jurymen take pride in saying they +hold in natural distrust. In a word, the white witnesses to the +dastardly murder of Quong Lee created a general impression of +unreliability upon the minds of the jury, who wholly failed to realize +the somewhat obvious truth that the witnesses to a crime in Chinatown +will naturally if not inevitably be persons who either reside in or +frequent that locality. + +Twenty-four days had now been consumed in the trial, and as yet no +Chinese witnesses except Ah Fong had been called. Now, however, they +appeared in cohorts. Though Mooney had sworn that the streets were +practically empty at the time of the homicide forty-one Chinese +witnesses swore positively that they had been within easy view, claiming +variously to have been behind doors, peeking through shutters, at upper +windows and even on the roofs. All had identified Mock Hen as the +murderer, and none of them had ever heard of either the On Gee or the +Hip Leong Tong! Mr. Tutt could not shake them upon cross-examination, +and O'Brien began to show signs of renewed confidence. Each testified to +substantially the same story and they occupied seventeen full days in +the telling, so that when the prosecution rested, forty-two days had +been consumed since the first talesman had been called. The trial had +sunk into a dull, unbroken monotony, as Mr. Tutt said, of the "vain +repetitions of the heathen." Yet the police and the district attorney +had done all that could reasonably have been expected of them. They were +simply confronted by the very obvious fact--a condition and not a +theory--that the legal processes of Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence are of +slight avail in dealing with people of another race. + +Now it is possible that even had Mr. Tutt put in no defense whatever the +jury might have refused to convict, for there was a curious air of +unreality surrounding the whole affair. It all seemed somehow as +if--assuming that it had ever taken place at all--it had occurred in +some other world and in some other age. Perhaps under what might have +been practically a direction of the court a verdict of conviction might +have been returned--but it is doubtful. The more witnesses testified to +exactly the same thing in precisely the same words the less likely it +appeared to be. + +But Mr. Tutt was taking no chances and, upon the forty-third day of the +trial, at a nod from the bench, he opened his case. Never had he been +more serious; never more persuasive. Abandoning every suggestion of +frivolity, he weighed the testimony of each white witness and pointed +out its obvious lack of probative value. Not one, he said, except the +Italian woman, had had more than a fleeting glance of the face of the +man now accused of the crime. Such an identification was useless. The +Chinamen were patently lying. They had not been there at all! Would any +member of the jury hang a dog, even a yellow one, on such testimony? Of +course not! Much less a human being. The people had called forty +witnesses to prove that Mock Hen had killed Quong Lee. It made no +difference. The On Gee could have just as easily produced four hundred. +Moreover, Mr. Tutt did a very daring thing. He pronounced all Chinese +testimony in an American court of justice as absolutely valueless, and +boasted that for every Chinaman who swore Mock Hen was guilty he would +bring forward two who would swear him innocent. + +The thing was, as he had carefully explained to Bonnie Doon, to prove +that Mock was a good Chinaman and, if the jury did not believe that +there was any such animal, to convince them that it was possible. His +first task, however, was to polish off the Chinese testimony by calling +the witnesses who had been secured under the guidance of Wong Get. He +admitted afterward that in view of the exclusion law he had not supposed +there were so many Chinamen in the United States, for they crowded the +corridors and staircases of the Criminal Courts Building, arriving in +companies--the Wong family, the Mocks, the Fongs, the Lungs, the Sues, +and others of the sacred Hip Sing Society from near at hand and from +distant parts--from Brooklyn and Flatbush, from Flushing and Far +Rockaway, from Hackensack and Hoboken, from Trenton and Scranton, from +Buffalo and Saratoga, from Chicago and St. Louis, and each and every one +of them swore positively upon the severed neck of the whitest +rooster--the broken fragments of the whitest of porcelain plates--the +holiest of books--that he had been present in person at Fulton Market in +New York City at precisely four-fifteen o'clock in the afternoon and +assisted Mock Hen, the defendant, in selecting and purchasing a terrapin +for stew. + +Mr. Tutt grinned at the jury and the jury grinned affectionately back at +Mr. Tutt. Indeed, after the length of time they had all been together +they had almost as much respect for him as for the judge upon the bench. +The whole court seemed to be a sort of Tutt Club, of which even O'Brien +was a member. + +"Now," said Mr. Tutt, "I will call a few witnesses to show you what kind +of a man this is whom these highbinders accuse of the crime of murder!" + +Mock, rolling his eyes heavenward, assumed an expression of infantile +helplessness and trust. + +"Don't overdo it!" growled Tutt. "Just look kind of gentle." + +So Mock looked as gentle as a suckling dove while two professors from +Columbia University, three of his landlords in his more reputable +business enterprises, the superintendent of the Rising Sun Mission, four +ex-police officers, a fireman, and an investigator for the Society for +the Suppression of Sin swore upon Holy Writ and with all sincerity that +Mock Hen was not only a person of the most excellent character and +reputation but a Christian and a gentleman. + +And then Mr. Tutt played his trump card. + +"I will call Miss Frances Duryea, of Hudson House," he announced. "Miss +Duryea, will you kindly take the witness chair?" + +Miss Fanny modestly rose from her seat in the rear of the room and came +forward. No one could for an instant doubt the honesty and impartiality +of this devoted middle-aged woman, who, surrendering the comforts and +luxuries of her home uptown, to which she was well entitled by reason of +her age, was devoting herself to a life of service. If a woman like +that, thought the jury, was ready to vouch for Mock's good character, +why waste any more time on the case? But Miss Fanny was to do much more. + +"Miss Duryea," began Mr. Tutt, "do you know the defendant?" + +"Yes, sir; I do," she answered quietly. + +"How long have you known him?" + +"Six years." + +"Do you know his reputation for peace and quiet?" + +Miss Fanny half turned to the judge and then faced the jury. + +"He is one of the sweetest characters I have ever known," she replied, +"and I have known many--" + +"Oh, I object!" interrupted O'Brien. "This lady can't be permitted to +testify to anything like that. She must be limited by the rules of +evidence!" + +With one movement the jury wheeled and glared at him. + +"I guess this lady can say anything she wants!" declared the foreman +chivalrously. + +O'Brien sank down in his seat. What was the use! + +"Go on, please," gently directed Mr. Tutt. + +"As I was saying, Mr. Mock Hen is a very remarkable character," +responded Miss Fanny. "He is devoted to the mission and to us at the +settlement. I would trust him absolutely in regard to anything." + +"Thank you," said Mr. Tutt, smiling benignly. "Now, Miss Duryea, did you +see Mock Hen at any time on May sixth?" + +Instantly the jury showed renewed signs of life. May sixth? That was +the day of the murder. + +"I did," answered Miss Fanny with conviction. "He came to see me at +Hudson House in the afternoon and while we were talking the clock struck +four." + +The jury looked at one another and nodded. + +"Well, I guess that settles this case!" announced the foreman. + +"Right!" echoed a talesman behind him. + +"I object!" wailed O'Brien. "This is entirely improper!" + +"Quite so!" ruled Judge Bender sternly. "The jurymen will not make any +remarks!" + +"But, Your Honor--we all agreed at recess there was nothing in this +case," announced the foreman. "And now this testimony simply clinches +it. Why go on with it!" + +"That's so!" ejaculated another. "Let us go, judge." + +Mr. Tutt's weather-beaten face was wreathed in smiles. + +"Easy, gentlemen!" he cautioned. + +The judge shrugged his shoulders, frowning. + +"This is very irregular!" he said. + +Then he beckoned to O'Brien, and the two whispered together for several +minutes, while all over the court room on the part of those who had sat +there so patiently for sixty-nine days there was a prolonged and +ecstatic wriggling of arms and legs. Instinctively they all knew that +the farce was over. + +The assistant district attorney returned to his table but did not sit +down. + +"If the court please," he said rather wearily, "the last witness, Miss +Duryea, by her testimony, which I personally am quite ready to accept as +truthful, has interjected a reasonable doubt of the defendant's guilt +into what otherwise would in my opinion be a case for the jury. If Mock +Hen was at Hudson House, nearly two miles from Pell and Doyers Streets, +at four o'clock on the afternoon of the homicide, manifestly he could +not have been one of the assailants of Quong Lee at one minute past +four. I am satisfied that no jury would convict--" + +"Not on your life!" snorted the foreman airily. + +"--and I therefore," went on O'Brien, "ask the court to direct an +acquittal." + + * * * * * + +In the grand banquet hall of the Shanghai and Hongkong American-Chinese +Restaurant, Ephraim Tutt, draped in a blue mandarin coat with a tasseled +pill box rakishly upon his old gray head, sat beside Wong Get and Buddha +at the head of a long table surrounded by three hundred Chinamen in +their richest robes of ceremony. Lanterns of party-colored glass +swaying from gilded rafters shed a strange light upon a silken cloth +marvelously embroidered and laden with the choicest of Oriental dishes, +and upon the pale faces of the Hip Leong Tong--the Mocks, the Wongs, the +Fongs and the rest--both those who had testified and also those who had +merely been ready if duty called to do so, all of whom were now gathered +together to pay honor where they felt honor to be due; namely, at the +shrine of Mr. Tutt. + +Deft Chinese waiters slipped silently from guest to guest with +bird's-nest soup, guy soo main, mon goo guy pan, shark's fin and lung +har made of shreds of lobster, water chestnuts, rice and the succulent +shoots of the young bamboo, while three musicians in a corner sang +through their nose a syncopated dirge. "Wang-ang-ang-ang!" it rose and +fell as Mr. Tutt, his neck encircled by a wreath of lilies, essayed to +manipulate a pair of long black chop-sticks. "Wang-ang-ang-ang!" About +him were golden limes, ginger in syrup, litchi nuts, pickled leeches. + +Then he felt a touch upon his shoulder and turned to see Fong Hen, the +slipper, standing beside him. It was the duty of Fong Hen to drink with +each guest--more than that, to drink as much as each guest drank! He +gravely offered Mr. Tutt a pony of rice brandy. It was not the fiery +lava he had anticipated, but a soft, caressing nectar, fragrant as if +distilled from celestial flowers of the time of Confucius. The slipper +swallowed the same quantity at a gulp, bowed and passed along. + +Mr. Tutt vainly tried to grasp the fact that he was in his own native +city of New York. Long sleeves covered with red and purple dragons hid +his arms and hands, and below the collar a smooth tight surface of silk +across his breast made access to his pockets quite impossible. In one of +them reposed twenty one-thousand-dollar bills--his fee for securing the +acquittal of Mock Hen. Yes, he was in New York! + +The monotonous wail of the instruments, the pungency of the incense, the +subdued light, the humid breath of the roses carried the thoughts of Mr. +Tutt far away. Before him, against the blue misty sunshine, rose the +yellow temples of Peking. He could hear the faint tintinnabulation of +bells. He was wandering in a garden fragrant with jasmine blossoms and +adorned with ancient graven stones and carved gilt statues. The air was +sweet. Mr. Tutt was very tired.... + +"Let him sleep!" nodded Buddha, deftly conveying to his wrinkled lips a +delicate morsel of guy yemg dun. "Let him sleep! He has earned his +sleep. He has saved our face!" + +It was after midnight when Mr. Tutt, heavily laden with princely gifts +of ivory and jade and boxes of priceless teas, emerged from the side +door of the Shanghai and Hongkong American-Chinese Restaurant. The sky +was brilliant with stars and the sidewalks of Doyers and Pell Streets +were crowded with pedestrians. Near by a lantern-bedecked rubber-neck +wagon was in process of unloading its cargo of seekers after the curious +and unwholesome. On either side of him walked Wong Get and Buddha. They +had hardly reached the corner when five shots echoed in quick succession +above the noise of the traffic and the crowd turned with one accord and +rushed in the direction from which he had just come. + +Mr. Tutt, startled, stopped and looked back. Courteously also stopped +Wong Get and Buddha. A throng was fast gathering in front of the +Shanghai and Hongkong Restaurant. + +Then Murtha appeared, shouldering his way roughly through the mob. +Catching sight of Mr. Tutt, he paused long enough to whisper hoarsely in +the lawyer's ear: "Well, they got Mock Hen! Five bullets in him! But if +they were going to, why in hell couldn't they have done it three months +ago?" + + + + +Samuel and Delilah + + + "And it came to pass, when she pressed him daily with + her words, and urged him, so that his soul was vexed + unto death; that he told her all his heart, and said unto + her, There hath not come a razor upon mine head; ... + if I be shaven, then my strength will go from me, and I + shall become weak and be like any other man." + --JUDGES XVI, 16, 17. + +"Have you seen '76 Fed.' anywhere, Mr. Tutt?" inquired Tutt, appearing +suddenly in the doorway of his partner's office. + +Mr. Tutt looked up from Page 364 of the opinion he was perusing in "The +United States vs. One Hundred and Thirty-two Packages of Spirituous +Liquors and Wines." + +"Got it here in front of me," he answered shortly. "What do you want it +for?" + +Tutt looked over his shoulder. + +"That's a grand name for a case, isn't it? 'Packages of Wines!'" he +chuckled. "I made a note once of a matter entitled 'United States vs. +Forty-three Cases of Frozen Eggs'; and of another called 'United States +vs. One Feather Mattress and One Hundred and Fifty Pounds of +Butter'--along in 197 Federal Reports, if I remember correctly. And you +recall that accident case we had--Bump against the Railroad?" + +"You can't tell me anything about names," remarked Mr. Tutt. "I once +tried a divorce action. Fuss against Fuss; and another, Love against +Love. Do you really want this book?" + +"Not if you are using it," replied Tutt. "I just wanted to show an +authority to Mr. Sorg, the president of the Fat and Skinny Club. You +know our application for a certificate of incorporation was denied +yesterday by Justice McAlpin." + +"No, I didn't know it," returned Mr. Tutt. "Why?" + +"Here's his memorandum in the Law Journal," answered his partner. "Read +it for yourself": + + + Matter of Fat and Skinny Club, Inc. This is an + application for approval of a certificate of incorporation + as a membership corporation. The stated purposes are + to promote and encourage social intercourse and good + fellowship and to advance the interests of the community. + The name selected is the Fat and Skinny Club. If this + be the most appropriate name descriptive of its membership + it is better that it remain unincorporated. Application + denied. + +"Now who says the law isn't the perfection of common sense?" ruminated +Mr. Tutt. "Its general principles are magnificent." + +"And yet," mused Tutt, "only last week Judge McAlpin granted the +petition of one Solomon Swackhamer to change his name to Phillips Brooks +Vanderbilt. Is that right? Is that justice? Is it equity? I ask +you!--when he turns down the Fat and Skinnies?" + +"Oh, yes it is," retorted Mr. Tutt. "When you consider that Mr. +Swackhamer could have assumed the appellation of P.B. Vanderbilt or any +other name he chose without asking the court's permission at all." + +"What!" protested Tutt incredulously. + +"That's the law," returned the senior partner. "A man can call himself +what he chooses and change his name as often as he likes--so long, of +course, as he doesn't do it to defraud. The mere fact that a statute +likewise gives him the right to apply to the courts to accomplish the +same result makes no difference." + +"Of course it might make him feel a little more comfortable about it to +do it that way," suggested Tutt. "Do you know, as long as I've practised +law in this town I've always assumed that one had to get permission to +change one's name." + +"You've learned something," said Mr. Tutt suavely. "I hope you will put +it to good account. Here's '76 Fed.' Take it out and console the Fat and +Skinny Club with it if you can." + +Mr. Tutt surrendered the volume without apparent regret and Tutt retired +to his own office and to the task of soothing the injured feelings of +Mr. Sorg. + +A simple-minded little man was Tutt, for all his professional shrewdness +and ingenuity. Like many a hero of the battlefield and of the bar, once +inside the palings of his own fence he became modest, gentle, even +timorous. For Abigail, his wife, had no illusions about him and did not +affect to have any. To her neither Tutt nor Mr. Tutt was any such great +shakes. Had Tutt dared to let her know of many of the schemes which he +devised for the profit or safety of his clients she would have thought +less of him still; in fact, she might have parted with him forever. In a +sense Mrs. Tutt was an exacting woman. Though she somewhat reluctantly +consented to view the hours from nine a.m. to five p.m. in her husband's +day as belonging to the law, she emphatically regarded the rest of the +twenty-four hours as belonging to her. + +The law may be, as Judge Holmes has called it, "a jealous mistress," but +in the case of Tutt it was not nearly so jealous as his wife. So Tutt +was compelled to walk the straight-and-narrow path whether he liked it +or not. On the whole he liked it well enough, but there were +times--usually in the spring--when without being conscious of what was +the matter with him he mourned his lost youth. For Tutt was only +forty-eight and he had had a grandfather who had lived strenuously to +upward of twice that age. He was vigorous, sprightly, bright-eyed and as +hard as nails, even if somewhat resembling in his contours the late Mr. +Pickwick. Mrs. Tutt was tall, spare, capable and sardonic. She made Tutt +comfortable, but she no longer appealed to his sense of romance. Still +she held him. As the playwright hath said "It isn't good looks they +want, but good nature; if a warm welcome won't hold them, cold cream +won't." + +However, Tutt got neither looks nor cold cream. His welcome, in fact, +was warm only if he stayed out too late, and then the later the warmer. +His relationship to his wife was prosaic, respectful. In his heart of +hearts he occasionally thought of her as exceedingly unattractive. In a +word Mrs. Tutt performed her wifely functions in a purely matter-of-fact +way. Anything else would have seemed to her unseemly. She dressed in a +manner that would have been regarded as conservative even on Beacon +Hill. She had no intention of making an old fool of herself or of +letting him be one either. When people had been married thirty years +they could take some things for granted. Few persons therefore had ever +observed Mr. Tutt in the act of caressing Mrs. Tutt; and there were +those who said that he never had. Frankly, she was a trifle forbidding: +superficially not the sort of person to excite a great deal of +sentiment; and occasionally, as we have hinted, in the spring Tutt +yearned for a little sentiment. + +He did his yearning, however, entirely on the side and within those +hours consecrated to the law. In his wife's society he yearned not at +all. In her company he carefully kept his thoughts and his language +inside the innermost circle of decorum. At home his talk was entirely +"Yea, yea," and "Nay, nay," and dealt principally with politics and the +feminist movement, in which Abigail was deeply interested. + +And by this we do not mean to suggest that at other times or places Tutt +was anything but conventionally proper. He was not. He only yearned to +be, well knowing that he was deficient in courage if not in everything +else. + +But habit or no habit, likely or unlikely, Mrs. Tutt had no intention of +taking any chances so far as Tutt was concerned. If he did not reach +home precisely at six explanations were in order, and if he came in half +an hour later he had to demonstrate his integrity beyond a reasonable +doubt according to the established rules of evidence. + +Perhaps Mrs. Tutt did wisely to hold Tutt thus in leash considering the +character of many of the firm's clients. For it was quite impossible to +conceal the nature of the practise of Tutt & Tutt; much of which figured +flamboyantly in the newspapers. Some women would have taken it for +granted under like circumstances that their husbands had acquired a +touch at least of the wisdom of the serpent even if they remained quite +harmless. Abigail countenanced no thought of any demoralization in her +spouse. To her he was like the artist who smears himself and his smock +with paint while in his studio, but appears at dinner in spotless linen +without even a whiff of benzine about him to suggest his occupation. So +Tutt, though hand and glove in his office with the most notorious of the +elite of Longacre Square, came home to supper with the naiveté and +innocence of a theological student for whom an evening at a picture show +is the height of dissipation. + +Yet Tutt was no more of a Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde than most of us. +Merely, his daily transition was a little more abrupt. And when all is +said and done most of the devices invented by his fertile little brain +to further the interests of his clients were no more worthy of +condemnation than those put forward by far higher-priced and much more +celebrated attorneys. + +Not that Mrs. Tutt was blind to the dangers to which her husband by +virtue of his occupation was exposed. Far from it. Indeed she made it +her business to pay periodical visits to the office, ostensibly to see +whether or not it was properly cleaned and the windows washed, but in +reality--or at least so Tutt suspected--to find out whether the +personnel was entirely suitable for a firm of their standing and +particularly for a junior partner of his susceptibilities. + +But she never discovered anything to give her the slightest cause for +alarm. The dramatis personae of the offices of Tutt & Tutt were +characteristic of the firm, none of their employees--except Miss +Sondheim, the tumultous-haired lady stenographer--and Willie, the office +boy, being under forty years of age. + +When not engaged in running errands or fussing over his postage-stamp +album, Willie spent most of his time teasing old Scraggs, the scrivener, +an unsuccessful teetotaler. A faint odor of alcohol emanated from the +cage in which he performed his labors and lent an atmosphere of +cheerfulness to what might otherwise have seemed to Broadway clients an +unsympathetic environment, though there were long annual periods during +which he was as sober as a Kansas judge. The winds of March were apt, +however, to take hold of him. Perhaps it was the spring in his case +also. + +The backbone of the establishment was Miss Minerva Wiggin. In every law +office there is usually some one person who keeps the shop going. +Sometimes it is a man. If so, he is probably a sublimated stenographer +or law clerk who, having worked for years to get himself admitted to the +bar, finds, after achieving that ambition, that he has neither the +ability nor the inclination to brave the struggle for a livelihood by +himself. Perchance as a youth he has had visions of himself arguing test +cases before the Court of Appeals while the leaders of the bar hung upon +his every word, of an office crowded with millionaire clients and +servile employees, even as he is servile to the man for whom he labors +for a miserly ten dollars a week. + +His ambition takes him by the hand and leads him to high places, from +which he gazes down into the land of his future prosperity and +greatness. The law seems a mysterious, alluring, fascinating profession, +combining the romance of the drama with the gratifications of the +intellect. He springs to answer his master's bell; he sits up until all +hours running down citations and making extracts from opinions; he +rushes to court and answers the calendar and sometimes carries the +lawyer's brief case and attends him throughout a trial. Three years go +by--five--and he finds that he is still doing the same thing. He is now +a member of the bar, he has become the managing clerk, he attends to +fairly important matters, engages the office force, superintends +transfer of title, occasionally argues a motion. Five years more go by +and perhaps his salary is raised a trifle more. Then one day he awakes +to the realization that his future is to be only that of a trusted +servitor. + +Perchance he is married and has a baby. The time has come for him to +choose whether he will go forth and put his fortune to the test "to win +or lose it all" or settle down into the position of faithful legal hired +man. He is getting a bit bald, he has had one or two tussles with his +bank about accidental overdrafts. The world looks pretty bleak outside +and the big machine of the law goes grinding on heartless, inevitable. +Who is he to challenge the future? The old job is fairly easy; they +can't get on without him, they say; here is where he belongs; he knows +his business--give him his thirty-five hundred a year and let him stay! + +That is Binks, or Calkins, or Shivers, or any one of those worried +gray-haired men who sit in the outer office behind a desk strewn with +papers and make sure that no mistakes have been made. To them every +doubtful question of practise is referred and they answer +instantly--sometimes wrongly, but always instantly. They know the last +day for serving the demurrer in Bilbank against Terwilliger and whether +or not you can tax a referee's fee as a disbursement in a bill of costs; +they are experts on the precise form for orders in matrimonial actions +and the rule in regard to filing a summons and complaint in Oneida +County; they stand between the members of the firm and disagreeable +clients; they hire and discharge the office boys; they do everything +from writing a brief for the Supreme Court of the United States down to +making the contract with the window cleaners; they are the only lawyers +who really know anything and they were once promising young men, who +have found out at last that life and the Sunday-school books are very +far apart; but they run the works and make the law a gentleman's +profession for the rest of us. They are always there. Others come, grow +older, go away, but they remain. Many of them drink. All of which would +be irrelevant, incompetent and immaterial if this were not a legal +story. + +Scraggs had been one of these, but he had also been one of those who +drank, and now he was merely a bookkeeper. Miss Wiggin reigned in his +stead. + +A woman and not a man kept Tutt & Tutt on the map. When this sort of +thing occurs it is usually because the woman in question is the ablest +and very likely also the best person in the outfit, and she assumes the +control of affairs by a process of natural selection. Miss Wiggin was +the conscience, if Mr. Tutt was the heart, of Tutt & Tutt. Nobody, +unless it was Mr. Tutt, knew where she had come from or why she was +working if at all in only a semi-respectable law office. Without her +something dreadful would have happened to the general morale. Everybody +recognized that fact. + +Her very appearance gave the place tone--neutralized the faint odor of +alcohol from the cage. For in truth she was a fine-looking woman. Had +she been costumed by a Fifth Avenue dressmaker and done her coiffure +differently she would have been pretty. Because she drew her gray hair +straight back from her low forehead and tied it in a knob on the back of +her head, wore paper cuffs and a black dress, she looked nearer fifty +than forty-one, which she was. Two hundred dollars would have taken +twenty years off her apparent age--a year for every ten dollars; but she +would not have looked a particle less a lady. + +Her duties were ambiguous. She was always the first to arrive at the +office and was the only person permitted to open the firm mail outside +of its members. She overlooked the books that Scraggs kept and sent out +the bills. She kept the key to the cash box and had charge of the safe. +She made the entries in the docket and performed most of the duties of a +regular managing clerk. She had been admitted to the bar. She checked up +the charge accounts and on Saturdays paid off the office force. In +addition to all these things she occasionally took a hand at a brief, +drew most of the pleadings, and kept track of everything that was done +in the various cases. + +But her chief function, one which made her invaluable was that of +receiving clients who came to the office, and in the first instance +ascertaining just what their troubles were; and she was so sympathetic +and at the same time so sensible that many a stranger who casually +drifted in and would otherwise just as casually have drifted out again +remained a permanent fixture in the firm's clientele. Scraggs and +William adored her in spite of her being an utter enigma to them. She +was quiet but businesslike, of few words but with a latent sense of +humor that not infrequently broke through the surface of her gravity, +and she proceeded upon the excellent postulate that everyone with whom +she came in contact was actuated by the highest sense of honor. She +acted as a spiritual tonic to both Mr. Tutt and Tutt--especially to the +latter, who was the more in need of it. If they were ever tempted to +stray across the line of professional rectitude her simple assumption +that the thing couldn't be done usually settled the matter once and for +all. On delicate questions Mr. Tutt frankly consulted her. Without her, +Tutt & Tutt would have been shysters; with her they were almost +respectable. She received a salary of three thousand dollars a year and +earned double that amount, for she served where she loved and her first +thought was of Tutt & Tutt. If you can get a woman like that to run your +law office do not waste any time or consideration upon a man. Her price +is indeed above rubies. + +Yet even Miss Wiggin could not keep the shadow of the vernal equinox off +the simple heart of the junior Tutt. She had seen it coming for several +weeks, had scented danger in the way Tutt's childish eye had lingered +upon Miss Sondheim's tumultous black hair and in the rather rakish, +familiar way he had guided the ladies who came to get divorces out to +the elevator. And then there swam into his life the beautiful Mrs. +Allison, and for a time Tutt became not only hysterically young again, +but--well, you shall see. + +Yet, curiously enough, though we are a long way from where this story +opened, it all goes back to Phillips Brooks Vanderbilt and the Fat and +Skinny Club and the right to call ourselves by what names we please. +Moreover, as must be apparent, all that happened occurred beyond Miss +Wiggin's sphere of spiritual influence. Yet, had it not, even she could +not have harnessed Leviathan or loosed the bands of Orion--to say +nothing of counteracting the effect of spring. + +When Tutt returned with "76 Fed." after the departure of Mr. Sorg he +found his partner smoking the usual stogy and gazing pensively down upon +the harbor. The immediate foreground was composed of rectangular roofs +of divers colors, mostly reddish, ornamented with eccentrically shaped +chimney pots, pent-houses, skylights and water tanks, in addition to +various curious whistle-like protuberances from which white wraiths of +steam whirled and danced in the gay breeze. Beyond, in the middle +distance, a great highway of sparkling jewels led across the waves to +the distant faintly green hills of Staten Island. Three tiny aeroplanes +wove invisible threads against the blue woof of the sky above the New +Jersey shore. It was not a day to practise law at all. It was a day to +lie on one's back in the grass and watch the clouds or throw one's +weight against the tugging helm of a racing sloop and bite the spindrift +blown across her bows--not a day for lawyers but for lovers! + +"Here's '76 Fed.'," said Tutt. + +"What's become of Sorg?" + +"Gone. Mad. Says the whole point of the Fat and Skinny Club is in the +name." + +"I fancy--from looking at Mr. Sorg--that that is quite true," remarked +Mr. Tutt. He paused and reaching down into a lower compartment of his +desk, lifted out a tumbler and his bottle of malt extract, which he +placed carefully at his elbow and leaned back again contemplatively. +"Look here, Tutt," he said. "I want to ask you something. Is there +anything the matter with you?" + +Tutt regarded him with the air of a small boy caught peeking through a +knot hole. + +"Why,--no!" he protested lamely. "That is--nothing in particular. I do +feel a bit restless--sort of vaguely dissatisfied." + +Mr. Tutt nodded sympathetically. + +"How old are you, Tutt?" + +"Forty-eight." + +"And you feel just at present as if life were 'flat, stale and +unprofitable?'" + +"Why--yes; you might put it that way. The fact is every day seems just +like every other day. I don't even get any pleasure out of eating. The +very sight of a boiled egg beside my plate at breakfast gives me the +willies. I can't eat boiled eggs any more. They sicken me!" + +"Exactly!" Mr. Tutt poured out a glass of the malt extract. + +"I feel the same way about a lot of things," Tutt hurried on. "Special +demurrers, for instance. They bore me horribly. And supplementary +proceedings get most frightfully upon my nerves." + +"Exactly!" repeated Mr. Tutt. + +"What do you mean by 'exactly?'" snapped Tutt. + +"You're bored," explained his partner. + +"Rather!" agreed Tutt. "Bored to death. Not with anything special, you +understand; just everything. I feel as if I'd like to do something +devilish." + +"When a man feels like that he better go to a doctor," declared Mr. +Tutt. + +"A doctor!" exclaimed Tutt derisively. "What good would a doctor do me?" + +"He might keep you from getting into trouble." + +"Oh, you needn't be alarmed. I won't get into any trouble." + +"It's the dangerous age," said Mr. Tutt. "I've known a lot of +respectable married men to do the most surprising things round fifty." + +Tutt looked interested. + +"Have you now?" he inquired. "Well, I've no doubt it did some of 'em a +world of good. Tell you frankly sometimes I feel as if I'd rather like +to take a bit of a fling myself!" + +"Your professional experience ought to be enough to warn you of the +dangers of that sort of experiment," answered Mr. Tutt gravely. "It's +bad enough when it occurs inadvertently, so to speak, but when a man in +your condition of life deliberately goes out to invite trouble it's a +sad, sad spectacle." + +"Do you mean to imply that I'm not able to take care of myself?" +demanded Tutt. + +"I mean to imply that no man is too wise to be made a fool of by some +woman." + +"That every Samson has his Delilah?" + +"If you want to put it that way--yes." + +"And that in the end he'll get his hair cut?" + +Mr. Tutt took a sip from the tumbler of malt and relit his stogy. + +"What do you know about Samson and Delilah, Tutt?" he challenged. + +"Oh, about as much as you do, I guess, Mr. Tutt," answered his partner +modestly. + +"Well, who cut Samson's hair?" demanded the senior member. + +He emptied the dregs of the malt-extract bottle into his glass and +holding it to the light examined it critically. + +"Delilah, of course!" ejaculated Tutt. + +Mr. Tutt shook his head. + +"There you go off at half-cock again, Tutt!" he retorted whimsically. +"You wrong her. She did no such thing." + +"Why, I'll bet you a hundred dollars on it!" cried Tutt excitedly. + +"Make it a simple dinner at the Claridge Grill and I'll go you." + +"Done!" + +There were four books on the desk near Mr. Tutt's right hand--the New +York Code of Civil Procedure, an almanac, a Shakesperean concordance and +a Bible. + +"Look it up for yourself," said Mr. Tutt, waving his arm with a gesture +of the utmost impartiality. "That is, if you happen to know in what part +of Holy Writ said Delilah is to be found." + +Tutt followed the gesture and sat down at the opposite side of the desk. + +"There!" he exclaimed, after fumbling over the leaves for several +minutes. "What did I tell you? Listen, Mr. Tutt! It's in the sixteenth +chapter of Judges: 'And it came to pass, when she pressed him daily with +her words, and urged him, so that his soul was vexed unto death; That he +told her all his heart, and said unto her, There hath not come a razor +upon mine head.' Um--um." + +"Read on, Tutt!" ordered Mr. Tutt. + +"Um. 'And when Delilah saw that he had told her all his heart, she sent +and called for the lords of the Philistines, saying, Come up this once.' +Um-um." + +"Yes, go on!" + +"'And she made him sleep upon her knees; and she called for a man, and +she caused him to shave off the seven locks of his head.' Well, I'll be +hanged!" exclaimed Tutt. "Now, I would have staked a thousand dollars on +it. But look here, you don't win! Delilah did cut Samson's hair--through +her agent. '_Qui facit per alium facit per se!_'" + +"Your point is overruled," said Mr. Tutt. "A barber cut Samson's hair. +Let it be a lesson to you never to take anything on hearsay. Always look +up your authorities yourself. Moreover"--and he looked severely at +Tutt--"the cerebral fluid--like malt extract--tends to become cloudy +with age." + +"Well, anyhow, I'm no Samson," protested Tutt. "And I haven't met anyone +that looked like a Delilah. I guess after the procession of +adventuresses that have trailed through this office in the last twenty +years I'm reasonably safe." + +"No man is safe," meditated Mr. Tutt. "For the reason that no man knows +the power of expansion of his heart. He thinks it's reached its +limit--and then he finds to his horror or his delight that it hasn't. To +put it another way, a man's capacity to love may be likened to a +thermometer. At twenty-five or thirty he meets some young person, falls +in love with her, thinks his amatory thermometer has reached the +boiling-point and accordingly marries her. In point of fact it +hasn't--it's only marking summer heat--hasn't even registered the +temperature of the blood. Well, he goes merrily on life's way and some +fine day another lady breezes by, and this safe and sane citizen, who +supposes his capacity for affection was reached in early youth, suddenly +discovers to his amazement that his mercury is on the jump and presently +that his old thermometer has blown its top off." + +"Very interesting, Mr. Tutt," observed Tutt after a moment's silence. +"You seem to have made something of a study of these things." + +"Only in a business way--only in a business way!" Mr. Tutt assured him. +"Now, if you're feeling stale--and we all are apt to get that way this +time of year--why don't you take a run down to Atlantic City?" + +Now Tutt would have liked to go to Atlantic City could he have gone by +himself, but the idea of taking Abigail along robbed the idea of its +attraction. She had got more than ever on his nerves of late. But his +reply, whatever it might have been, was interrupted by the announcement +of Miss Wiggin, who entered at that moment, that a lady wished to see +him. + +"She asked for Mr. Tutt," explained Minerva. + +"But I think her case is more in your line," and she nodded to Tutt. + +"Good looking?" inquired Tutt roguishly. + +"Very," returned Miss Wiggin. "A blonde." + +"Thanks," answered Tutt, smoothing his hair; "I'm on my way." + +Now this free, almost vulgar manner of speech was in reality foreign to +both Tutt and Miss Wiggin and it was born of the instant, due doubtless +to some peculiar juxtaposition of astral bodies in Cupid's horoscope +unknown to them, but which none the less had its influence. Strange +things happen on the eve of St. Agnes and on Midsummer Night--even in +law offices. + +Mrs. Allison was sitting by the window in Tutt's office when he came in, +and for a full minute he paused upon the threshold while she pretended +she did not know that he was there. The deluge of sunlight that fell +upon her face betrayed no crack or wrinkle--no flaw of any kind--in the +white marble of its perfection. It was indeed a lovely face, classic in +the chiseling of its transparent alabaster; and when she turned, her +eyes were like misty lakes of blue. Bar none, she was the most beautiful +creature--and there had been many--that had ever wandered into the +offices of Tutt & Tutt. He sought for a word. "Wonderful"; that was, it, +she was "wonderful." His stale spirit soared in ecstasy, and left him +tongue-tied. In vulgar parlance he was rattled to death, this +commonplace little lawyer who for a score of years had dealt cynically +with the loves and lives of the flock of female butterflies who +fluttered annually in and out of the office. Throughout that period he +had sat unemotionally behind his desk and listened in an aloof, cold, +professional manner to the stories of their wrongs as they sobbed or +hissed them forth. Wise little lawyer that he was, he had regarded them +all as just what they were and nothing else--specimens of the Cecropia. +And he had not even patted them upon the shoulder or squeezed their +hands when he had bade them good-by--maintaining always an impersonal +and dignified demeanor. + +Therefore he was surprised to hear himself say in soothing, almost +cooing tones: + +"Well, my dear, what can I do for you?" + +Shades of Abigail! "Well, my dear!" Tutt--Tutt! Tutt! + +"I am in great trouble," faltered Mrs. Allison, gazing in misty +helplessness out of her blue grottoes at him while her beautiful red +lips trembled. + +"I hope I can help you!" he breathed. "Tell me all about it! Take your +time. May I relieve you of your wrap?" + +She wriggled out of it gratefully and he saw for the first time the +round, slender pillar of her neck. What a head she had--in its nimbus of +hazy gold. What a figure! His forty-eight-year-old lawyer's heart +trembled under its heavy layer of half-calf dust. He found difficulty in +articulating. He stammered, staring at her most shamelessly both of +which symptoms she did not notice. She was used to them in the other +sex. Tutt did not know what was the matter with him. He had in fact +entered upon that phase at which the wise man, be he old or young, turns +and runs. + +But Tutt did not run. In legal phrase he stopped, looked and listened, +experiencing a curious feeling of expansion. This enchanting creature +transmuted the dingy office lined with its rows of calfskin bindings +into a golden grot in which he stood spellbound by the low murmur of her +voice. A sense of infinite leisure emanated from her--a subtle denial of +the ordinary responsibilities--very relaxing and delightful to Tutt. But +what twitched his very heartstrings was the dimple that came and went +with that pathetic little twisted smile of hers. + +"I came to you," said Mrs. Allison, "because I knew you were both kind +and clever." + +Tutt smiled sweetly. + +"Kind, perhaps--not clever!" he beamed. + +"Why, everyone says you are one of the cleverest lawyers in New York," +she protested. Then, raising her innocent China-blue eyes to his she +murmured, "And I so need kindness!" + +Tutt's breast swelled with an emotion which he was forced to admit was +not altogether avuncular--that curious sentimental mixture that +middle-aged men feel of paternal pity, Platonic tenderness and +protectiveness, together with all those other euphemistic synonyms, that +make them eager to assist the weak and fragile, to try to educate and +elevate, and particularly to find out just how weak, fragile, uneducated +and unelevated a helpless lady may be. But in spite of his half century +of experience Tutt's knowledge of these things was purely vicarious. He +could have told another man when to run, but he didn't know when to run +himself. He could have saved another, himself he could not save--at any +rate from Mrs. Allison. + +He had never seen anyone like her. He pulled his chair a little nearer. +She was so slender, so supple, so--what was it?--svelte! And she had an +air of childish dignity that appealed to him tremendously. There was +nothing, he assured himself, of the vamp about her at all. + +"I only want to get my rights," she said, tremulously. "I'm nearly out +of my mind. I don't know what to do or where to turn!" + +"Is there"--he forced himself to utter the word with difficulty--"a--a +man involved?" + +She flushed and bowed her head sadly, and instantly a poignant rage +possessed him. + +"A man I trusted absolutely," she replied in a low voice. + +"His name?" + +"Winthrop Oaklander." + +Tutt gasped audibly, for the name was that of one of Manhattan's most +distinguished families, the founder of which had swapped glass beads and +red-flannel shirts with the aborigines for what was now the most +precious water frontage in the world--and moreover, Mrs. Allison +informed Tutt, he was a clergyman. + +"I don't wonder you're surprised!" agreed Mrs. Allison. + +"Why--I--I'm--not surprised at all!" prevaricated Tutt, at the same time +groping for his silk handkerchief. "You don't mean to say you've got a +case against this man Oaklander!" + +"I have indeed!" she retorted with firmly compressed lips. "That is, if +it is what you call a case for a man to promise to marry a woman and +then in the end refuse to do so." + +"Of course it is!" answered Tutt. "But why on earth wouldn't he?" + +"He found out I had been divorced," she explained. "Up to that time +everything had been lovely. You see he thought I was a widow." + +"Ah!" + +Mr. Tutt experienced another pang of resentment against mankind in +general. + +"I had a leading part in one of the season's successes on Broadway," she +continued miserably. "But when Mr. Oaklander promised to marry me I left +the stage; and now--I have nothing!" + +"Poor child!" sighed Tutt. + +He would have liked to take her in his arms and comfort her, but he +always kept the door into the outer office open on principle. + +"You know, Mr. Oaklander is the pastor of St. Lukes-Over-the-Way," said +Mrs. Allison. "I thought that maybe rather than have any publicity he +might do a little something for me." + +"I suppose you've got something in the way of evidence, haven't you? +Letters or photographs or something?" inquired Tutt, reverting +absent-mindedly to his more professional manner. + +"No," she answered. "We never wrote to one another. And when we went out +it was usually in the evening. I don't suppose half a dozen people have +ever seen us together." + +"That's awkward!" meditated Tutt, "if he denies it." + +"Of course he will deny it!" + +"You can't tell. He may not." + +"Oh, yes, he will! Why, he even refuses to admit that he ever met me!" +declared Mrs. Allison indignantly. + +Now, to Tutt's credit be it said that neither at this point nor at any +other did any suspicion of Mrs. Allison's sincerity enter his mind. For +the first time in his professional existence he accepted what a lady +client told him at its face value. Indeed he felt that no one, not even +a clergyman, could help loving so miraculous a woman, or that loving her +one could refrain from marrying her save for some religious or other +permanent obstacle He was sublimely, ecstatically happy in the mere +thought that he, Tutt, might be of help to such a celestial being, and +he desired no reward other than the privilege of being her willing slave +and of reading her gratitude in those melting, misty eyes. + +Mrs. Allison went away just before lunch time, leaving her telephone +number, her handkerchief, a pungent odor of violet talc, and a +disconsolate but highly excited Tutt. Never, at any rate within twenty +years, had he felt so young. Life seemed tinged with every color of the +spectrum. The radiant fact was that he would--he simply had to--see her +again. What he might do for her professionally--all that aspect of the +affair was shoved far into the background of his mind. His only thought +was how to get her back into his office at the earliest possible moment. + +"Shall I enter the lady's name in the address book?" inquired Miss +Wiggin coldly as he went out to get a bite of lunch. + +Tutt hesitated. + +"Mrs. Georgie Allison is her name," he said in a detached sort of way. + +"Address?" + +Tutt felt in his waistcoat pocket. + +"By George!" he muttered, "I didn't take it. But her telephone number is +Lincoln Square 9187." + +To chronicle the details of Tutt's second blooming would be needlessly +to derogate from the dignity of the history of Tutt & Tutt. There is a +silly season in the life of everyone--even of every lawyer--who can call +himself a man, and out of such silliness comes the gravity of knowledge. +Tutt found it necessary for his new client to come to the office almost +every day, and as she usually arrived about the noon hour what was more +natural than that he should invite her out to lunch? Twice he walked +home with her. The telephone was busy constantly. And the only thorn in +the rose of Tutt's delirious happiness was the fear lest Abigail might +discover something. The thought gave him many an anxious hour, cost him +several sleepless nights. At times this nervousness about his wife +almost exceeded the delight of having Mrs. Allison for a friend. Yet +each day he became on more and more cordial terms with her, and the +lunches became longer and more intimate. + +The Reverend Winthrop Oaklander gave no sign of life, however. The +customary barrage of legal letters had been laid down, but without +eliciting any response. The Reverend Winthrop must be a wise one, opined +Tutt, and he began to have a hearty contempt as well as hatred for his +quarry. The first letter had been the usual vague hint that the +clergyman might and probably would find it to his advantage to call at +the offices of Tutt & Tutt, and so on. The Reverend Winthrop, however +did not seem to care to secure said advantage whatever it might be. The +second epistle gave the name of the client and proposed a friendly +discussion of her affairs. No reply. The third hinted at legal +proceedings. Total silence. The fourth demanded ten thousand dollars +damages and threatened immediate suit. + +In answer to this last appeared the Reverend Winthrop himself. He was a +fine-looking young chap with a clear eye--almost as blue as +Georgie's--and a skin even pinker than hers, and he stood six feet five +in his Oxfords and his fist looked to Tutt as big as a coconut. + +"Are you the blackmailer who's been writing me those letters?" he +demanded, springing into Tutt's office. "If you are, let me tell you +something. You've got hold of the wrong monkey. I've been dealing with +fellows of your variety ever since I got out of the seminary. I don't +know the lady you pretend to represent, and I never heard of her. If I +get any more letters from you I'll go down and lay the case before the +district attorney; and if he doesn't put you in jail I'll come up here +and knock your head off. Understand? Good day!" + +At any other period in his existence Tutt could not have failed to be +impressed with the honesty of this husky exponent of the church +militant, but he was drugged as by the drowsy mandragora. The blatant +defiance of this muscular preacher outraged him. This canting hypocrite, +this wolf in priest's clothing must be brought to book. But how? Mrs. +Allison had admitted the literal truth when she had told him that there +were no letters, no photographs. There was no use commencing an action +for breach of promise if there was no evidence to support it. And once +the papers were filed their bolt would have been shot. Some way must be +devised whereby the Reverend Winthrop Oaklander could be made to +perceive that Tutt & Tutt meant business, and--equally imperative +--whereby Georgie would be impressed with the fact that not +for nothing had she come to them--that is, to him--for help. + +The fact of the matter was that the whole thing had become rather +hysterical. Tutt, though having nothing seriously to reproach himself +with, was constantly haunted by a sense of being rather ridiculous and +doing something behind his wife's back. He told himself that his +Platonic regard for Georgie was a noble thing and did him honor, but it +was an honor which he preferred to wear as an entirely private +decoration. He was conscious of being laughed at by Willie and Scraggs +and disapproved of by Miss Wiggin, who was very snippy to him. And in +addition there was the omnipresent horror of having Abigail unearth his +philandering. He now not only thought of Mrs. Allison as Georgie but +addressed her thus, and there was quite a tidy little bill at the +florist's for flowers that he had sent her. In one respect only did he +exhibit even the most elementary caution--he wrote and signed all his +letters to her himself upon the typewriter, and filed copies in the +safe. + +"So there we are!" he sighed as he gave to Mrs. Allison a somewhat +expurgated, or rather emasculated version of the Reverend Winthrop's +visit. "We have got to hand him something hot or make up our minds to +surrender. In a word we have got to scare him--Georgie." + +And then it was that, like the apocryphal mosquito, the Fat and Skinny +Club justified its attempted existence. For the indefatigable Sorg made +an unheralded reappearance in the outer office and insisted upon seeing +Tutt, loudly asserting that he had reason to believe that if a new +application were now made to another judge--whom he knew--it would be +more favorably received. Tutt went to the doorway and stood there +barring the entrance and expostulating with him. + +"All right!" shouted Sorg. "All right! I hear you! But don't tell me +that a man named Solomon Swackhamer can change his name to Phillips +Brooks Vanderbilt and in the same breath a reputable body of citizens be +denied the right to call themselves what they please!" + +"He don't understand!" explained Tutt to Georgie, who had listened with +wide, dreamy eyes. "He don't appreciate the difference between doing a +thing as an individual and as a group." + +"What thing?" + +"Why, taking a name." + +"I don't get you," said Georgie. + +"Sorg wanted to call his crowd the Fat and Skinny Club, and the court +wouldn't let him--thought it was silly." + +"Well?" + +"But he could have called himself Mr. Fat or Mr. Skinny or Mr. Anything +Else without having to ask anybody--Oh, I say!" + +Tutt had stiffened into sculpture. + +"What is it?" demanded Georgie fascinated. + +"I've got an idea," he cried. "You can call yourself anything you like. +Why not call yourself Mrs. Winthrop Oaklander?" + +"But what good would that do?" she asked vaguely. + +"Look here!" directed Tutt. "This is the surest thing you know! Just go +up to the Biltmore and register as Mrs. Winthrop Oaklander. You have a +perfect legal right to do it. You could call yourself Mrs. Julius Caesar +if you wanted to. Take a room and stay there until our young Christian +soldier offers you a suitable inducement to move along. Even if you're +violating the law somehow his first attempt to make trouble for you will +bring about the very publicity he is anxious to avoid. Why, it's +marvelous--and absolutely safe? They can't touch you. He'll come across +inside of two hours. If he doesn't a word to the reporters will start +things in the right direction." + +For a moment Mrs. Allison looked puzzled. Then her beautiful face broke +into an enthusiastic classic smile and she laid her little hand softly +on his arm. + +"What a clever boy you are--Sammy!" + +A subdued snigger came from the direction of the desk usually occupied +by William. Tutt flushed. It was one thing to call Mrs. Allison +"Georgie" in private and another to have her "Sammy" him within hearing +of the office force. And just then Miss Wiggin passed by with her nose +slightly in the air. + +"What a perfectly wonderful idea!" went on Mrs. Allison rapturously. "A +perfectly wonderful idea!" + +Then she smiled a strange, mysterious, significant smile that almost +tore Tutt's heart out by the roots. + +"Listen, Sammy," she whispered, with a new light in those beautiful +eyes. "I want five thousand dollars." + +"Five?" repeated Tutt simply. "I thought you wanted ten thousand!" + +"Only five from you, Sammy!" + +"Me!" he gagged. + +"You--dearest!" + +Tutt turned blazing hot; then cold, dizzy and sea-sick. His sight was +slightly blurred. Slowly he groped for the door and closed it +cautiously. + +"What--are--you--talking about?" he choked, though he knew perfectly +well. + +Georgie had thrown herself back in the leather chair by his desk and had +opened her gold mesh-bag. + +"About five thousand dollars," she replied with the careful enunciation +of a New England school-mistress. + +"What five thousand dollars?" + +"The five you're going to hand me before I leave this office, Sammy +darling," she retorted dazzlingly. + +Tutt's head swam and he sank weakly into his swivel chair. It was +incredible that he, a veteran of the criminal bar, should have been so +tricked. Instantly, as when a reagent is injected into a retort of +chemicals and a precipitate is formed leaving the previously cloudy +liquid like crystal, Tutt's addled brain cleared. He was caught! The +victim of his own asininity. He dared not look at this woman who had +wound him thus round her finger, innocent as he was of any wrongdoing; +he was ashamed to think of his wife. + +"My Lord!" he murmured, realizing for the first time the depth of his +weakness. + +"Oh, it isn't as bad as that!" she laughed. "Remember you were going to +charge Oaklander ten thousand. This costs you only five. Special rates +for physicians and lawyers!" + +"And suppose I don't choose to give it to you?" he asked. + +"Listen here, you funny little man!" she answered in caressing tones +that made him writhe. "You'd stand for twenty if I insisted on it. Oh, +don't jump! I'm not going to. You're getting off easy--too easy. But I +want to stay on good terms with you. I may need you sometime in my +business. Your certified check for five thousand dollars--and I leave +you." + +She struck a match and started to light a tiny gold-tipped cigarette. + +"Don't!" he gasped. "Not in the office." + +"Do I get the five thousand?" + +He ground his teeth, not yet willing to concede defeat. + +"You silly old bird!" she said. "Do you know how many times you've had +me down here in your office in the last three weeks? Fifteen. How many +times you've taken me out to lunch? Ten. How often you've called me on +the telephone? Eighty-nine How many times you've sent me flowers? +Twelve. How many letters you've written me? Eleven! Oh, I realize +they're typewritten, but a photograph enlargement would show they were +typed in your office. Every typewriter has its own individuality, you +know. Your clerks and office boy have heard me call you Sammy. Why, +every time you've moved with me beside you someone has seen you. That's +enough, isn't it? But now, on top of all that, you go and hand me +exactly what I need on a gold plate." + +He gazed at her stupidly. + +"Why, if now you don't give me that check I shall simply go up to the +Biltmore and register as Mrs. Samuel Tutt. I shall take a room and stay +there until you offer me a proper inducement to move on." She giggled +delightedly. "It's marvelous--absolutely safe," she quoted. "They can't +touch me. You'll come across inside of two hours. If you don't a word to +the reporters will start things in the right direction." + +"Don't!" he groaned. "I must have been crazy. That was simply +blackmail!" + +"That's exactly what it was!" she agreed. "There aren't any letters +except these typewritten ones, or photographs, or any evidence at all, +but you're going to give me five thousand dollars just the same. Just so +that your wife won't know what a silly old fool you've been. Where's +your check book, Sam?" + +Tutt pulled out the bottom drawer of his desk and slowly removed his +personal check book. With his fountain pen in his hand he paused and +looked at her. + +"Rather than give you another cent I'd stand the gaff," he remarked +defiantly. + +"I know it," she answered. "I looked you up before I came here the first +time. You are good for exactly five thousand dollars." + +Tutt filled out the check to cash and sent Willie across the street to +the bank to have it certified. The sun was just sinking over the Jersey +shore beyond the Statue of Liberty and the surface of the harbor +undulated like iridescent watered silk. The clouds were torn into +golden-purple rents, and the air was so clear that one could look down +the Narrows far out to the open sea. Standing there by the window Mrs. +Allison looked as innocently beautiful as the day Tutt had first beheld +her. After all, he thought, perhaps the experience had been worth the +money. + +Something of the same thought may have occurred to the lady, for as she +took the check and carefully examined the certification she remarked +with a distinct access of cordiality: "Really, Sammy, you're quite a +nice little man. I rather like you." + +Tutt stood after she had gone watching the sunset until the west was +only a mass of leaden shadows Then, strangely relieved, he took his hat +and started out of the office. Somewhat to his surprise he found Miss +Wiggin still at her desk. + +"By the way," she remarked casually as he passed her, "what shall I +charge that check to? The one you just drew to cash for five thousand +dollars?" + +"Charge it to life insurance," he said shortly. + +He felt almost gay as he threaded his way through the crowds along +Broadway. Somehow a tremendous load had been lifted from his shoulders +He would no longer be obliged to lead a sneaking, surreptitious +existence. He felt like shouting with joy now that he could look the +world frankly in the face. The genuine agony he had endured during the +past three weeks loomed like a sickness behind him. He had been a +fool--and there was no fool like an old one. Just let him get back to +his old Abigail and there'd be no more wandering-boy business for him! +Abigail might not have the figure or the complexion that Georgie had, +but she was a darn sight more reliable. Henceforth she could have him +from five p.m. to nine a.m. without reserve. As for kicking over the +traces, sowing wild oats and that sort of thing, there was nothing in it +for him. Give him Friend Wife. + +He stopped at the florist's and, having paid a bill of thirty-six +dollars for Georgie's flowers, purchased a double bunch of violets and +carried them home with him. Abigail was watching for him out of the +window. Something warm rushed to his heart at the sight of her. Through +the lace curtains she looked quite trim. + +"Hello, old girl!" he cried, as she opened the door. "Waiting for me, +eh? Here's a bunch of posies for you." + +And he kissed her on the cheek. + +"That's more than I ever did to Georgie," he said to himself. + +"Why, Samuel!" laughed Abigail with a faded blush. "What's ever got into +you?" + +"Dunno!" he retorted gaily. "The spring, I guess. What do you say to a +little dinner at a restaurant and then going to the play?" + +She bridled--being one of the generation who did such things--with +pleasure. + +"Seems to me you're getting rather extravagant." she objected. "Still--" + +"Oh, come along!" he bullied her. "One of my clients collected five +thousand dollars this afternoon." + +Tutt summoned a taxi and they drove to the brightest, most glittering of +Broadway hostelries. Abigail had never been in such a chic place before. +It half terrified and shocked her, all those women in dresses that +hardly came up to their armpits. Some of them were handsome though. That +slim one at the table by the pillar, for instance. She was really quite +lovely with that mass of yellow-golden hair, that startlingly white +skin, and those misty China-blue eyes. And the gentleman with her, the +tall man with the pink cheeks, was very handsome, too. + +"Look, Samuel," she said, touching his hand. "See that good-looking +couple over there." + +But Samuel was looking at them already--intently. And just then the +beautiful woman turned and, catching sight of the Tutts, smiled +cordially if somewhat roguishly and raised her glass, as did her +companion. Mechanically Tutt elevated his. The three drank to one +another. + +"Do you know those people, Samuel?" inquired Mrs. Tutt somewhat stiffly. +"Who are they?" + +"Oh, those over there?" he repeated absently. "I don't really know what +the lady's name is, she's been down to our office a few times. But the +man is Winthrop Oaklander--and the funny part of it is, I always thought +he was a clergyman." + +Later in the evening he turned to her between the acts and remarked +inconsequently: "Say, Abbie, do I look as if I'd just had my hair cut?" + + + + +The Dog Andrew + + + "Every dog is entitled to one bite."--UNREPORTED + OPINION OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION OF THE NEW + YORK SUPREME COURT. + +"Now see here!" shouted Mr. Appleboy, coming out of the boathouse, where +he was cleaning his morning's catch of perch, as his neighbor Mr. +Tunnygate crashed through the hedge and cut across Appleboy's parched +lawn to the beach. "See here, Tunnygate, I won't have you trespassing on +my place! I've told you so at least a dozen times! Look at the hole +you've made in that hedge, now! Why can't you stay in the path?" + +His ordinarily good-natured countenance was suffused with anger and +perspiration. His irritation with Mr. Tunnygate had reached the point of +explosion. Tunnygate was a thankless friend and he was a great cross to +Mr. Appleboy. Aforetime the two had been intimate in the fraternal, +taciturn intimacy characteristic of fat men, an attraction perhaps akin +to that exerted for one another by celestial bodies of great mass, for +it is a fact that stout people do gravitate toward one another--and hang +or float in placid juxtaposition, perhaps merely as a physical result of +their avoirdupois. So Appleboy and Tunnygate had swum into each other's +spheres of influence, either blown by the dallying winds of chance or +drawn by some mysterious animal magnetism, and, being both addicted to +the delights of the soporific sport sanctified by Izaak Walton, had +raised unto themselves portable temples upon the shores of Long Island +Sound in that part of the geographical limits of the Greater City known +as Throggs Neck. + +Every morn during the heat of the summer months Appleboy would rouse +Tunnygate or conversely Tunnygate would rouse Appleboy, and each in his +own wobbly skiff would row out to the spot which seemed most propitious +to the piscatorial art. There, under two green umbrellas, like two fat +rajahs in their shaking howdahs upon the backs of two white elephants, +the friends would sit in solemn equanimity awaiting the evasive cunner, +the vagrant perch or cod or the occasional flirtatious eel. They rarely +spoke and when they did the edifice of their conversation--their Tower +of Babel, so to speak--was monosyllabic. Thus: + +"Huh! Ain't had a bite!" + +"Huh!" + +"Huh!" + +Silence for forty minutes. Then: "Huh! Had a bite?" + +"Nope!" + +"Huh!" + +That was generally the sum total of their interchange Yet it satisfied +them, for their souls were in harmony. To them it was pregnant of +unutterable meanings, of philosophic mysteries more subtle than those of +the esoterics, of flowers and poetry, of bird-song and twilight, of all +the nuances of softly whispered avowals, of the elusive harmonies of +love's half-fainting ecstasy. + +"Huh!" + +"Huh!" + +And then into this Eden--only not by virtue of the excision of any +vertebra such as was originally necessary in the case of Adam--burst +woman. There was silence no longer. The air was rent with clamor; for +both Appleboy and Tunnygate, within a month of one another, took unto +themselves wives. Wives after their own image! + +For a while things went well enough; it takes ladies a few weeks to find +out each other's weak points. But then the new Mrs. Tunnygate +unexpectedly yet undeniably began to exhibit the serpent's tooth, the +adder's tongue or the cloven hoof--as the reader's literary traditions +may lead him to prefer. For no obvious reason at all she conceived a +violent hatred of Mrs. Appleboy, a hatred that waxed all the more +virulent on account of its object's innocently obstinate refusal to +comprehend or recognize it. Indeed Mrs. Tunnygate found it so difficult +to rouse Mrs. Appleboy into a state of belligerency sufficiently +interesting that she soon transferred her energies to the more worthy +task of making Appleboy's life a burden to him. + +To this end she devoted herself with a truly Machiavellian ingenuity, +devising all sorts of insults irritations and annoyances, and adding to +the venom of her tongue the inventive cunning of a Malayan witch doctor. +The Appleboys' flower-pots mysteriously fell off the piazza, their +thole-pins disappeared, their milk bottles vanished, Mr. Appleboy's fish +lines acquired a habit of derangement equaled only by barbed-wire +entanglements, and his clams went bad! But these things might have been +borne had it not been for the crowning achievement of her malevolence, +the invasion of the Appleboys' cherished lawn, upon which they lavished +all that anxious tenderness which otherwise they might have devoted to a +child. + +It was only about twenty feet by twenty, and it was bordered by a hedge +of moth-eaten privet, but anyone who has ever attempted to induce a +blade of grass to grow upon a sand dune will fully appreciate the +deviltry of Mrs. Tunnygate's malignant mind. Already there was a horrid +rent where Tunnygate had floundered through at her suggestion in order +to save going round the pathetic grass plot which the Appleboys had +struggled to create where Nature had obviously intended a floral vacuum. +Undoubtedly it had been the sight of Mrs. Appleboy with her small +watering pot patiently encouraging the recalcitrant blades that had +suggested the malicious thought to Mrs. Tunnygate that maybe the +Appleboys didn't own that far up the beach. They didn't--that was the +mockery of it. Like many others they had built their porch on their +boundary line, and, as Mrs. Tunnygate pointed out, they were claiming to +own something that wasn't theirs. So Tunnygate, in daily obedience to +his spouse, forced his way through the hedge to the beach, and daily the +wrath of the Appleboys grew until they were driven almost to +desperation. + +Now when the two former friends sat fishing in their skiffs they either +contemptuously ignored one another or, if they "Huh-Huhed!" at all the +"Huhs!" resembled the angry growls of infuriated beasts. The worst of it +was that the Appleboys couldn't properly do anything about it. Tunnygate +had, as Mrs. Tunnygate sneeringly pointed out, a perfect legal right to +push his way through the hedge and tramp across the lawn, and she didn't +propose to allow the Appleboys to gain any rights by proscription, +either. Not much! + +Therefore, when Mr. Appleboy addressed to Mr. Tunnygate the remarks with +which this story opens, the latter insolently replied in words, form or +substance that Mr. Appleboy could go to hell. Moreover, as he went by +Mr. Appleboy he took pains to kick over a clod of transplanted sea +grass, nurtured by Mrs. Appleboy as the darling of her bosom, and +designed to give an air of verisimilitude to an otherwise bare and +unconvincing surface of sand. Mr. Appleboy almost cried with vexation. + +"Oh!" he ejaculated, struggling for words to express the full content of +his feeling. "Gosh, but you're--mean!" + +He hit it! Curiously enough, that was exactly the word! Tunnygate was +mean--and his meanness was second only to that of the fat hippopotama +his wife. + +Then, without knowing why, for he had no formulated ideas as to the +future, and probably only intended to try to scare Tunnygate with vague +threats, Appleboy added: "I warn you not to go through that hedge again! +Understand--I warn you! And if you do I won't be responsible for the +consequences!" + +He really didn't mean a thing by the words, and Tunnygate knew it. + +"Huh!" retorted the latter contemptuously. "You!" + +Mr. Appleboy went inside the shack and banged the door. Mrs. Appleboy +was peeling potatoes in the kitchen-living room. + +"I can't stand it!" he cried weakly. "He's driving me wild!" + +"Poor lamb!" soothed Mrs. Appleboy, peeling an interminable rind. "Ain't +that just a sweetie? Look! It's most as long as your arm!" + +She held it up dangling between her thumb and fore-finger. Then, with a +groan she dropped it at his feet. "I know it's a real burden to you, +deary!" she sighed. + +Suddenly they both bent forward with startled eyes, hypnotized by the +peel upon the floor. + +Unmistakably it spelt "dog"! They looked at one another significantly. + +"It is a symbol!" breathed Mrs. Appleboy in an awed whisper. + +"Whatever it is, it's some grand idea!" exclaimed her husband. "Do you +know anybody who's got one? I mean a--a--" + +"I know just what you mean," she agreed. "I wonder we never thought of +it before! But there wouldn't be any use in getting any dog!" + +"Oh, no!" he concurred. "We want a real--dog!" + +"One you know about!" she commented. + +"The fact is," said he, rubbing his forehead, "if they know about 'em +they do something to 'em. It ain't so easy to get the right kind." + +"Oh, we'll get one!" she encouraged him. "Now Aunt Eliza up to Livornia +used to have one. It made a lot of trouble and they ordered her--the +selectmen did--to do away with it. But she only pretended she had--she +didn't really--and I think she's got him yet." + +"Gee!" said Mr. Appleboy tensely. "What sort was it?" + +"A bull!" she replied. "With a big white face." + +"That's the kind!" he agreed excitedly. "What was its name?" + +"Andrew," she answered. + +"That's a queer name for a dog!" he commented "Still, I don't care what +his name is, so long as he's the right kind of dog! Why don't you write +to Aunt Eliza to-night?" + +"Of course Andrew may be dead," she hazarded. "Dogs do die." + +"Oh, I guess Andrew isn't dead!" he said hopefully "That tough kind of +dog lasts a long time. What will you say to Aunt Eliza?" + +Mrs. Appleboy went to the dresser and took a pad and pencil from one of +the shelves. + +"Oh, something like this," she answered, poising the pencil over the +pad in her lap: + +"Dear Aunt Eliza: I hope you are quite well. It is sort of lonely living +down here on the beach and there are a good many rough characters, so we +are looking for a dog for companionship and protection Almost any kind +of healthy dog would do and you may be sure he would have a good home. +Hoping to see you soon. Your affectionate niece, Bashemath." + +"I hope she'll send us Andrew," said Appleboy fervently. + +"I guess she will!" nodded Bashemath. + + * * * * * + +"What on earth is that sign?" wrathfully demanded Mrs. Tunnygate one +morning about a week later as she looked across the Appleboys' lawn from +her kitchen window. "Can you read it, Herman?" + +Herman stopped trying to adjust his collar and went out on the piazza. + +"Something about 'dog'," he declared finally. + +"Dog!" she exclaimed. "They haven't got a dog!" + +"Well," he remarked, "that's what the sign says: 'Beware of the dog'! +And there's something above it. Oh! 'No crossing this property. +Trespassing forbidden.'" + +"What impudence!" avowed Mrs. Tunnygate. "Did you ever know such +people! First they try and take land that don't belong to them, and then +they go and lie about having a dog. Where are they, anyway?" + +"I haven't seen 'em this morning," he answered. "Maybe they've gone away +and put up the sign so we won't go over. Think that'll stop us!" + +"In that case they've got another think comin'!" she retorted angrily. +"I've a good mind to have you go over and tear up the whole place!" + +"'N pull up the hedge?" he concurred eagerly. "Good chance!" + +Indeed, to Mr. Tunnygate it seemed the supreme opportunity both to +distinguish himself in the eyes of his blushing bride and to gratify +that perverse instinct inherited from our cave-dwelling ancestors to +destroy utterly--in order, perhaps, that they may never seek to avenge +themselves upon us--those whom we have wronged. Accordingly Mr. +Tunnygate girded himself with his suspenders, and with a gleam of +fiendish exultation in his eye stealthily descended from his porch and +crossed to the hole in the hedge. No one was in sight except two +barefooted searchers after clams a few hundred yards farther up the +beach and a man working in a field half a mile away. The bay shimmered +in the broiling August sun and from a distant grove came the rattle and +wheeze of locusts. Throggs Neck blazed in silence, and utterly silent +was the house of Appleboy. + +With an air of bravado, but with a slightly accelerated heartbeat, +Tunnygate thrust himself through the hole in the hedge and looked +scornfully about the Appleboy lawn. A fierce rage worked through his +veins. A lawn! What effrontery! What business had these condescending +second-raters to presume to improve a perfectly good beach which was +satisfactory to other folks? He'd show 'em! He took a step in the +direction of the transplanted sea grass. Unexpectedly the door of the +Appleboy kitchen opened. + +"I warned you!" enunciated Mr. Appleboy with unnatural calmness, which +with another background might have struck almost anybody as suspicious. + +"Huh!" returned the startled Tunnygate, forced under the circumstances +to assume a nonchalance that he did not altogether feel. "You!" + +"Well," repeated Mr. Appleboy. "Don't ever say I didn't!" + +"Pshaw!" ejaculated Mr. Tunnygate disdainfully. + +With premeditation and deliberation, and with undeniable malice +aforethought, he kicked the nearest bunch of sea grass several feet in +the air. His violence carried his leg high in the air and he partially +lost his equilibrium. Simultaneously a white streak shot from beneath +the porch and something like a red-hot poker thrust itself savagely into +an extremely tender part of his anatomy. + +"Ouch! O--o--oh!" he yelled in agony. "Oh!" + +"Come here, Andrew!" said Mr. Appleboy mildly. "Good doggy! Come here!" + +But Andrew paid no attention. He had firmly affixed himself to the base +of Mr. Tunnygate's personality without any intention of being +immediately detached. And he had selected that place, taken aim, and +discharged himself with an air of confidence and skill begotten of +lifelong experience. + +"Oh! O--o--oh!" screamed Tunnygate, turning wildly and clawing through +the hedge, dragging Andrew after him. "Oh! O--oh!" + +Mrs. Tunnygate rushed to the door in time to see her spouse lumbering up +the beach with a white object gyrating in the air behind him. + +"What's the matter?" she called out languidly. Then perceiving the +matter she hastily followed. The Appleboys were standing on their lawn +viewing the whole proceeding with ostentatious indifference. + +Up the beach fled Tunnygate, his cries becoming fainter and fainter. The +two clam diggers watched him curiously, but made no attempt to go to his +assistance. The man in the field leaned luxuriously upon his hoe and +surrendered himself to unalloyed delight. Tunnygate was now but a white +flicker against the distant sand. His wails had a dying fall: +"O--o--oh!" + +"Well, we warned him!" remarked Mr. Appleboy to Bashemath with a smile +in which, however, lurked a slight trace of apprehension. + +"We certainly did!" she replied. Then after a moment she added a trifle +anxiously: "I wonder what will happen to Andrew!" + +Tunnygate did not return. Neither did Andrew. Secluded in their kitchen +living-room the Appleboys heard a motor arrive and through a crack in +the door saw it carry Mrs. Tunnygate away bedecked as for some momentous +ceremonial. At four o'clock, while Appleboy was digging bait, he +observed another motor making its wriggly way along the dunes. It was +fitted longitudinally with seats, had a wire grating and was marked +"N.Y.P.D." Two policemen in uniform sat in front. Instinctively Appleboy +realized that the gods had called him. His heart sank among the clams. +Slowly he made his way back to the lawn where the wagon had stopped +outside the hedge. + +"Hey there!" called out the driver. "Is your name Appleboy?" + +Appleboy nodded. + +"Put your coat on, then, and come along," directed the other. "I've got +a warrant for you." + +"Warrant?" stammered Appleboy dizzily. + +"What's that?" cried Bashemath, appearing at the door. "Warrant for +what?" + +The officer slowly descended and handed Appleboy a paper. + +"For assault," he replied. "I guess you know what for, all right!" + +"We haven't assaulted anybody," protested Mrs. Appleboy heatedly. +"Andrew--" + +"You can explain all that to the judge," retorted the cop. "Meantime put +on your duds and climb in. If you don't expect to spend the night at the +station you'd better bring along the deed of your house so you can give +bail." + +"But who's the warrant for?" persisted Mrs. Appleboy. + +"For Enoch Appleboy," retorted the cop wearily. "Can't you read?" + +"But Enoch didn't do a thing!" she declared. "It was Andrew!" + +"Who's Andrew?" inquired the officer of the law mistrustfully. + +"Andrew's a dog," she explained. + + * * * * * + +"Mr. Tutt," announced Tutt, leaning against his senior partner's door +jamb with a formal-looking paper in his hand, "I have landed a case +that will delight your legal soul." + +"Indeed?" queried the elder lawyer. "I have never differentiated between +my legal soul and any other I may possess. However, I assume from your +remark that we have been retained in a matter presenting some peculiarly +absurd, archaic or otherwise interesting doctrine of law?" + +"Not directly," responded Tutt. "Though you will doubtless find it +entertaining enough, but indirectly--atmospherically so to speak--it +touches upon doctrines of jurisprudence, of religion and of philosophy, +replete with historic fascination." + +"Good!" exclaimed Mr. Tutt, laying down his stogy. "What kind of a case +is it?" + +"It's a dog case!" said the junior partner, waving the paper. "The dog +bit somebody." + +"Ah!" exclaimed Mr. Tutt, perceptibly brightening. "Doubtless we shall +find a precedent in Oliver Goldsmith's famous elegy: + + "And in that town a dog was found, + As many dogs there be, + Both mongrel, puppy, whelp, and hound, + And curs of low degree." + +"Only," explained Tutt, "in this case, though the man recovered of the +bite, the dog refused to die!" + +"And so they want to prosecute the dog? It can't be done. An animal +hasn't been brought to the bar of justice for several centuries." + +"No, no!" interrupted Tutt. "They don't--" + +"There was a case," went on Mr. Tutt reminiscently "Let me see--at +Sauvigny, I think it was--about 1457, when they tried a sow and three +pigs for killing a child. The court assigned a lawyer to defend her, but +like many assigned counsel he couldn't think of anything to say in her +behalf. As regards the little pigs he did enter the plea that no animus +was shown, that they had merely followed the example of their mother, +and that at worst they were under age and irresponsible. However, the +court found them all guilty, and the sow was publicly hanged in the +market place." + +"What did they do with the three little pigs?" inquired Tutt with some +interest. + +"They were pardoned on account of their extreme youth," said Mr. Tutt, +"and turned loose again--with a warning." + +"I'm glad of that!" sighed Tutt. "Is that a real case?" + +"Absolutely," replied his partner. "I've read it in the Sauvigny +records." + +"I'll be hanged!" exclaimed Tutt. "I never knew that animals were ever +held personally responsible." + +"Why, of course they were!" said Mr. Tutt. "Why shouldn't they be? If +animals have souls why shouldn't they be responsible for their acts?" + +"But they haven't any souls!" protested Tutt. + +"Haven't they now?" remarked the elder lawyer. "I've seen many an old +horse that had a great deal more conscience than his master. And on +general principles wouldn't it be far more just and humane to have the +law deal with a vicious animal that had injured somebody than to leave +its punishment to an irresponsible and arbitrary owner who might be +guilty of extreme brutality?" + +"If the punishment would do any good--yes!" agreed Tutt. + +"Well, who knows?" meditated Mr. Tutt. "I wonder if it ever does any +good? But anybody would have to agree that responsibility for one's acts +should depend upon the degree of one's intelligence--and from that point +of view many of our friends are really much less responsible than +sheep." + +"Which, as you so sagely point out, would, however be a poor reason for +letting their families punish them in case they did wrong. Just think +how such a privilege might be abused! If Uncle John didn't behave +himself as his nephews thought proper they could simply set upon him and +briskly beat him up." + +"Yes, of course, the law even to-day recognizes the right to exercise +physical discipline within the family. Even homicide is excusable, under +Section 1054 of our code, when committed in lawfully correcting a child +or servant." + +"That's a fine relic of barbarism!" remarked Tutt. "But the child soon +passes through that dangerous zone and becomes entitled to be tried for +his offenses by a jury of his peers; the animal never does." + +"Well, an animal couldn't be tried by a jury of his peers, anyhow," said +Mr. Tutt. + +"I've seen juries that were more like nanny goats than men!" commentated +Tutt. "I'd like to see some of our clients tried by juries of geese or +woodchucks." + +"The field of criminal responsibility is the No Man's Land of the law," +mused Mr. Tutt. "Roughly, mental capacity to understand the nature of +one's acts is the test, but it is applied arbitrarily in the case of +human beings and a mere point of time is taken beyond which, +irrespective of his actual intelligence, a man is held accountable for +whatever he does. Of course that is theoretically unsound. The more +intelligent a person is the more responsible he should be held to be and +the higher the quality of conduct demanded of him by his fellows. Yet +after twenty-one all are held equally responsible--unless they're +actually insane. It isn't equity! In theory no man or animal should be +subject to the power of discretionary punishment on the part of +another--even his own father or master. I've often wondered what earthly +right we have to make the animals work for us--to bind them to slavery +when we denounce slavery as a crime. It would horrify us to see a human +being put up and sold at auction. Yet we tear the families of animals +apart, subject them to lives of toil, and kill them whenever we see fit. +We say we do this because their intelligence is limited and they cannot +exercise any discrimination in their conduct, that they are always in +the zone of irresponsibility and so have no rights. But I've seen +animals that were shrewder than men, and men who were vastly less +intelligent than animals." + +"Right-o!" assented Tutt. "Take Scraggs, for instance. He's no more +responsible than a chipmunk." + +"Nevertheless, the law has always been consistent," said Mr. Tutt, "and +has never discriminated between animals any more than it has between men +on the ground of varying degrees of intelligence. They used to try 'em +all, big and little, wild and domesticated, mammals and invertebrates." + +"Oh, come!" exclaimed Tutt. "I may not know much law, but--" + +"Between 1120 and 1740 they prosecuted in France alone no less than +ninety-two animals. The last one was a cow." + +"A cow hasn't much intelligence," observed Tutt. + +"And they tried fleas," added Mr. Tutt. + +"They have a lot!" commented his junior partner. "I knew a flea once, +who--" + +"They had a regular form of procedure," continued Mr. Tutt, brushing the +flea aside, "which was adhered to with the utmost technical accuracy. +You could try an individual animal, either in person or by proxy, or you +could try a whole family, swarm or herd. If a town was infested by rats, +for example, they first assigned counsel--an advocate, he was +called--and then the defendants were summoned three times publicly to +appear. If they didn't show up on the third and last call they were +tried _in absentia_, and if convicted were ordered out of the country +before a certain date under penalty of being exorcised." + +"What happened if they were exorcised?" asked Tutt curiously. + +"It depended a good deal on the local power of Satan," answered the old +lawyer dryly. "Sometimes they became even more prolific and destructive +than they were before, and sometimes they promptly died. All the leeches +were prosecuted at Lausanne in 1451. A few selected representatives +were brought into court, tried, convicted and ordered to depart within +a fixed period. Maybe they didn't fully grasp their obligations or +perhaps were just acting contemptuously, but they didn't depart and so +were promptly exorcised. Immediately they began to die off and before +long there were none left in the country." + +"I know some rats and mice I'd like to have exorcised," mused Tutt. + +"At Autun in the fifteenth century the rats won their case," said Mr. +Tutt. + +"Who got 'em off?" asked Tutt. + +"M. Chassensée, the advocate appointed to defend them. They had been a +great nuisance and were ordered to appear in court. But none of them +turned up. M. Chassensée therefore argued that a default should not be +taken because _all_ the rats had been summoned, and some were either so +young or so old and decrepit that they needed more time. The court +thereupon granted him an extension. However, they didn't arrive on the +day set, and this time their lawyer claimed that they were under duress +and restrained by bodily fear--of the townspeople's cats. That all these +cats, therefore should first be bound over to keep the peace! The court +admitted the reasonableness of this, but the townsfolk refused to be +responsible for their cats and the judge dismissed the case!" + +"What did Chassensée get out of it?" inquired Tutt. + +"There is no record of who paid him or what was his fee." + +"He was a pretty slick lawyer," observed Tutt. "Did they ever try +birds?" + +"Oh, yes!" answered Mr. Tutt. "They tried a cock at Basel in 1474--for +the crime of laying an egg." + +"Why was that a crime?" asked Tutt. "I should call it a _tour de +force_." + +"Be that as it may," said his partner, "from a cock's egg is hatched the +cockatrice, or basilisk, the glance of whose eye turns the beholder to +stone. Therefore they tried the cock, found him guilty and burned him +and his egg together at the stake. That is why cocks don't lay eggs +now." + +"I'm glad to know that," said Tutt. "When did they give up trying +animals?" + +"Nearly two hundred years ago," answered Mr. Tutt. "But for some time +after that they continued to try inanimate objects for causing injury to +people. I've heard they tried one of the first locomotives that ran over +a man and declared it forfeit to the crown as a deodand." + +"I wonder if you couldn't get 'em to try Andrew," hazarded Tutt, "and +maybe declare him forfeited to somebody as a deodand." + +"Deodand means 'given to God,'" explained Mr. Tutt. + +"Well, I'd give Andrew to God--if God would take him," declared Tutt +devoutly. + +"But who is Andrew?" asked Mr. Tutt. + +"Andrew is a dog," said Tutt, "who bit one Tunnygate, and now the Grand +Jury have indicted not the dog, as it is clear from your historical +disquisition they should have done, but the dog's owner, Mr. Enoch +Appleboy." + +"What for?" + +"Assault in the second degree with a dangerous weapon." + +"What was the weapon?" inquired Mr. Tutt simply. + +"The dog." + +"What are you talking about?" cried Mr. Tutt. "What nonsense!" + +"Yes, it is nonsense!" agreed Tutt. "But they've done it all the same. +Read it for yourself!" And he handed Mr. Tutt the indictment. + + * * * * * + +"The Grand Jury of the County of New York by this indictment accuse +Enoch Appleboy of the crime of assault in the second degree, committed +as follows: + +"Said Enoch Appleboy, late of the Borough of Bronx, City and County +aforesaid, on the 21st day of July, in the year of our Lord one +thousand nine hundred and fifteen, at the Borough and County aforesaid, +with force and arms in and upon one Herman Tunnygate, in the peace of +the State and People then and there being, feloniously did willfully and +wrongfully make an assault in and upon the legs and body of him the said +Herman Tunnygate, by means of a certain dangerous weapon, to wit: one +dog, of the form, style and breed known as 'bull,' being of the name of +'Andrew,' then and there being within control of the said Enoch +Appleboy, which said dog, being of the name of 'Andrew,' the said Enoch +Appleboy did then and there feloniously, willfully and wrongfully +incite, provoke, and encourage, then and there being, to bite him, the +said Herman Tunnygate, by means whereof said dog 'Andrew' did then and +there grievously bite the said Herman Tunnygate in and upon the legs and +body of him, the said Herman Tunnygate, and the said Enoch Appleboy thus +then and there feloniously did willfully and wrongfully cut, tear, +lacerate and bruise, and did then and there by the means of the dog +'Andrew' aforesaid feloniously, willfully and wrongfully inflict +grievous bodily harm upon the said Herman Tunnygate, 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." + +"That," asserted Mr. Tutt, wiping his spectacles, "is a document worthy +of preservation in the Congressional Library. Who drew it?" + +"Don't know," answered Tutt, "but whoever he was he was a humorist!" + +"It's no good. There isn't any allegation of _scienter_ in it," affirmed +Mr. Tutt. + +"What of it? It says he assaulted Tunnygate with a dangerous weapon. You +don't have to set forth that he knew it was a dangerous weapon if you +assert that he did it willfully. You don't have to allege in an +indictment charging an assault with a pistol that the defendant knew it +was loaded." + +"But a dog is different!" reasoned Mr. Tutt. "A dog is not _per se_ a +dangerous weapon. Saying so doesn't make it so, and that part of the +indictment is bad on its face--unless, to be sure, it means that he hit +him with a dead dog, which it is clear from the context that he didn't. +The other part--that he set the dog on him--lacks the allegation that +the dog was vicious and that Appleboy knew it; in other words an +allegation of _scienter_. It ought to read that said Enoch Appleboy +'well knowing that said dog Andrew was a dangerous and ferocious animal +and would, if incited, provoked and encouraged, bite the legs and body +of him the said Herman--did then and there feloniously, willfully and +wrongfully incite, provoke and encourage the said Andrew, and so +forth.'" + +"I get you!" exclaimed Tutt enthusiastically. "Of course an allegation +of _scienter_ is necessary! In other words you could demur to the +indictment for insufficiency?" + +Mr. Tutt nodded. + +"But in that case they'd merely go before the Grand Jury and find +another--a good one. It's much better to try and knock the case out on +the trial once and for all." + +"Well, the Appleboys are waiting to see you," said Tutt. "They are in my +office. Bonnie Doon got the case for us off his local district leader, +who's a member of the same lodge of the Abyssinian Mysteries--Bonnie's +been Supreme Exalted Ruler of the Purple Mountain for over a year--and +he's pulled in quite a lot of good stuff, not all dog cases either! +Appleboy's an Abyssinian too." + +"I'll see them," consented Mr. Tutt, "but I'm going to have you try the +case. I shall insist upon acting solely in an advisory capacity. Dog +trials aren't in my line. There are some things which are _infra +dig_--even for Ephraim Tutt." + + * * * * * + +Mr. Appleboy sat stolidly at the bar of justice, pale but resolute. +Beside him sat Mrs. Appleboy, also pale but even more resolute. A jury +had been selected without much manifest attention by Tutt, who had +nevertheless managed to slip in an Abyssinian brother on the back row, +and an ex-dog fancier for Number Six. Also among those present were a +delicatessen man from East Houston Street, a dealer in rubber novelties, +a plumber and the editor of Baby's World. The foreman was almost as fat +as Mr. Appleboy, but Tutt regarded this as an even break on account of +the size of Tunnygate. As Tutt confidently whispered to Mrs. Appleboy, +it was as rotten a jury as he could get. + +Mrs. Appleboy didn't understand why Tutt should want a rotten jury, but +she nevertheless imbibed some vicarious confidence from this statement +and squeezed Appleboy's hand encouragingly. For Appleboy, in spite of +his apparent calm, was a very much frightened man, and under the creases +of his floppy waistcoat his heart was beating like a tom-tom. The +penalty for assault in the second degree was ten years in state's +prison, and life with Bashemath, even in the vicinity of the Tunnygates, +seemed sweet. The thought of breaking stones under the summer sun--it +was a peculiarly hot summer--was awful. Ten years! He could never live +through it! And yet as his glance fell upon the Tunnygates, arrayed in +their best finery and sitting with an air of importance upon the front +bench of the court room, he told himself that he would do the whole +thing all over again--yes, he would! He had only stood up for his +rights, and Tunnygate's blood was upon his own head--or wherever it was. +So he squeezed Bashemath's hand tenderly in response. + +Upon the bench Judge Witherspoon, assigned from somewhere upstate to +help keep down the ever-lengthening criminal calendar of the +Metropolitan District, finished the letter he was writing to his wife in +Genesee County, sealed it and settled back in his chair. An old war +horse of the country bar, he had in his time been mixed up in almost +every kind of litigation, but as he looked over the indictment he with +difficulty repressed a smile. Thirty years ago he'd had a dog case +himself; also of the form, style and breed known as bull. + +"You may proceed, Mister District Attorney!" he announced, and little +Pepperill, the youngest of the D.A.'s staff, just out of the law school, +begoggled and with his hair plastered evenly down on either side of his +small round head, rose with serious mien, and with a high piping voice +opened the prosecution. + +It was, he told them, a most unusual and hence most important case. The +defendant Appleboy had maliciously procured a savage dog of the most +vicious sort and loosed it upon the innocent complainant as he was on +his way to work, with the result that the latter had nearly been torn to +shreds. It was a horrible, dastardly, incredible, fiendish crime, he +would expect them to do their full duty in the premises, and they should +hear Mr. Tunnygate's story from his own lips. + +Mr. Tunnygate limped with difficulty to the stand, and having been sworn +gingerly sat down--partially. Then turning his broadside to the gaping +jury he recounted his woes with indignant gasps. + +"Have you the trousers which you wore upon that occasion?" inquired +Pepperill. + +Mr. Tunnygate bowed solemnly and lifted from the floor a paper parcel +which he untied and from which he drew what remained of that now +historic garment. + +"These are they," he announced dramatically. + +"I offer them in evidence," exclaimed Pepperill, "and I ask the jury to +examine them with great care." + +They did so. + +Tutt waited until the trousers had been passed from hand to hand and +returned to their owner; then, rotund, chipper and birdlike as ever, +began his cross-examination much like a woodpecker attacking a stout +stump. The witness had been an old friend of Mr. Appleboy's, had he not? +Tunnygate admitted it, and Tutt pecked him again. Never had done him +any wrong, had he? Nothing in particular. Well, any wrong? Tunnygate +hesitated. Why, yes, Appleboy had tried to fence in the public beach +that belonged to everybody. Well, did that do the witness any harm? The +witness declared that it did; compelled him to go round when he had a +right to go across. Oh! Tutt put his head on one side and glanced at the +jury. How many feet? About twenty feet. Then Tutt pecked a little +harder. + +"Didn't you tear a hole in the hedge and stamp down the grass when by +taking a few extra steps you could have reached the beach without +difficulty?" + +"I--I simply tried to remove an illegal obstruction," declared Tunnygate +indignantly. + +"Didn't Mr. Appleboy ask you to keep off?" + +"Sure--yes!" + +"Didn't you obstinately refuse to do so?" + +Mr. Pepperill objected to "obstinately" and it was stricken out. + +"I wasn't going to stay off where I had a right to go," asserted the +witness. + +"And didn't you have warning that the dog was there?" + +"Look here!" suddenly burst out Tunnygate. "You can't hector me into +anything. Appleboy never had a dog before. He got a dog just to sic him +on me! He put up a sign 'Beware of the dog,' but he knew that I'd think +it was just a bluff. It was a plant, that's what it was! And just as +soon as I got inside the hedge that dog went for me and nearly tore me +to bits. It was a rotten thing to do and you know it!" + +He subsided, panting. + +Tutt bowed complacently. + +"I move that the witness' remarks be stricken out on the grounds first, +that they are unresponsive; second, that they are irrelevant, +incompetent and immaterial; third, that they contain expressions of +opinion and hearsay; and fourth, that they are abusive and generally +improper." + +"Strike them out!" directed Judge Witherspoon. Then he turned to +Tunnygate. "The essence of your testimony is that the defendant set a +dog on you, is it not? You had quarreled with the defendant, with whom +you had formerly been on friendly terms. You entered on premises claimed +to be owned by him, though a sign warned you to beware of a dog. The dog +attacked and bit you? That's the case, isn't it?" + +"Yes, Your Honor." + +"Had you ever seen that dog before?" + +"No, sir." + +"Do you know where he got it?" + +"My wife told me--" + +"Never mind what your wife told you. Do you--" + +"He don't know where the dog came from, judge!" suddenly called out Mrs. +Tunnygate in strident tones from where she was sitting. "But I know!" +she added venomously. "That woman of his got it from--" + +Judge Witherspoon fixed her coldly with an impassive and judicial eye. + +"Will you kindly be silent, madam? You will no doubt be given an +opportunity to testify as fully as you wish. That is all, sir, unless +Mr. Tutt has some more questions." + +Tutt waved the witness from the stand contemptuously. + +"Well, I'd like a chance to testify!" shrilled Mrs. Tunnygate, rising in +full panoply. + +"This way, madam," said the clerk, motioning her round the back of the +jury box. And she swept ponderously into the offing like a full-rigged +bark and came to anchor in the witness chair, her chin rising and +falling upon her heaving bosom like the figurehead of a vessel upon a +heavy harbor swell. + +Now it has never been satisfactorily explained just why the character of +an individual should be in any way deducible from such irrelevant +attributes as facial anatomy, bodily structure or the shape of the +cranium. Perhaps it is not, and in reality we discern disposition from +something far more subtle--the tone of the voice, the expression of the +eyes, the lines of the face or even from an aura unperceived by the +senses. However that may be, the wisdom of the Constitutional safeguard +guaranteeing that every person charged with crime shall be confronted by +the witnesses against him was instantly made apparent when Mrs. +Tunnygate took the stand, for without hearing a word from her firmly +compressed lips the jury simultaneously swept her with one comprehensive +glance and turned away. Students of women, experienced adventurers in +matrimony, these plumbers, bird merchants "delicatessens" and the rest +looked, perceived and comprehended that here was the very devil of a +woman--a virago, a shrew, a termagant, a natural-born trouble-maker; and +they shivered and thanked God that she was Tunnygate's and not theirs; +their unformulated sentiment best expressed in Pope's immortal couplet: + + Oh woman, woman! when to ill thy mind + Is bent, all hell contains no fouler fiend. + +She had said no word. Between the judge and jury nothing had passed, and +yet through the alpha rays of that mysterious medium of communication +by which all men as men are united where woman is concerned, the +thought was directly transmitted and unanimously acknowledged that here +for sure was a hell cat! + +It was as naught to them that she testified to the outrageous illegality +of the Appleboys' territorial ambitions, the irascibility of the wife, +the violent threats of the husband; or that Mrs. Appleboy had been +observed to mail a suspicious letter shortly before the date of the +canine assault. They disregarded her. Yet when Tutt upon +cross-examination sought to attack her credibility by asking her various +pertinent questions they unhesitatingly accepted his implied accusations +as true, though under the rules of evidence he was bound by her denials. + +Peck 1: "Did you not knock Mrs. Appleboy's flower pots off the piazza?" +he demanded significantly. + +"Never! I never did!" she declared passionately + +But they knew in their hearts that she had. + +Peck 2: "Didn't you steal her milk bottles?" + +"What a lie! It's absolutely false!" + +Yet they knew that she did. + +Peck 3: "Didn't you tangle up their fish lines and take their +thole-pins?" + +"Well, I never! You ought to be ashamed to ask a lady such questions!" + +They found her guilty. + +"I move to dismiss, Your Honor," chirped Tutt blithely at the conclusion +of her testimony. + +Judge Witherspoon shook his head. + +"I want to hear the other side," he remarked. "The mere fact that the +defendant put up a sign warning the public against the dog may be taken +as some evidence that he had knowledge of the animal's vicious +propensities. I shall let the case go to the jury unless this evidence +is contradicted or explained. Reserve your motion." + +"Very well, Your Honor," agreed Tutt, patting himself upon the abdomen. +"I will follow your suggestion and call the defendant. Mr. Appleboy, +take the stand." + +Mr. Appleboy heavily rose and the heart of every fat man upon the jury, +and particularly that of the Abyssinian brother upon the back row, went +out to him. For just as they had known without being told that the new +Mrs. Tunnygate was a vixen, they realized that Appleboy was a kind, +good-natured man--a little soft, perhaps, like his clams, but no more +dangerous. Moreover, it was plain that he had suffered and was, indeed, +still suffering, and they had pity for him. Appleboy's voice shook and +so did the rest of his person as he recounted his ancient friendship for +Tunnygate and their piscatorial association, their common matrimonial +experiences, the sudden change in the temperature of the society of +Throggs Neck, the malicious destruction of their property and the +unexplained aggressions of Tunnygate upon the lawn. And the jury, +believing, understood. + +Then like the sword of Damocles the bessemer voice of Pepperill severed +the general atmosphere of amiability: "Where did you get that dog?" + +Mr. Appleboy looked round helplessly, distress pictured in every +feature. + +"My wife's aunt lent it to us." + +"How did she come to lend it to you?" + +"Bashemath wrote and asked for it." + +"Oh! Did you know anything about the dog before you sent for it?" + +"Of your own knowledge?" interjected Tutt sharply. + +"Oh, no!" returned Appleboy. + +"Didn't you know it was a vicious beast?" sharply challenged Pepperill. + +"Of your own knowledge?" again warned Tutt. + +"I'd never seen the dog." + +"Didn't your wife tell you about it?" + +Tutt sprang to his feet, wildly waving his arms: "I object; on the +ground that what passed between husband and wife upon this subject must +be regarded as confidential." + +"I will so rule," said Judge Witherspoon, smiling. "Excluded." + +Pepperill shrugged his shoulders. + +"I would like to ask a question," interpolated the editor of Baby's +World. + +"Do!" exclaimed Tutt eagerly. + +The editor, who was a fat editor, rose in an embarrassed manner. + +"Mr. Appleboy!" he began. + +"Yes, sir!" responded Appleboy. + +"I want to get this straight. You and your wife had a row with the +Tunnygates. He tried to tear up your front lawn. You warned him off. He +kept on doing it. You got a dog and put up a sign and when he +disregarded it you sicked the dog on him. Is that right?" + +He was manifestly friendly, merely a bit cloudy in the cerebellum. The +Abyssinian brother pulled him sharply by the coat tails. + +"Sit down," he whispered hoarsely. "You're gumming it all up." + +"I didn't sic Andrew on him!" protested Appleboy. + +"But I say, why shouldn't he have?" demanded the baby's editor. "That's +what anybody would do!" + +Pepperill sprang frantically to his feet. + +"Oh, I object! This juryman is showing bias. This is entirely improper." + +"I am, am I?" sputtered the fat editor angrily. "I'll show you--" + +"You want to be fair, don't you?" whined Pepperill. "I've proved that +the Appleboys had no right to hedge in the beach!" + +"Oh, pooh!" sneered the Abyssinian, now also getting to his feet. +"Supposing they hadn't? Who cares a damn? This man Tunnygate deserved +all he's got!" + +"Gentlemen! Gentlemen!" expostulated the judge firmly. "Take your seats +or I shall declare a mistrial. Go on, Mr. Tutt. Call your next witness." + +"Mrs. Appleboy," called out Tutt, "will you kindly take the chair?" And +that good lady, looking as if all her adipose existence had been devoted +to the production of the sort of pies that mother used to make, placidly +made her way to the witness stand. + +"Did you know that Andrew was a vicious dog?" inquired Tutt. + +"No!" answered Mrs. Appleboy firmly. "I didn't." + +O woman! + +"That is all," declared Tutt with a triumphant smile. + +"Then," snapped Pepperill, "why did you send for him?" + +"I was lonely," answered Bashemath unblushingly. + +"Do you mean to tell this jury that you didn't know that that dog was +one of the worst biters in Livornia?" + +"I do!" she replied. "I only knew Aunt Eliza had a dog. I didn't know +anything about the dog personally." + +"What did you say to your aunt in your letter?" + +"I said I was lonely and wanted protection." + +"Didn't you hope the dog would bite Mr. Tunnygate?" + +"Why, no!" she declared. "I didn't want him to bite anybody." + +At that the delicatessen man poked the plumber in the ribs and they both +grinned happily at one another. + +Pepperill gave her a last disgusted look and sank back in his seat. + +"That is all!" he ejaculated feebly. + +"One question, if you please, madam," said Judge Witherspoon. "May I be +permitted to"--he coughed as a suppressed snicker ran round the +court--"that is--may I not--er--Oh, look here! How did you happen to +have the idea of getting a dog?" + +Mrs. Appleboy turned the full moon of her homely countenance upon the +court. + +"The potato peel came down that way!" she explained blandly. + +"What!" exploded the dealer in rubber novelties. + +"The potato peel--it spelled 'dog,'" she repeated artlessly. + +"Lord!" deeply suspirated Pepperill. "What a case! Carry me out!" + +"Well, Mr. Tutt," said the judge, "now I will hear what you may wish to +say upon the question of whether this issue should be submitted to the +jury. However, I shall rule that the indictment is sufficient." + +Tutt elegantly rose. + +"Having due respect to Your Honor's ruling as to the sufficiency of the +indictment I shall address myself simply to the question of _scienter_. +I might, of course, dwell upon the impropriety of charging the defendant +with criminal responsibility for the act of another free agent even if +that agent be an animal--but I will leave that, if necessary, for the +Court of Appeals. If anybody were to be indicted in this case I hold it +should have been the dog Andrew. Nay, I do not jest! But I can see by +Your Honor's expression that any argument upon that score would be +without avail." + +"Entirely," remarked Witherspoon. "Kindly go on!" + +"Well," continued Tutt, "the law of this matter needs no elucidation. It +has been settled since the time of Moses." + +"Of whom?" inquired Witherspoon. "You don't need to go back farther +than Chief Justice Marshall so far as I am concerned." + +Tutt bowed. + +"It is an established doctrine of the common law both of England and +America that it is wholly proper for one to keep a domestic animal for +his use, pleasure or protection, until, as Dykeman, J., says in Muller +vs. McKesson, 10 Hun., 45, 'some vicious propensity is developed and +brought out to the knowledge of the owner.' Up to that time the man who +keeps a dog or other animal cannot be charged with liability for his +acts. This has always been the law. + +"In the twenty-first chapter of Exodus at the twenty-eighth verse it is +written: 'If an ox gore a man or a woman, that they die; then the ox +shall be surely stoned, and his flesh shall not be eaten; but the owner +of the ox shall be quit. But if the ox were wont to push with his horn +in time past, and it hath been testified to his owner, and he hath not +kept him in, but that he hath killed a man or a woman; the ox shall be +stoned, and his owner also shall be put to death.' + +"In the old English case of Smith vs. Pehal, 2 Strange, 1264, it was +said by the court: 'If a dog has once bit a man, and the owner having +notice thereof keeps the dog, and lets him go about or lie at his door, +an action will lie against him at the suit of a person who is bit, +though it happened by such person's treading on the dog's toes; for it +was owing to his not hanging the dog on the first notice. And the safety +of the king's subjects ought not afterwards to be endangered.' That is +sound law; but it is equally good law that 'if a person with full +knowledge of the evil propensities of an animal wantonly excites him or +voluntarily and unnecessarily puts himself in the way of such an animal +he would be adjudged to have brought the injury upon himself, and ought +not to be entitled to recover. In such a case it cannot be said in a +legal sense that the keeping of the animal, which is the gravamen of the +offense, produced the injury.' + +"Now in the case at bar, first there is clearly no evidence that this +defendant knew or ever suspected that the dog Andrew was otherwise than +of a mild and gentle disposition. That is, there is no evidence whatever +of _scienter_. In fact, except in this single instance there is no +evidence that Andrew ever bit anybody. Thus, in the word of Holy Writ +the defendant Appleboy should be quit, and in the language of our own +courts he must be held harmless. Secondly, moreover, it appears that the +complainant deliberately put himself in the way of the dog Andrew, after +full warning. I move that the jury be directed to return a verdict of +not guilty." + +"Motion granted," nodded Judge Witherspoon, burying his nose in his +handkerchief. "I hold that every dog is entitled to one bite." + +"Gentlemen of the jury," chanted the clerk: "How say you? Do you find +the defendant guilty or not guilty?" + +"Not guilty," returned the foreman eagerly, amid audible evidences of +satisfaction from the Abyssinian brother, the Baby's World editor and +the others. Mr. Appleboy clung to Tutt's hand, overcome by emotion. + +"Adjourn court!" ordered the judge. Then he beckoned to Mr. Appleboy. +"Come up here!" he directed. + +Timidly Mr. Appleboy approached the dais. + +"Don't do it again!" remarked His Honor shortly. + +"Eh? Beg pardon, Your Honor, I mean--" + +"I said: 'Don't do it again!'" repeated the judge with a twinkle in his +eye. Then lowering his voice he whispered: "You see I come from +Livornia, and I've known Andrew for a long time." + +As Tutt guided the Appleboys out into the corridor the party came face +to face with Mr. and Mrs. Tunnygate. + +"Huh!" sneered Tunnygate. + +"Huh!" retorted Appleboy. + + + + +Wile Versus Guile + + + For 'tis the sport to have the engineer + Hoist with his own petar.--HAMLET. + +It was a mouse by virtue of which Ephraim Tutt had leaped into fame. It +is true that other characters famous in song and story--particularly in +"Mother Goose"--have similarly owed their celebrity in whole or part to +rodents, but there is, it is submitted, no other case of a mouse, as +mouse _per se_, reported in the annals of the law, except Tutt's mouse, +from Doomsday Book down to the present time. + +Yet it is doubtful whether without his mouse Ephraim Tutt would ever +have been heard of at all, and same would equally have been true if when +pursued by the chef's gray cat the mouse aforesaid had jumped in another +direction. But as luck would have it, said mouse leaped foolishly into +an open casserole upon a stove in the kitchen of the Comers Hotel, and +Mr. Tutt became in his way a leader of the bar. + +It is quite true that the tragic end of the mouse in question has +nothing to do with our present narrative except as a side light upon the +vagaries of the legal career, but it illustrates how an attorney if he +expects to succeed in his profession, must be ready for anything that +comes along--even if it be a mouse. + +The two Tutts composing the firm of Tutt & Tutt were both, at the time +of the mouse case, comparatively young men. Tutt was a native of Bangor, +Maine, and numbered among his childhood friends one Newbegin, a +commercial wayfarer in the shingle and clapboard line; and as he hoped +at some future time to draw Newbegin's will or to incorporate for him +some business venture Tutt made a practise of entertaining his +prospective client at dinner upon his various visits to the metropolis, +first at one New York hostelry and then at another. + +Chance led them one night to the Comers, and there amid the imitation +palms and imitation French waiters of the imitation French restaurant +Tutt invited his friend Newbegin to select what dish he chose from those +upon the bill of fare; and Newbegin chose kidney stew. It was at about +that moment that the adventure which has been referred to occurred in +the hotel kitchen. The gray cat was cheated of its prey, and in due +course the casserole containing the stew was borne into the dining room +and the dish was served. + +Suddenly Mr. Newbegin contorted his mouth and exclaimed: + +"Heck! A mouse!" + +It was. The head waiter was summoned, the manager, the owner. Guests and +garçons crowded about Tutt and Mr. Newbegin to inspect what had so +unexpectedly been found. No one could deny that it was, mouse--cooked +mouse; and Newbegin had ordered kidney stew. Then Tutt had had his +inspiration. + +"You shall pay well for this!" he cried, frowning at the distressed +proprietor, while Newbegin leaned piteously against a pâpier-maché +pillar. "This is an outrage! You shall be held liable in heavy damages +for my client's indigestion!" + +And thus Tutt & Tutt got their first case out of Newbegin, for under the +influence of the eloquence of Mr. Tutt a jury was induced to give him a +verdict of one thousand dollars against the Comers Hotel, which the +Court of Appeals sustained in the following words, quoting verbatim from +the learned brief furnished by Tutt & Tutt, Ephraim Tutt of counsel: + +"The only legal question in the case, or so it appears to us, is whether +there is such a sale of food to a guest on the part of the proprietor +as will sustain a warranty. If we are not in error, however, the law is +settled and has been since the reign of Henry the Sixth. In the Ninth +Year Book of that Monarch's reign there is a case in which it was held +that 'if I go to a tavern to eat, and the taverner gives and sells me +meat and it corrupted, whereby I am made very sick, action lies against +him without any express warranty, for there is a warranty in law'; and +in the time of Henry the Seventh the learned Justice Keilway said, 'No +man can justify selling corrupt victual, but an action on the case lies +against the seller, whether the victual was warranted to be good or +not.' Now, certainly, whether mouse meat be or be not deleterious to +health a guest at a hotel who orders a portion of kidney stew has the +right to expect, and the hotel keeper impliedly warrants, that such dish +will contain no ingredients beyond those ordinarily placed therein." + + * * * * * + +"A thousand dollars!" exulted Tutt when the verdict was rendered. "Why, +anyone would eat mouse for a thousand dollars!" + +The Comers Hotel became in due course a client of Tutt & Tutt, and the +mouse which made Mr. Tutt famous did not die in vain, for the case +became celebrated throughout the length and breadth of the land, to the +glory of the firm and a vast improvement in the culinary conditions +existing in hotels. + +"Come in, Mr. Barrows! Come right in! I haven't seen you for--well, how +long is it?" exclaimed Mr. Tutt, extending a long welcoming arm toward a +human scarecrow upon the threshold. + +"Five years," answered the visitor. "I only got out day before +yesterday. Fourteen months off for good behavior." + +He coughed and put down carefully beside him a large dress-suit case +marked E.V.B., Pottsville, N.Y. + +"Well, well!" sighed Mr. Tutt. "So it is. How time flies!" + +"Not in Sing Sing!" replied Mr. Barrows ruefully. + +"I suppose not. Still, it must feel good to be out!" + +Mr. Barrows made no reply but dusted off his felt hat. He was but the +shadow of a man, an old man at that, as was attested by his long gray +beard, his faded blue eyes, and the thin white hair about his fine +domelike forehead. + +"I forget what your trouble was about," said Mr. Tutt gently. "Won't you +have a stogy?" + +Mr. Barrows shook his head. + +"I ain't used to it," he answered. "Makes me cough." He gazed about him +vaguely. + +"Something about bonds, wasn't it?" asked Mr. Tutt. + +"Yes," replied Mr. Barrows; "Great Lakes and Canadian Southern." + +"Of course! Of course!" + +"A wonderful property," murmured Mr. Barrows regretfully. "The bonds +were perfectly good. There was a defect in the foreclosure proceedings +which made them a permanent underlying security of the reorganized +company--under The Northern Pacific R.R. Co. vs. Boyd; you know--but the +court refused to hold that way. They never will hold the way you want, +will they?" He looked innocently at Mr. Tutt. + +"No," agreed the latter with conviction, "they never will!" + +"Now those bonds were as good as gold," went on the old man; "and yet +they said I had to go to prison. You know all about it. You were my +lawyer." + +"Yes," assented Mr. Tutt, "I remember all about it now." + +Indeed it had all come back to him with the vividness of a landscape +seen during a lightning flash--the crowded court, old Doc Barrows upon +the witness stand, charged with getting money on the strength of +defaulted and outlawed bonds--picked up heaven knows where--pathetically +trying to persuade an unsympathetic court that for some reason they +were still worth their face value, though the mortgage securing the debt +which they represented had long since been foreclosed and the money +distributed. + +"I'd paid for 'em--actual cash," he rambled on. "Not much, to be +sure--but real money. If I got 'em cheap that was my good luck, wasn't +it? It was because my brain was sharper than other folks'! I said they +had value and I say so now--only nobody will believe it or take the +trouble to find out. I learned a lot up there in Sing Sing too," he +continued, warming to his subject. "Do you know, sir, there are fortunes +lying all about us? Take gold, for instance! There's a fraction of a +grain in every ton of sea water. But the big people don't want it taken +out because it would depress the standard of exchange. I say it's a +conspiracy--and yet they jailed a man for it! There's great mineral +deposits all about just waiting for the right man to come along and +develop 'em." + +His lifted eye rested upon the engraving of Abraham Lincoln over Mr. +Tutt's desk. "There was a man!" he exclaimed inconsequently; then +stopped and ran his transparent, heavily veined old hand over his +forehead. "Where was I? Let me see. Oh, yes--gold. All those great +properties could be bought at one time or another for a song. It needed +a pioneer! That's what I was--a pioneer to find the gold where other +people couldn't find it. That's not any crime; it's a service to +humanity! If only they'd have a little faith--instead of locking you up. +The judge never looked up the law about those Great Lakes bonds! If he +had he'd have found out I was right! I'd looked it up. I studied law +once myself." + +"I know," said Mr. Tutt, almost moved to tears by the sight of the wreck +before him. "You practised up state, didn't you?" + +"Yes," responded Doc Barrows eagerly. "And in Chicago too. I'm a member +of the Cook County bar. I'll tell you something! If the Supreme Court of +Illinois hadn't been wrong in its law I'd be the richest man in the +world--in the whole world!" He grabbed Mr. Tutt by the arm and stared +hard into his eyes. "Didn't I show you my papers? I own seven feet of +water front clean round Lake Michigan all through the city of Chicago I +got it for a song from the man who found out the flaw in the original +title deed of 1817; he was dying. 'I'll sell my secret to you,' he says, +'because I'm passing on. May it bring you luck!' I looked it all up and +it was just as he said. So I got up a corporation--The Chicago Water +Front and Terminal Company--and sold bonds to fight my claim in the +courts. But all the people who had deeds to my land conspired against +me and had me arrested! They sent me to the penitentiary. There's +justice for you!" + +"That was too bad!" said Mr. Tutt in a soothing voice. "But after all +what good would all that money have done you?" + +"I don't want money!" affirmed Doc plaintively. "I've never needed +money. I know enough secrets to make me rich a dozen times over. Not +money but justice is what I want--my legal rights. But I'm tired of +fighting against 'em. They've beaten me! Yes, they've beaten me! I'm +going to retire. That's why I came in to see you, Mr. Tutt. I never paid +you for your services as my attorney. I'm going away. You see my married +daughter lost her husband the other day and she wants me to come up and +live with her on the farm to keep her from being lonely. Of course it +won't be much like life in Wall Street--but I owe her some duty and I'm +getting on--I am, Mr. Tutt, I really am!" + +He smiled. + +"And I haven't seen Louisa for three years--my only daughter. I shall +enjoy being with her. She was such a dear little girl! I'll tell you +another secret"--his voice dropped to a whisper--"I've found out there's +a gold mine on her farm, only she doesn't know it. A rich vein runs +right through her cow pasture. We'll be rich! Wouldn't it be fine, Mr. +Tutt, to be rich? Then I'm going to pay you in real money for all you've +done for me--thousands! But until then I'm going to let you have +these--all my securities; my own, you know, every one of them." + +He placed the suitcase in front of Mr. Tutt and opened the clasps with +his shaking old fingers. It bulged with bonds, and he dumped them forth +until they covered the top of the desk. + +"These are my jewels!" he said. "There's millions represented here!" He +lifted one tenderly and held it to the light, fresh as it came from the +engraver's press--a thousand dollar first-mortgage bond of The Chicago +Water Front and Terminal Company. "Look at that! Good as gold--if the +courts only knew the law." + +He took up a yellow package of valueless obligations upon the top of +which an old-fashioned locomotive from whose bell-shaped funnel the +smoke poured in picturesque black clouds, dragging behind it a chain of +funny little passenger coaches, drove furiously along beside a rushing +river through fields rich with corn and wheat amid a border of dollar +signs. + +"The Great Lakes and Canadian Southern," he crooned lovingly. "The child +of my heart! The district attorney kept all the rest--as evidence, he +claimed, but some day you'll see he'll bring an action against the Lake +Shore or the New York Central based on these bonds. Yes, sir! They're +all right!" + +He pawed them over, picking out favorites here and there and excitedly +extolling the merits of the imaginary properties they represented. There +were the repudiated bonds of Southern states and municipalities of +railroads upon whose tracks no wheel had ever turned; of factories never +built except in Doc Barrows' addled brain; of companies which had +defaulted and given stock for their worthless obligations; certificates +of oil, mining and land companies; deeds to tracts now covered with sky +scrapers in Pittsburgh, St. Louis and New York--each and every one of +them not worth the paper they were printed on except to some crook who +dealt in high finance. But they were exquisitely engraved, quite lovely +to look at, and Doc Barrows gloated upon them with scintillating eyes. + +"Ain't they beauties?" he sighed. "Some day--yes sir!--some day they'll +be worth real money. I paid it for some of 'em. But they're yours--all +yours." + +He gathered them up with care and returned them to the suitcase, then +fastened the clasps and patted the leather cover with his hand. + +"They are yours, sir!" he exclaimed dramatically. + +"As you say," agreed Mr. Tutt, "there's gold lying round everywhere if +we only had sense enough to look for it. But I think you're wise to +retire. After all, you have the satisfaction of knowing that your +enterprises were sound even if other people disagreed with you." + +"If this was 1819 instead of 1919 I'd own Chicago," began Doc, a gleam +appearing in his eye. "But they don't want to upset the status +quo--that's why I haven't got a fair chance. But they needn't worry! I'd +be generous with 'em--give 'em easy terms--long leases and nominal +rents." + +"But you'll like living with your daughter, I'm sure," said Mr. Tutt. +"It will make a new man of you in no time." + +"Healthiest spot in northern New York," exclaimed Doc. "Within two miles +of a lake--fishing, shooting, outdoor recreation of all kinds, an ideal +site for a mammoth summer hotel." + +Mr. Tutt rose and laid his arms round old Doc Barrows' shoulders. + +"Thank you a thousand times," he said gratefully, "for the securities. +I'll be glad to keep them for you in my vault." His lips puckered in a +stealthy smile which he tried hard to conceal. + +"Louisa may want to repaper the farmhouse some time," he added to +himself. + +"Oh, they're all yours to keep!" insisted Doc. "I want you to have +them!" His voice trembled. + +"Well, well!" answered Mr. Tutt. "Leave it that way; but if you ever +should want them they'll be here waiting for you." + +"I'm no Indian giver!" replied Doc with dignity. "Give, give, give a +thing--never take it back again." + +He laughed rather childishly. He was evidently embarrassed. + +"Could--could you let me have the loan of seventy-five cents?" he asked +shyly. + + * * * * * + +Down below, inside a doorway upon the other side of the street, Sergeant +Murtha of the Detective Bureau waited for Doc Barrows to come out and be +arrested again. Murtha had known Doc for fifteen years as a harmless old +nut who had rarely succeeded in cheating anybody, but who was regarded +as generally undesirable by the authorities and sent away every few +years in order to keep him out of mischief. There was no danger that the +public would accept Doc's version of the nature or value of his +securities, but there was always the chance that some of his worthless +bonds--those bastard offsprings of his cracked old brain--would find +their way into less honest but saner hands. So Doc rattled about from +penitentiary to prison and from prison to madhouse and out again, +constantly taking appeals and securing writs of habeas corpus, and +feeling mildly resentful, but not particularly so, that people should be +so interfering with his business. Now as from force of long habit he +peered out of the doorway before making his exit; he looked like one of +the John Sargent's prophets gone a little madder than usual--a Jeremiah +or a Habakkuk. + +"Hello, Doc!" called Murtha in hearty, friendly tones. "Hie spy! Come on +out!" + +"Oh, how d'ye do, captain!" responded Doc. "How are you? I was just +interviewing my solicitor." + +"Sorry," said Murtha. "The inspector wants to see you." + +Doc flinched. + +"But they've just let me go!" he protested faintly. + +"It's one of those old indictments--Chicago Water Front or something. +Anyhow--Here! Hold on to yourself!" + +He threw his arms around the old man, who seemed on the point of +falling. + +"Oh, captain! That's all over! I served time for that out in Illinois!" +For some strange reason all the insanity had gone out of his bearing. + +"Not in this state," answered Murtha. New pity for this poor old wastrel +took hold upon him. "What were you going to do?" + +"I was going to retire, captain," said Doc faintly. "My daughter's +husband--he owned a farm up in Cayuga County--well, he died and I was +planning to go up there and live with her." + +"And sting all the boobs?" grinned Murtha not unsympathetically. "How +much money have you got?" + +"Seventy-five cents." + +"How much is the ticket?" + +"About nine dollars," quavered Doc. "But I know a man down on Chatham +Square who might buy a block of stock in the Last Chance Gold Mining +Company; I could get the money that way." + +"What's the Last Chance Gold Mining Company?" asked Murtha sharply. + +"It's a company I'm going to organize. I'll tell you a secret, Murtha. +There's a vein of gold runs right through my daughter Louisa's cow +pasture--she doesn't know anything about it--" + +"Oh, hell!" exclaimed Murtha. "Come along to the station. I'll let you +have the nine bones. And you can put me down for half a million of the +underwriting." + + * * * * * + +That same evening Mr. Tutt was toasting his carpet slippers before the +sea-coal fire in his library, sipping a hot toddy and rereading for the +eleventh time the "Lives of the Chancellors" when Miranda, who had not +yet finished washing the few dishes incident to her master's meager +supper, pushed open the door and announced that a lady was calling. + +"She said you'd know her sho' enough, Mis' Tutt," grinned Miranda, +swinging her dishrag, "'case you and she used to live tergidder when you +was a young man." + +This scandalous announcement did not have the startling effect upon the +respectable Mr. Tutt which might naturally have been anticipated, since +he was quite used to Miranda's forms of expression. + +"It must be Mrs. Effingham," he remarked, closing the career of Lord +Eldon and removing his feet from the fender. + +"Dat's who it is!" answered Miranda. "She's downstairs waitin' to come +up." + +"Well, let her come," directed Mr. Tutt, wondering what his old +boarding-house keeper could want of him, for he had not seen Mrs. +Effingham for more than fifteen years, at which time she was well +provided with husband, three children and a going business. Indeed, it +required some mental adjustment on his part to recognize the withered +little old lady in widow's weeds and rusty black with a gold star on her +sleeve who so timidly, a moment later, followed Miranda into the room. + +"I'm afraid you don't recognize me," she said with a pitiful attempt at +faded coquetry. "I don't blame you, Mr. Tutt. You don't look a day older +yourself. But a great deal has happened to me!" + +"I should have recognized you anywhere," he protested gallantly. "Do sit +down, Mrs. Effingham won't you? I am delighted to see you. How would you +like a glass of toddy? Just to show there's no ill-feeling!" + +He forced a glass into her hand and filled it from the teakettle +standing on the hearth, while Miranda brought a sofa cushion and tucked +it behind the old lady's back. + +Mrs. Effingham sighed, tasted the toddy and leaned back deliciously. She +was very wrinkled and her hair under the bonnet was startlingly white in +contrast with the crepe of her veil, but there were still traces of +beauty in her face. + +"I've come to you, Mr. Tutt," she explained apologetically, "because I +always said that if I ever was in trouble you'd be the one to whom I +should go to help me out." + +"What greater compliment could I receive?" + +"Well, in those days I never thought that time would come," she went on. +"You remember my husband--Jim? Jim died two years ago. And little +Jimmy--our eldest--he was only fourteen when you boarded with us--he was +killed at the Front last July." She paused and felt for her +handkerchief, but could not find it. "I still keep the house; but do you +know how old I am, Mr. Tutt? I'm seventy-one! And the two older girls +got married long ago and I'm all alone except for Jessie, the +youngest--and I haven't told her anything about it." + +"Yes?" said Mr. Tutt sympathetically. "What haven't you told her about?" + +"My trouble. You see, Jessie's not a well girl--she really ought to live +out West somewhere, the doctor says--and Jim and I had saved up all +these years so that after we were gone she would have something to live +on. We saved twelve thousand dollars--and put it into Government bonds." + +"You couldn't have anything safer, at any rate," remarked the lawyer. "I +think you did exceedingly well." + +"Now comes the awful part of it all!" exclaimed Mrs. Effingham, clasping +her hands. "I'm afraid it's gone--gone forever. I should have consulted +you first before I did it, but it all seemed so fair and above-board +that I never thought." + +"Have you got rid of your bonds?" + +"Yes--no--that is, the bank has them. You see I borrowed ten thousand +dollars on them and gave it to Mr. Badger to invest in his oil company +for me." + +Mr. Tutt groaned inwardly. Badger was the most celebrated of Wall +Street's near-financiers. + +"Where on earth did you meet Badger?" he demanded. + +"Why, he boarded with me--for a long time," she answered. "I've no +complaint to make of Mr. Badger. He's a very handsome polite gentleman. +And I don't feel altogether right about coming to you and saying +anything that might be taken against him--but lately I've heard so many +things--" + +"Don't worry about Badger!" growled Mr. Tutt. "How did you come to +invest in his oil stock?" + +"I was there when he got the telegram telling how they had found oil on +the property; it came one night at dinner. He was tickled to death. The +stock had been selling at three cents a share, and, of course, after the +oil was discovered he said it would go right up to ten dollars. But he +was real nice about it--he said anybody who had been living there in the +house could share his good fortune with him, come in on the ground +floor, and have it just the same for three cents. A week later there +came a photograph of the gusher and almost all of us decided to buy +stock." + +At this point in the narrative Mr. Tutt kicked the coal hod violently +and uttered a smothered ejaculation. + +"Of course I didn't have any ready money," explained Mrs. Effingham, +"but I had the bonds--they only paid two per cent and the oil stock was +going to pay twenty--and so I took them down to the bank and borrowed +ten thousand dollars on them. I had to sign a note and pay five per cent +interest. I was making the difference--fifteen hundred dollars every +year." + +"What has it paid?" demanded Mr. Tutt ironically. + +"Twenty per cent," replied Mrs. Effingham. "I get Mr. Badger's check +regularly every six months." + +"How many times have you got it?" + +"Twice." + +"Well, why don't you like your investment?" inquired Mr. Tutt blandly. +"I'd like something that would pay me twenty per cent a year!" + +"Because I'm afraid Mr. Badger isn't quite truthful, and one of the +ladies--that old Mrs. Channing; you remember her, don't you--the one +with the curls?--she tried to sell her stock and nobody would make a bid +on it at all--and when she spoke to Mr. Badger about it he became very +angry and swore right in front of her. Then somebody told me that Mr. +Badger had been arrested once for something--and--and--Oh, I wish I +hadn't given him the money, because if it's lost Jessie won't have +anything to live on after I'm dead--and she's too sick to work. What do +you think, Mr. Tutt? Do you suppose Mr. Badger would buy the stock +back?" + +Mr. Tutt smiled grimly. + +"Not if I know him! Have you got your stock with you?" + +She nodded. Fumbling in her black bag she pulled forth a flaring +certificate--of the regulation kind, not even engraved--which evidenced +that Sarah Maria Ann Effingham was the legal owner of three hundred and +thirty thousand shares of the capital stock of the Great Geyser Texan +Petroleum and Llano Estacado Land Company. + +Mr. Tutt took it gingerly between his thumb and forefinger. It was +signed ALFRED HAYNES BADGER, Pres., and he had an almost irresistible +temptation to twist it into a spill and light a stogy with it. But he +used a match instead, while Mrs. Effingham watched him apprehensively. +Then he handed the stock back to her and poured out another glass of +toddy. + +"Ever been in Mr. Badger's office?" + +"Oh, yes!" she answered. "It's a lovely office. You can see 'way down +the harbor--and over to New Jersey. It's real elegant." + +"Would you mind going there again? That is, are you on friendly terms +with him?" + +Already a strange, rather desperate plan was half formulated in his +mind. + +"Oh, we're perfectly friendly," she smiled. "I generally go down there +to get my check." + +"Whose check is it--his or the company's?" + +"I really don't know," she answered simply. "What difference would it +make?" + +"Oh, nothing--except that he might claim that he'd loaned you the +money." + +"Loaned it? To me?" + +"Why, yes. One hears of such things." + +"But it is my money!" she cried, stiffening. + +"You paid that for the stock." + +She shook her head helplessly. + +"I don't understand these things," she murmured. "If Jim had been alive +it wouldn't have happened. He was so careful." + +"Husbands have some uses occasionally." + +Suddenly she put her hands to her face. + +"Oh, Mr. Tutt! Please get the money back from him. If you don't +something terrible will happen to Jessie!" + +"I'll do my best," he said gently, laying his hand on her fragile +shoulder. "But I may not be able to do it--and anyhow I'll need your +help." + +"What can I do?" + +"I want you to go down to Mr. Badger's office to-morrow morning and tell +him that you are so much pleased with your investment that you would +like to turn all your securities over to him to sell and put the money +into the Great Geyser Texan Petroleum and Llano Estacado Land Company." + +He rolled out the words with unction. + +"But I don't!" + +"Oh, yes, you do!" he assured her. "You want to do just what I tell +you, don't you?" + +"Of course," she answered. "But I thought you didn't like Mr. Badger's +oil company." + +"Whether I like it or not makes no difference. I want you to say just +what I tell you." + +"Oh, very well, Mr. Tutt." + +"Then you must tell him about the note, and that first it will have to +be paid off." + +"Yes." + +"And then you must hand him a letter which I will dictate to you now." + +She flushed slightly, her eyes bright with excitement. + +"You're sure it's perfectly honest, Mr. Tutt? I wouldn't want to do +anything unfair!" + +"Would you be honest with a burglar?" + +"But Mr. Badger isn't a burglar!" + +"No--he's only about a thousand times worse. He's a robber of widows and +orphans. He isn't man enough to take a chance at housebreaking." + +"I don't know what you mean," she sighed. "Where shall I write?" + +Mr. Tutt cleared a space upon his desk, handed her a pad and dipped a +pen in the ink while she took off her gloves. + +"Address the note to the bank," he directed. + +She did so. + +"Now say: 'Kindly deliver to Mr. Badger all the securities I have on +deposit with you, whenever he pays my note. Very truly yours, Sarah +Maria Ann Effingham.'" + +"But I don't want him to have my securities!" she retorted. + +"Oh, you won't mind! You'll be lucky to get Mr. Badger to take back your +oil stock on any terms. Leave the certificate with me," laughed Mr. +Tutt, rubbing his long thin hands together almost gleefully. "And now as +it is getting rather late perhaps you will do me the honor of letting me +escort you home." + +It was midnight before Mr. Tutt went to bed. In the first place he had +felt himself so neglectful of Mrs. Effingham that after he had taken her +home he had sat there a long time talking over the old lady's affairs +and making the acquaintance of the phthisical Jessie, who turned out to +be a wistful little creature with great liquid eyes and a delicate +transparent skin that foretold only too clearly what was to be her +future. There was only one place for her, Mr. Tutt told +himself--Arizona; and by the grace of God she should go there, Badger or +no Badger! + +As the old lawyer walked slowly home with his hands clasped behind his +back he pondered upon the seeming mockery and injustice of the law that +forced a lonely, half-demented old fellow with the fixed delusion that +he was a financier behind prison bars and left free the sharp slick +crook who had no bowels or mercies and would snatch away the widow's +mite and leave her and her consumptive daughter to die in the poorhouse. +Yet such was the case, and there they all were! Could you blame people +for being Bolsheviks? And yet old Doc Barrows was as far from a +Bolshevik as anyone could well be. + +Mr. Tutt passed a restless night, dreaming, when he slept at all, of +mines from which poured myriads of pieces of yellow gold, of gushers +spouting columns of blood-red oil hundreds of feet into the air, and of +old-fashioned locomotives dragging picturesque trains of cars across +bright green prairies studded with cacti in the shape of dollar signs. +Old Doc Barrows was with him, and from time to time he would lean toward +him and whisper "Listen, Mr. Tutt, I'll tell you a secret! There's a +vein of gold runs right through my daughter's cow pasture!" + +When Willie next morning at half past eight reached the office he found +the door already unlocked and Mr. Tutt busy at his desk, up to his +elbows in a great mass of bonds and stock certificates. + +"Gee!" he exclaimed to Miss Sondheim, the stenographer, when she made +her appearance at a quarter past nine. "Just peek in the old man's door +if you want to feel rich! Say, he must ha' struck pay dirt! I wonder if +we'll all get a raise?" + +But all the securities on Mr. Tutt's desk would not have justified even +the modest advance of five dollars in Miss Sondheim's salary, and their +employer was merely sorting out and making an inventory of Doc Barrows' +imaginary wealth. By the time Mrs. Effingham arrived by appointment at +ten o'clock he had them all arranged and labeled; and in a special +bundle neatly tied with a piece of red tape were what on their face were +securities worth upward of seventy thousand dollars. There were ten of +the beautiful bonds of the Great Lakes and Canadian Southern Railroad +Company with their miniature locomotives and fields of wheat, and ten +equally lovely bits of engraving belonging to the long-since defunct +Bluff Creek and Iowa Central, ten more superb lithographs issued by the +Mohawk and Housatonic in 1867 and paid off in 1882, and a variety of +gorgeous chromos of Indians and buffaloes, and of factories and +steamships spouting clouds of soft-coal smoke; and on the top of all was +a pile of the First Mortgage Gold Six Per Cent obligations of the +Chicago Water Front and Terminal Company--all of them fresh and crisp, +with that faintly acrid smell which though not agreeable to the nostrils +nevertheless delights the banker's soul. + +"Ah! Good morning to you, Mrs. Effingham!" Mr. Tutt cried, waving her in +when that lady was announced. "You are not the only millionaire, you +see! In fact, I've stumbled into a few barrels of securities +myself--only I didn't pay anything for them." + +"Gracious!" cried Mrs. Effingham, her eyes lighting with astonishment. +"Wherever did you get them? And such exquisite pictures! Look at that +lamb!" + +"It ought to have been a wolf!" muttered Mr. Tutt. "Well, Mrs. +Effingham, I've decided to make you a present--just a few pounds of +Chicago Water Front and Canadian Southern--those over there in that +pile; and now if you say so we'll just go along to your bank." + +"Give them to me!" she protested. "What on earth for? You're joking, Mr. +Tutt." + +"Not a bit of it!" he retorted. "I don't make any pretensions as to the +value of my gift, but they're yours for whatever they're worth." + +He wrapped them carefully in a piece of paper and returned the balance +to Doc Barrows' dress-suit case. + +"Aren't you afraid to leave them that way?" she asked, surprised. + +"Not at all! Not at all!" he laughed. "You see there are fortunes lying +all about us everywhere if we only know where to look. Now the first +thing to do is to get your bonds back from the bank." + +Mr. Thomas McKeever, the popular loan clerk of the Mustardseed National, +was just getting ready for the annual visit of the state bank examiner +when Mr. Tutt, followed by Mrs. Effingham, entered the exquisitely +furnished boudoir where lady clients were induced by all modern +conveniences except manicures and shower baths to become depositors. Mr. +Tutt and Mr. McKeever belonged to the same Saturday evening poker game +at the Colophon Club, familiarly known as The Bible Class. + +"Morning, Tom," said Mr. Tutt. "This is my client, Mrs. Effingham. You +hold her note, I believe, for ten thousand dollars secured by some +government bonds. She has a use for those bonds and I thought that you +might be willing to take my indorsement instead. You know I'm good for +the money." + +"Why, I guess we can accommodate her, Mr. Tutt!" answered the +Chesterfieldian Mr. McKeever. "Certainly we can. Sit down, Mrs. +Effingham, while I send for your bonds. See the morning paper?" + +Mrs. Effingham blushingly acknowledged that she had not seen the paper. +In fact, she was much too excited to see anything. + +"Sign here!" said the loan clerk, placing the note before the lawyer. + +Mr. Tutt indorsed it in his strange, humpbacked chirography. + +"Here are your bonds," said Mr. McKeever, handing Mrs. Effingham a small +package in a manila envelope. She took them in a half-frightened way, as +if she thought she was doing something wrong. + +"And now," said Mr. Tutt, "the lady would like a box in your +safe-deposit vaults; a small one--about five dollars a year--will do. +She has quite a bundle of securities with her, which I am looking into. +Most if not all of them are of little or no value, but I have told her +she might just as well leave them as security for what they are worth, +in addition to my indorsement. Really it's just a slick game of ours to +get the bank to look after them for nothing. Isn't it, Mrs. Effingham?" + +"Ye-es!" stammered Mrs. Effingham, not understanding what he was talking +about. + +"Well," answered Mr. McKeever, "we never refuse collateral. I'll put the +bonds with the note--" His eye caught the edges of the bundle. "Great +Scott, Tutt! What are you leaving all these bonds here for against that +note? There must be nearly a hundred thousand dol--" + +"I thought you never refused collateral, Mr. McKeever!" challenged Mr. +Tutt sternly. + +Twenty minutes later the exquisite blonde that acted as Mr. Badger's +financial accomplice learned from Mrs. Effingham's faltering lips that +the widow would like to see the great man in regard to further +investments. + +"How does it look, Mabel?" inquired the financier from behind his +massive mahogany desk covered with a six by five sheet of plate glass. +"Is it a squeal or a fall?" + +"Easy money," answered Mabel with confidence. "She wants to put a +mortgage on the farm." + +"Keep her about fourteen minutes, tell her the story of my +philanthropies, and then shoot her in," directed Badger. + +So Mrs. Effingham listened politely while Mabel showed her the +photographs of Mr. Badger's home for consumptives out in Tyrone, New +Mexico, and of his wife and children, taken on the porch of his summer +home at Seabright, New Jersey; and then, exactly fourteen minutes having +elapsed, she was shot in. + +"Ah! Mrs. Effingham! Delighted! Do be seated!" Mr. Badger's smile was +like that of the boa constrictor about to swallow the rabbit. + +"About my oil stock," hesitated Mrs. Effingham. + +"Well, what about it?" demanded Badger sharply. "Are you dissatisfied +with your twenty per cent?" + +"Oh, no!" stammered the old lady. "Not at all! I just thought if I could +only get the note paid off at the Mustardseed Bank I might ask you to +sell the collateral and invest the proceeds in your gusher." + +"Oh!" Mr. Badger beamed with pleasure. "Do you really wish to have me +dispose of your securities for you?" + +He did not regard it as necessary to inquire into the nature of the +collateral. If it was satisfactory to the Mustardseed National it must +of course exceed considerably the amount of the note. + +"Yes," answered Mrs. Effingham timidly; and she handed him the letter +dictated by Mr. Tutt. + +"Well," replied Mr. Badger thoughtfully, after reading it, "what you ask +is rather unusual--quite unusual, I may say, but I think I may be able +to attend to the matter for you. Leave it in my hands and think no more +about it. How have you been, my dear Mrs. Effingham? You're looking +extraordinarily well!" + +Mr. McKeever had about concluded his arrangements for welcoming the +state bank examiner when the telephone on his desk buzzed, and on taking +up the receiver he heard the ingratiating voice of Alfred Haynes Badger. + +"Is this the Loan Department of the Mustardseed National?" + +"It is," he answered shortly. + +"I understand you hold a note of a certain Mrs. Effingham for ten +thousand dollars. May I ask if it is secured?" + +"Who is this?" snapped McKeever. + +"One of her friends," replied Mr. Badger amicably. + +"Well, we don't discuss our clients' affairs over the telephone. You had +better come in here if you have any inquiries to make." + +"But I want to pay the note," expostulated Mr. Badger. + +"Oh! Well, anybody can pay the note who wants to." + +"And of course in that case you would turn over whatever collateral is +on deposit to secure the note?" + +"If we were so directed." + +"May I ask what collateral there is?" + +"I don't know." + +"There is some collateral, I suppose?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, I have an order from Mrs. Effingham directing the bank to turn +over whatever securities she has on deposit as collateral, on my payment +of the note." + +"In that case you'll get 'em," said Mr. McKeever gruffly. "I'll get +them out and have 'em ready for you." + + * * * * * + +"Here is my certified check for ten thousand; dollars," announced Alfred +Haynes Badger a few minutes later. "And here is the order from Mrs. +Effingham. Now will you kindly turn over to me all the securities?" + +Mr. McKeever, knowing something of the reputation of Mr. Badger, first +called up the bank which had certified the latter's check, and having +ascertained that the certification was genuine he marked Mrs. +Effingham's note as paid and then took down from the top of his roll-top +desk the bundle of beautifully engraved securities given him by Mr. +Tutt. Badger watched him greedily. + +"Thank you," he gurgled, stuffing them into his pocket. "Much obliged +for your courtesy. Perhaps you would like me to open an account here?" + +"Oh, anybody can open an account who wants to," remarked Mr. McKeever +dryly, turning away from him to something else. + +Mr. Badger fairly flew back to his office. The exquisite blonde had +hardly ever before seen him exhibit so much agitation. + +"What have you pulled this time?" she inquired dreamily. "Father's +daguerreotype and the bracelet of mother's hair?" + +"I've grabbed off the whole bag of tricks!" he cried. "Look at 'em! +We've not seen so much of the real stuff in six months. + +"Ten--twenty--thirty--forty--fifty--By gad!--sixty--seventy!" + +"What are they?" asked Mabel curiously. "Some bonds--what?" + +"I should say so!" he retorted gaily. "Say, girlie, I'll give you the +swellest meal of your young life to-night! Chicago Water Front and +Terminal, Great Lakes and Canadian Southern, Mohawk and Housatonic, +Bluff Creek and Iowa Central. '_Oh, Mabel_!'" + +It was at just about this period of the celebration that Mr. Tutt +entered the outer office and sent in his name; and as Mr. Badger was at +the height of his good humor he condescended to see him. + +"I have called," said Mr. Tutt, "in regard to the bonds belonging to my +client, Mrs. Effingham. I see you have them on the desk there in front +of you. Unfortunately she has changed her mind. She has decided not to +have you dispose of her securities." + +Mr. Badger's expression instantly became hostile and defiant. + +"It's too late!" he replied. "I have paid off her note and I am going to +carry out the rest of the arrangement." + +"Oh," said Mr. Tutt, "so you are going to sell all her securities and +put the proceeds into your bogus oil company--whether she wishes it or +not? If you do the district attorney will get after you." + +"I stand on my rights," snarled Badger. "Anyhow I can sell enough of the +securities to pay myself back my ten thousand dollars." + +"And then you'll steal the rest?" inquired Mr. Tutt. "Be careful, my +dear sir! Remember there is such a thing as equity, and such a place as +Sing Sing." + +Badger gave a cynical laugh. + +"You're too late, my friend! I've got a written order--_a written +order_--from your client, as you call her. She can't go back on it now. +I've got the bonds and I'm going to dispose of them." + +"Very well," said Mr. Tutt tolerantly. "You can do as you see fit. +But"--and he produced ten genuine one-thousand-dollar bills and +exhibited them to Mr. Badger at a safe distance--"I now on behalf of +Mrs. Effingham make you a legal tender of the ten thousand dollars you +have just paid out to cancel her note, and I demand the return of the +securities. Incidentally I beg to inform you that they are not worth the +paper they are printed on." + +"Indeed!" sneered Badger. "Well, my dear! old friend, you might have +saved yourself the trouble of coming round here. You and your client +can go straight to hell. _You_ can keep the money; _I'll_ keep the +bonds. See?" + +Mr. Tutt sighed and shook his head hopelessly. + +Then he put the bills back into his pocket and started slowly for the +door. + +"You absolutely and finally decline to give up the securities?" he asked +plaintively. + +"Absolutely and finally?" mocked Mr. Badger with a sweeping bow. + +"Dear! Dear!" almost moaned Mr. Tutt. "I'd heard of you a great many +times but I never realized before what an unscrupulous man you were! +Anyhow, I'm glad to have had a look at you. By the way, if you take the +trouble to dig through all that junk you'll find the certificate of +stock in the Great Jehoshaphat Oil Company you used to flim flam Mrs. +Effingham with out of her ten thousand dollars. Maybe you can use it on +someone else! Anyhow, she's about two thousand dollars to the good. It +isn't every widow who can get twenty per cent and then get her money +back in full." + + + + +The Hepplewhite Tramp + + + "No freeman shall be taken, or imprisoned, or disseized + or outlawed, or exiled, or in any way harmed--nor will + we go upon or send upon him--save by the lawful judgment + of his peers or by the law of the land." + --MAGNA CHARTA, Sec. 39. + + "'Somebody has been lying in my bed--and here she + is,' cried the Little, Small, Wee Bear, in his little, small, + wee voice." + --THE THREE BEARS. + +One of the nicest men in New York was Mr. John De Puyster Hepplewhite. +The chief reason for his niceness was his entire satisfaction with +himself and the padded world in which he dwelt, where he was as +protected from all shocking, rough or otherwise unpleasant things as a +shrinking débutante from the coarse universe of fact. Being thus +shielded from every annoyance and irritation by a host of sycophants he +lived serenely in an atmosphere of unruffled calm, gazing down benignly +and with a certain condescension from the rarefied altitude of his +Fifth Avenue windows, pleased with the prospect of life as it appeared +to him to be and only slightly conscious of the vileness of his fellow +man. + +Certainly he was not conscious at all of the existence of the celebrated +law firm of Tutt & Tutt. Such vulgar persons were not of his sphere. His +own lawyers were gray-headed, dignified, rather smart attorneys who +moved only in the best social circles and practised their profession +with an air of elegance. When Mr. Hepplewhite needed advice he sent for +them and they came, chatted a while in subdued easy accents, and went +away--like cheerful undertakers. Nobody ever spoke in loud tones near +Mr. Hepplewhite because Mr. Hepplewhite did not like anything loud--not +even clothes. He was, as we have said, quite one of the nicest men in +New York. + +At the moment when Mrs. Witherspoon made her appearance he was sitting +in his library reading a copy of "Sainte-Beuve" and waiting for Bibby, +the butler, to announce tea. It was eight minutes to five and there was +still eight minutes to wait; so Mr. Hepplewhite went on reading +"Sainte-Beuve." + +Then "Mrs. Witherspoon!" intoned Bibby, and Mr. Hepplewhite rose +quickly, adjusted his eye-glass and came punctiliously forward. + +"My dear Mrs. Witherspoon!" he exclaimed crisply. "I am really +delighted to see you. It was quite charming of you to give me this +week-end." + +"Adorable of you to ask me Mr. Hepplewhite!" returned the lady. "I've +been looking forward to this visit for weeks. What a sweet room? Is that +a Corot?" + +"Yes--yes!" murmured her host modestly. "Rather nice, I think, eh? I'll +show you my few belongings after tea. Now will you go upstairs first or +have tea first?" + +"Just as you say," beamed Mrs. Witherspoon. "Perhaps I had better run up +and take off my veil." + +"Whichever you prefer," he replied chivalrously. "Do exactly as you +like. Tea will be ready in a couple of minutes." + +"Then I think I'll run up." + +"Very well. Bibby, show Mrs. Witherspoon--" + +"Very good, sir. This way, please, madam. Stockin', fetch Mrs. +Witherspoon's bag from the hall." + +Mr. Hepplewhite stood rubbing his delicate hands in front of the fire, +telling himself what a really great pleasure it was to have Mrs. +Witherspoon staying with him over the week-end. He was having a dinner +party for her that evening--of forty-eight. All that it had been +necessary for him to do to have the party was to tell Mr. Sadducee, his +secretary, that he wished to have it and direct him to send the +invitations from List Number One and then to tell Bibby the same thing +and to order the chef to serve Dinner Number Four--only to have +Johannisberger Cabinet instead of Niersteiner. + +All these things were highly important to Mr. Hepplewhite, for upon the +absolute smoothness with which tea and dinner were served and the +accuracy with which his valet selected socks to match his tie his entire +happiness, to say nothing of his peace of mind, depended. His daily life +consisted of a series of subdued and nicely adjusted social events. They +were forecast for months ahead. Nothing was ever done on the spur of the +moment at Mr. Hepplewhite's. He could tell to within a couple of seconds +just exactly what was going to occur during the balance of the day, the +remainder of Mrs. Witherspoon's stay and the rest of the month. It would +have upset him very much not to know exactly what was going to happen, +for he was a meticulously careful host and being a creature of habit the +unexpected was apt to agitate him extremely. + +So now as he stood rubbing his hands it was in the absolute certainty +that in just a few more seconds one of the footmen would appear between +the tapestry portières bearing aloft a silver tray with the tea things, +and then Bibby would come in with the paper, and presently Mrs. +Witherspoon would come down and she would make tea for him and they +would talk about tea, and Aiken, and whether the Abner Fullertons were +going to get a domestic or foreign divorce, and how his bridge was these +days. It would be very nice, and he rubbed his hands very gently and +waited for the Dresden clock to strike five in the subdued and decorous +way that it had. But he did not hear it strike. + +Instead a shriek rang out from the hall above, followed by yells and +feet pounding down the stairs. Mr. Hepplewhite turned cold and something +hard rose up in his throat. His sight dimmed. And then Bibby burst in, +pale and with protruding eyes. + +"There was a man in the guest room!" he gasped. "Stockin's got him. What +shall we do?" + +At that moment Mrs. Witherspoon followed. + +"Oh, Mr. Hepplewhite! Oh, Mr. Hepplewhite!" she gasped, staggering +toward him. + +Mr. Hepplewhite would have taken her in his arms and attempted to +comfort her only it was not done in Mr. Hepplewhite's set unless under +extreme provocation. So he pressed an armchair upon her; or, rather, +pressed her into an armchair; and leaned against the bookcase feeling +very faint. He was extremely agitated. + +"S-send for the police! S-s-send for B-burk!" he stuttered. Burk was a +husky watchman who also acted as a personal guard for Mr. Hepplewhite. + +An alarm began to beat a deafening staccato in the hall outside the +library. Bibby rushed gurgling from the room. Several tall men in knee +breeches and silk stockings dashed excitedly up and down stairs using +expressions such as had never before been heard by Mr. Hepplewhite, and +the clanging gong of a police wagon was audible as it clattered up the +Avenue. + +"Oh, Mr. Hepplewhite," whispered Mrs. Witherspoon, unconsciously seeking +his hand. "I never was so frightened in my life!" + +Then the gong stopped and the police poured into the house and up the +stairs. There were muffled noises and suppressed ejaculations of "Aw, +come on there, now! I've got him, Mike! No funny business now, you! Come +along quiet!" + +The whole house seemed blue with policemen, and Mr. Hepplewhite became +aware of a very fat man in a blue cap marked Captain, who removed the +cap deferentially and otherwise indicated that he was making obeisance. +Behind the fat man stood three other equally fat men, who held between +them with grim firmness, by arm, neck and shoulder, a much smaller--in +fact, quite a small--man shabby, unkempt, and with a desperate look upon +his unshaven face. + +"We've got him, all right, Mr. Hepplewhite!" exulted the captain, +obviously grateful that God had vouchsafed to deliver the criminal into +his and not into other hands. "Shall I take him to the house--or do you +want to examine him?" + +"I?" ejaculated Mr. Hepplewhite. "Mercy, no! Take him away as quickly as +possible!" + +"As you say, sir," wheezed the captain. "Come along, boys! Take him over +to court and arraign him!" + +"Yes, do!" urged Mrs. Witherspoon. "And arraign him as hard as you can; +for he really frightened me nearly to death, the terrible man!" + +"Leave him to me, ma'am!" adjured the captain "Will you have your butler +act as complainant sir?" he asked. + +"Why--yes--Bibby will do whatever is proper," agreed Mr. Hepplewhite. +"It will not be necessary for me to go to court, will it?" + +"Oh, no!" answered the captain. "Mr. Bibby will do all right. I suppose +we had better make the charge burglary, sir?" + +"I suppose so," replied Mr. Hepplewhite vaguely. + +"Get on, boys," ordered the captain. "Good evening, sir. Good evening, +ma'am. Step lively, you!" + +The blue cloud faded away, bearing with it both Bibby and the burglar. +Then the third footman brought the belated tea. + +"What a frightful thing to have happen!" grieved Mrs. Witherspoon as she +poured out the tea for Mr. Hepplewhite. "You don't take cream, do you?" + +"No, thanks," he answered. "I find too much cream hard to digest. I have +to be rather careful, you know. By the way, you haven't told me where +the burglar was or what he was doing when you went into the room." + +"He was in the bed," said Mrs. Witherspoon. + + * * * * * + +"In the 'Decay of Lying,' Mr. Tutt," said Tutt thoughtfully, as he +dropped in for a moment's chat after lunch, "Oscar Wilde says, 'There is +no essential incongruity between crime and culture.'" + +The senior partner removed his horn-rimmed spectacles and carefully +polished the lenses with a bit of chamois, which he produced from his +watch pocket, meanwhile resting the muscles of his forehead by elevating +his eyebrows until he somewhat resembled an inquiring but good-natured +owl. + +"That's plain enough," he replied. "The most highly cultivated people +are often the most unscrupulous. I go Oscar one better and declare that +there is a distinct relationship between crime and progress!" + +"You don't say, now!" ejaculated Tutt. "How do you make that out?" + +Mr. Tutt readjusted his spectacles and slowly selected a stogy from the +bundle in the dusty old cigar box. + +"Crime," he announced, "is the violation of the will of the majority as +expressed in the statutes. The law is wholly arbitrary and depends upon +public opinion. Acts which are crimes in one century or country become +virtues in another, and vice versa. Moreover, there is no difference, +except one of degree, between infractions of etiquette and of law, each +of which expresses the feelings and ideas of society at a given moment. +Violations of good taste, manners, morals, illegalities, wrongs, +crimes--they are all fundamentally the same thing, the insistence on +one's own will in defiance of society as a whole. The man who keeps his +hat on in a drawing-room is essentially a criminal because he prefers +his own way of doing things to that adopted by his fellows." + +"That's all right," answered Tutt. "But how about progress?" + +"Why, that is simple," replied his partner. "The man who refuses to bow +to habit, tradition, law--who thinks for himself and acts for himself, +who evolves new theories, who has the courage of his convictions and +stakes his life and liberty upon them--that man is either a statesman, a +prophet or a criminal. And in the end he is either hailed as a hero and +a liberator or is burned, cast into prison or crucified." + +Tutt looked interested. + +"Well, now," he returned, helping himself from the box, "I never thought +of it, but, of course, it's true. Your proposition is that progress +depends on development and development depends on new ideas. If the new +idea is contrary to those of society it is probably criminal. If its +inventor puts it across, gets away with it, and persuades society that +he is right he is a leader in the march of progress. If he fails he goes +to jail. Hence the relationship between crime and progress. Why not say +that crime is progress?" + +"If successful it is," answered Mr. Tutt. "But the moment it is +successful it ceases to be crime." + +"I get you," nodded Tutt. "Here to-day it is a crime to kill one's +grandmother; but I recall reading that among certain savage tribes to do +so is regarded as a highly virtuous act. Now if I convince society that +to kill one's grandmother is a good thing it ceases to be a crime. +Society has progressed. I am a public benefactor." + +"And if you don't persuade society you go to the chair," remarked Mr. +Tutt laconically. + +"To use another illustration," exclaimed Tutt, warming to the subject, +"the private ownership of property at the present time is recognized and +protected by the law, but if we had a Bolshevik government it might be a +crime to refuse to share one's property with others." + +"In that case if you took your share of another's property by force, +instead of being a thief you would be a Progressive," smiled his +partner. + +Tutt robbed his forehead. + +"Looking at it that way, you know," said he, "makes it seem as if +criminals were rather to be admired." + +"Well, some of them are, and a great multitude of them certainly were," +answered Mr. Tutt. "All the early Christian martyrs were criminals in +the sense that they were law-breakers." + +"And Martin Luther," suggested Tutt. + +"And Garibaldi," added Mr. Tutt. + +"And George Washington--maybe?" hazarded the junior partner. + +Mr. Tutt shrugged his high shoulders. + +"You press the analogy a long way, but--in a sense every successful +revolutionist was in the beginning a criminal--as every rebel is and +perforce must be," he replied. + +"So," said Tutt, "if you're a big enough criminal you cease to be a +criminal at all. If you're going to be a crook, don't be a piker--it's +too risky. Grab everything in sight. Exterminate a whole nation, if +possible. Don't be a common garden highwayman or pirate; be a Napoleon +or a Willy Hohenzollern." + +"You have the idea," replied Mr. Tutt. "Crime is unsuccessful defiance +of the existing order of things. Once rebellion rises to the dignity of +revolution murder becomes execution and the murderers become +belligerents. Therefore, as all real progress involves a change in or +defiance of existing law, those who advocate progress are essentially +criminally minded, and if they attempt to secure progress by openly +refusing to obey the law they are actual criminals. Then if they +prevail, and from being in the minority come into power, they are taken +out of jail, banquets are given in their honor, and they are called +patriots and heroes. Hence the close connection between crime and +progress." + +Tutt scratched his chin doubtfully. + +"That sounds pretty good," he admitted, "but"--and he shook his +head--"there's something the matter with it. It doesn't work except in +the case of crimes involving personal rights and liberties. I see your +point that all progressives are criminals in the sense that they are +'agin the law' as it is, but--I also see the hole in your argument, +which is that the fact that all progressives are criminals doesn't make +all criminals progressive. Your proposition is only a half truth." + +"You're quite wrong about my theory being a half truth," retorted Mr. +Tutt. "It is fundamentally sound. The fellow who steals a razor or a few +dollars is regarded as a mean thief, but if he loots a trust company or +takes a million he's a financier. The criminal law, I maintain, is +administered for the purpose of protecting the strong from the weak, the +successful from the unsuccessful the rich from the poor. And, sir"--Mr. +Tutt here shook his fist at an imaginary jury--"the man who wears a red +necktie in violation of the taste of his community or eats peas with his +knife is just as much a criminal as a man who spits on the floor when +there's a law against it. Don't you agree with me?" + +"I do not!" replied Tutt. "But that makes no difference. Nevertheless +what you say about the criminal law being devised to protect the rich +from the poor interests me very much--very much indeed But I think +there's a flaw in that argument too, isn't there? Your proposition is +true only to the extent that the criminal law is invoked to protect +property rights--and not life and liberty. Naturally the laws that +protect property are chiefly of benefit to those who have it--the rich." + +"However that may be," declared Mr. Tutt fiercely, "I claim that the +criminal laws are administered, interpreted and construed in favor of +the rich as against the liberties of the poor, for the simple reason +that the administrators of the criminal law desire to curry favor with +the powers that be." + +"The moral of which all is," retorted the other, "that the law ought to +be very careful about locking up people." + +"At any rate those who have violated laws upon which there can be a +legitimate difference of opinion," agreed Mr. Tutt. + +"That's where we come in," said Tutt. "We make the difference--even if +there never was any before." + +Mr. Tutt chuckled. + +"We perform a dual service to society," he declared. "We prevent the law +from making mistakes and so keep it from falling into disrepute, and we +show up its weak points and thus enable it to be improved." + +"And incidentally we keep many a future statesman and prophet from going +to prison," said Tutt. "The name of the last one was Solomon +Rabinovitch--and he was charged with stealing a second-hand razor from a +colored person described in the papers as one Morris Cohen." + +How long this specious philosophic discussion would have continued is +problematical had it not been interrupted by the entry of a young +gentleman dressed with a somewhat ostentatious elegance, whose wizened +face bore an expression at once of vast good nature and of a deep and +subtle wisdom. + +It was clear that he held an intimate relationship to Tutt & Tutt from +the familiar way in which he returned their cordial, if casual, +salutations. + +"Well, here we are again," remarked Mr. Doon pleasantly, seating himself +upon the corner of Mr. Tutt's desk and spinning his bowler hat upon the +forefinger of his left hand. "The hospitals are empty. The Tombs is as +dry as a bone. Everybody's good and every day'll be Sunday by and by." + +"How about that man who stole a razor?" asked Tutt. + +"Discharged on the ground that the fact that he had a full beard created +a reasonable doubt," replied Doon. "Honestly there's nothing doing in my +line--unless you want a tramp case." + +"A tramp case!" exclaimed Tutt & Tutt. + +"I suppose you'd call it that," he answered blandly. "I don't think he +was a burglar. Anyhow he's in the Tombs now, shouting for a lawyer. I +listened to him and made a note of the case." + +Mr. Tutt pushed over the box of stogies and leaned back attentively. + +"You know the Hepplewhite house up on Fifth Avenue--that great stone +one with the driveway?" + +The Tutts nodded. + +"Well, it appears that the prisoner--our prospective client--was +snooping round looking for something to eat and found that the butler +had left the front door slightly ajar. Filled with a natural curiosity +to observe how the other half lived, he thrust his way cautiously in and +found himself in the main hall--hung with tapestry and lined with stands +of armor. No one was to be seen. Can't you imagine him standing there in +his rags--the Weary Willy of the comic supplements--gazing about him at +the _objets d'art_, the old masters, the onyx tables, the +statuary--wondering where the pantry was and whether the housekeeper +would be more likely to feed him or kick him out?" + +"Weren't any of the domestics about?" inquired Tutt. + +"Not one. They were all taking an afternoon off, except the third +assistant second man who was reading 'The Pilgrim's Progress' in the +servants' hall. To resume, our friend was not only very hungry, but very +tired. He had walked all the way from Yonkers, and he needed everything +from a Turkish bath to a manicuring. He had not been shaved for weeks. +His feet sank almost out of sight in the thick nap of the carpets. It +was quiet, warm, peaceful in there. A sense of relaxation stole over +him. He hated to go away, he says, and he meditated no wrong. But he +wanted to see what it was like upstairs. + +"So up he went. It was like the palace of 'The Sleeping Beauty.' +Everywhere his eyes were soothed by the sight of hothouse plants, marble +floors, priceless rugs, luxurious divans--" + +"Stop!" cried Tutt. "You are making me sleepy!" + +"Well, that's what it did to him. He wandered along the upper hall, +peeking into the different rooms, until finally he came to a beautiful +chamber finished entirely in pink silk. It had a pink rug--of silk; the +furniture was upholstered in pink silk, the walls were lined with pink +silk and in the middle of the room was a great big bed with a pink silk +coverlid and a canopy of the same. It seemed to him that that bed must +have been predestined for him. Without a thought for the morrow he +jumped into it, pulled the coverlid over his head and went fast asleep. + +"Meanwhile, at tea time Mrs. De Lancy Witherspoon arrived for the +week-end. Bibby, the butler, followed by Stocking, the second man, +bearing the hand luggage, escorted the guest to the Bouguereau Room, as +the pink-silk chamber is called." + +Mr. Bonnie Doon, carried away by his own powers of description, waved +his hand dramatically at the old leather couch against the side wall, +in which Weary Willy was supposed to be reclining. + +"Can't you see 'em?" he declaimed. "The haughty Bibby with nose in air, +preceding the great dame of fashion, enters the pink room and comes to +attention, 'This way, madam!' he declaims, and Mrs. Witherspoon sweeps +across the threshold." Bonnie Doon, picking up an imaginary skirt, +waddled round Mr. Tutt and approached the couch. Suddenly he started +back. + +"Oh, la, la!" he half shrieked, dancing about. "There is a man in the +bed!" + +Both Tutts stared hard at the couch as if fully expecting to see the +form of Weary Willy thereon. Bonnie Doon had a way of making things +appear very vivid. + +"And sure enough," he concluded, "there underneath the coverlid in the +middle of the bed was a huddled heap with a stubby beard projecting like +Excalibur from a pink silk lake!" + +"Excuse me," interrupted Tutt. "But may I ask what this is all about?" + +"Why, your new case, to be sure," grinned Bonnie, who, had he been +employed by any other firm, might have run the risk of being regarded as +an ambulance chaser. "To make a long and tragic story short, they sent +for the watchman, whistled for a policeman, telephoned for the hurry-up +wagon, and haled the sleeper away to prison--where he is now, waiting +to be tried." + +"Tried!" ejaculated Mr. Tutt. "What for?" + +"For crime, to be sure," answered Mr. Doon. + +"What crime?" + +"I don't know. They'll find one, of course." + +Mr. Tutt swiftly lowered his legs from the desk and brought his fist +down upon it with a bang. + +"Outrageous! What was I just telling you, Tutt!" he cried, a flush +coming into his wrinkled face. "This poor man is a victim of the +overzealousness which the officers of the law exhibit in protecting the +privileges and property of the rich. If John De Puyster Hepplewhite fell +asleep in somebody's vestibule the policeman on post would send him home +in a cab; but if a hungry tramp does the same thing he runs him in. If +John De Puyster Hepplewhite should be arrested for some crime they would +let him out on bail; while the tramp is imprisoned for weeks awaiting +trial, though under the law he is presumed to be innocent. Is he +presumed to be innocent? Not much! He is presumed to be guilty, +otherwise he would not be there. But what is he presumed to be guilty +of? That's what I want to know! Just because this poor man--hungry, +thirsty and weary--happened to select a bed belonging to John De Puyster +Hepplewhite to lie on he is thrown into prison, indicted by a grand +jury, and tried for felony! Ye gods! 'Sweet land of liberty!'" + +"Well, he hasn't been tried yet," replied Bonnie Doon. "If you feel that +way about it why don't you defend him?" + +"I will!" shouted Mr. Tutt, springing to his feet. "I'll defend him and +acquit him!" + +He seized his tall hat, placed it upon his head and strode rapidly +through the door. + +"He will too!" remarked Bonnie, winking at Tutt. + +"He thinks that tramp is either a statesman or a prophet!" mused Tutt, +his mind reverting to his partner's earlier remarks. + +"He won't think so after he's seen him," replied Mr. Doon. + +It sometimes happens that those who seek to establish great principles +and redress social evils involve others in an involuntary martyrdom far +from their desires. Mr. Tutt would have gone to the electric chair +rather than see the Hepplewhite Tramp, as he was popularly called by the +newspapers convicted of a crime, but the very fact that he had become +his legal champion interjected a new element into the situation, +particularly as O'Brien, Mr. Tutt's arch enemy in the district +attorney's office, had been placed in charge of the case. + +It would have been one thing to let Hans Schmidt--that was the tramp's +name--go, if after remaining in the Tombs until he had been forgotten by +the press he could have been unobtrusively hustled over the Bridge of +Sighs to freedom. Then there would have been no comeback. But with +Ephraim Tutt breathing fire and slaughter, accusing the police and +district attorney of being trucklers to the rich and great, and +oppressors of the poor--law breakers, in fact--O'Brien found himself in +the position of one having an elephant by the tail and unable to let go. + +In fact, it looked as if the case of the Hepplewhite Tramp might become +a political issue. That there was something of a comic side to it made +it all the worse. + +"Holy cats, boys!" snorted District Attorney Peckham to the circle of +disgruntled police officers and assistants gathered about him on the +occasion described by the reporters as his making a personal +investigation of the case, "Why in the name of common sense didn't you +simply boot the fellow into the street?" + +"I wish we had, counselor!" assented the captain of the Hepplewhite +precinct mournfully. "But we thought he was a burglar. I guess he was, +at that--and it was Mr. Hepplewhite's house." + +"I've heard that until I'm sick of it!" retorted Peckham. + +"One thing is sure--if we turn him out now Tutt will sue us all for +false arrest and put the whole administration on the bum," snarled +O'Brien. + +"But I didn't know the tramp would get Mr. Tutt to defend him," +expostulated the captain. "Anyhow, ain't it a crime to go to sleep in +another man's bed?" + +"If it ain't it ought to be!" declared his plain-clothes man +sententiously. "Can't you indict him for burglary?" + +"You can indict all day; the thing is to convict!" snapped Peckham. +"It's up to you, O'Brien, to square this business so that the law is +vindicated--somehow It must be a crime to go into a house on Fifth +Avenue and use it as a hotel. Why, you can't cross the street faster +than a walk these days without committing a crime. Everything's a +crime." + +"Sure thing," agreed the captain. "I never yet had any trouble finding a +crime to charge a man with, once I got the nippers on him." + +"That's so," interjected the plain-clothes man. "Did you ever know it +was a crime to mismanage a steam boiler? Well, it is." + +"Quite right," agreed Mr. Magnus, the indictment clerk. "The great +difficulty for the perfectly honest man nowadays is to avoid some act or +omission which the legislature has seen fit to make a crime without his +knowledge. Refilling a Sarsaparilla bottle, for instance, or getting up +a masquerade ball or going fishing or playing on Sunday or loitering +about a building to overhear what people are talking about inside--" + +"That's no crime," protested the captain scornfully. + +"Yes, it is too!" retorted Mr. Magnus, otherwise known to his fellows as +Caput, because of his supposed cerebral inflation. "Just like it is a +crime to have any kind of a show or procession on Sunday except a +funeral, in which case it's a crime to make a disbursing noise at it." + +"What's a disbursing noise?" demanded O'Brien. + +"I don't know," admitted Magnus. "But that's the law anyway. You can't +make a disbursing noise at a funeral on Sunday." + +"Oh, hell!" ejaculated the captain. "Come to think of it, it's a crime +to spit. What man is safe?" + +"It occurs to me," continued Mr. Magnus thoughtfully, "that it is a +crime under the law to build a house on another man's land; now I should +say that there was a close analogy between doing that and sleeping in +his bed." + +"Hear! Hear!" commented O'Brien. "Caput Magnus, otherwise known as Big +Head, there is no doubt but that your fertile brain can easily devise a +way out of our present difficulty." + +"Well, I've no time to waste on tramp cases," remarked District +Attorney Peckham. "I've something more important to attend to. Indict +this fellow and send him up quick. Charge him with everything in sight +and trust in the Lord. That's the only thing to be done. Don't bother me +about it, that's all!" + +Meantime Mr. Hepplewhite became more and more agitated. Entirely against +his will and, so far as he could see, without any fault of his own, he +suddenly found himself the center of a violent and acrimonious +controversy respecting the fundamental and sacred rights of freemen +which threatened to disrupt society and extinguish the supremacy of the +dominant local political organization. + +On the one hand he was acclaimed by the conservative pulpit and press as +a public-spirited citizen who had done exactly the right +thing--disinterestedly enforced the law regardless of his own +convenience and safety as a matter of principle and for the sake of the +community--a moral hero; on the other, though he was president of +several charitable organizations and at least one orphan asylum he was +execrated as a heartless brute, an oppressor of the poor, an octopus, a +soulless capitalist who fattened on the innocent and helpless and +who--Mr. Hepplewhite was a bachelor--probably if the truth could be +known lived a life of horrid depravity and crime. + +Indeed there was a man named Tutt, of whom Mr. Hepplewhite had never +before heard, who publicly declared that he, Tutt, would show him, +Hepplewhite, up for what he was and make him pay with his body and his +blood, to say nothing of his money, for what he had done and caused to +be done. And so Mr. Hepplewhite became even more agitated, until he +dreamed of this Tutt as an enormous bird like the fabled roc, with a +malignant face and a huge hooked beak that some day would nip him in the +abdomen and fly, croaking, away with him. Mrs. Witherspoon had returned +to Aiken, and after the first flood of commiserations from his friends +on Lists Numbers One, Two, Three and Four he felt neglected, lonely and +rather fearful. + +And then one morning something happened that upset his equanimity +entirely. He had just started out for a walk in the park when a flashy +person who looked like an actor walked impudently up to him and handed +him a piece of paper in which was wrapped a silver half dollar. In a +word Mr. Hepplewhite was subpoenaed and the nervous excitement attendant +upon that operation nearly caused his collapse. For he was thereby +commanded to appear before the Court of General Sessions of the Peace +upon the following Monday at ten a.m. as a witness in a criminal action +prosecuted by the People of the State of New York against Hans Schmidt. +Moreover, the paper was a dirty-brown color and bore the awful name of +Tutt. He returned immediately to the house and telephoned for Mr. +Edgerton, his lawyer, who at once jumped into a taxi on the corner of +Wall and Broad Streets and hurried uptown. + +"Edgerton," said Hepplewhite faintly as the lawyer entered his library, +"this whole unfortunate affair has almost made me sick. I had nothing to +do with the arrest of this man Schmidt. The police did everything. And +now I'm ordered to appear as a witness! Why, I hardly looked at the man. +I shouldn't know him if I saw him. Do I have to go to court?" + +Mr. Edgerton smiled genially in a manner which he thought would +encourage Mr. Hepplewhite. + +"I suppose you'll have to go to court. You can't help that, you know, if +you've been subpoenaed. But you can't testify to anything that I can +see. It's just a formality." + +"Formality!" groaned his client. "Well, I supposed the arrest was just a +formality." + +Mr. Edgerton smiled again rather unconvincingly. + +"Well, you see, you can't always tell what will happen when you once +start something," he began. + +"But I didn't start anything," answered Mr. Hepplewhite. "I had nothing +to say about it." + +At that moment Bibby appeared in the doorway. + +"Excuse me, sir," he said. "There is a young man outside who asked me to +tell you that he has a paper he wishes to serve on you--and would you +mind saving him the trouble of waiting for you to go out?" + +"Another!" gagged Mr. Hepplewhite. + +"Yes, sir! Thank you, sir," stammered Bibby. + +Mr. Hepplewhite looked inquiringly at Mr. Edgerton and rose feebly. + +"He'll get you sooner or later," declared the lawyer. "A man as well +known as you can't avoid process." + +Mr. Hepplewhite bit his lips and went out into the hall. + +Presently he returned carrying a legal-looking bunch of papers. + +"Well, what is it this time?" asked Edgerton jocosely. + +"It's a suit for false imprisonment for one hundred thousand dollars!" +choked Mr. Hepplewhite. + +Mr. Edgerton looked shocked. + +"Well, now you've got to convict him!" he declared. + +"Convict him?" retorted Mr. Hepplewhite. "I don't want to convict him. +I'd gladly give a hundred thousand dollars to get out of the--the--darn +thing!" + +Which was as near profanity as he had ever permitted himself to go. + + * * * * * + +Upon the following Monday Mr. Hepplewhite proceeded to court--flanked by +his distinguished counsel in frock coats and tall hats--simply because +he had been served with a dirty-brown subpoena by Tutt & Tutt; and his +distress was not lessened by the crowd of reporters who joined him at +the entrance of the Criminal Courts Building; or by the flashlight bomb +that was exploded in the corridor in order that the evening papers might +reproduce his picture on the front page. He had never been so much in +the public eye before, and he felt slightly defiled. For some curious +reason he had the feeling that he and not Schmidt was the actual +defendant charged with being guilty of something; nor was this +impression dispelled even by listening to the indictment by which the +Grand Jury charged Schmidt in eleven counts with burglary in the first, +second and third degrees and with the crime of entering his, +Hepplewhite's, house under circumstances not amounting to a burglary but +with intent to commit a felony, as follows: + +"Therefore, to wit, on the eleventh day of January in the year of our +Lord one thousand nine hundred and nineteen in the night-time of the +said day at the ward, city and county aforesaid the dwelling house of +one John De Puyster Hepplewhite there situate, feloniously and +burglariously did break into and enter there being then and there a +human being in said dwelling house, with intent to commit some crime +therein, to wit, the goods, chattels, and personal property of the said +John De Puyster Hepplewhite, then and there being found, then and there +feloniously and burglariously to steal, take and carry away one silver +tea service of the value of five hundred dollars and one pair of opera +glasses of the value of five dollars each with force and arms----" + +"But that silver tea service cost fifteen thousand dollars and weighs +eight hundred pounds!" whispered Mr. Hepplewhite. + +"Order in the court!" shouted Captain Phelan, pounding upon the oak rail +of the bar, and Mr. Hepplewhite subsided. + +Yet as he sat there between his lawyers listening to all the +extraordinary things that the Grand Jury evidently had believed Schmidt +intended to do, the suspicion began gradually to steal over him that +something was not entirely right somewhere. Why, it was ridiculous to +charge the man with trying to carry off a silver service weighing nearly +half a ton when he simply had gone to bed and fallen asleep. Still, +perhaps that was the law. + +However, when the assistant district attorney opened the People's case +to the jury Mr. Hepplewhite began to feel much more at ease. Indeed +O'Brien made it very plain that the defendant had been guilty of a very +grievous--he pronounced it "gree-vious"--offense in forcing his way into +another man's private house. It might or might not be burglary--that +would depend upon the testimony--but in any event it was a criminal, +illegal entry and he should ask for a conviction. A man's house was his +castle and--to quote from that most famous of orators and +statesmen--Edmund Burke--"the wind might enter, the rain might enter, +but the King of England might not enter!" Thus Schmidt could not enter +the house of Hepplewhite without making himself amenable to the law. + +Hepplewhite was filled with admiration for Mr. O'Brien, and his drooping +spirits reared their wilted heads as the prosecutor called Bibby to the +stand and elicited from him the salient features of the case. The jury +was vastly interested in the butler personally, as well as his account +rendered in the choicest cockney of how he had discovered Schmidt in his +master's bed. O'Brien bowed to Mr. Tutt and told him that he might +cross-examine. + +And then it was that Mr. Hepplewhite discovered why he had been haunted +by that mysterious feeling of guilt; for by some occult and subtle +method of suggestion on the part of Mr. Tutt, the case, instead of +being a trial of Schmidt, resolved itself into an attack upon Mr. +Hepplewhite and his retainers and upon the corrupt minions of the law +who had violated every principle of justice, decency and morality in +order to accomplish the unscrupulous purposes of a merciless +aristocrat--meaning him. With biting sarcasm, Mr. Tutt forced from the +writhing Bibby the admission that the prisoner was sound asleep in the +pink silk fastnesses of the Bouguereau Room when he was discovered that +he made no attempt to escape, that he did not assault anybody and that +he had appeared comatose from exhaustion; that there was no sign of a +break anywhere, and that the pair of opera glasses "worth five dollars +_apiece_"--Tutt invited the court's attention to this ingenuous +phraseology of Mr. Caput Magnus, as a literary curiosity--were a figment +of the imagination. + +In a word Mr. Tutt rolled Bibby up and threw him away, while his master +shuddered at the open disclosure of his trusted major-domo's vulgarity, +mendacity and general lack of sportsmanship. Somehow all at once the +case began to break up and go all to pot. The jury got laughing at +Bibby, the footmen and the cops as Mr. Tutt painted for their +edification the scene following the arrival of Mrs. Witherspoon, when +Schmidt was discovered asleep, as Mr. Tutt put it, like Goldilocks in +the Little, Small, Wee Bear's bed. + +Stocking was the next witness, and he fared no better than had Bibby. +O'Brien, catching the judge's eye, made a wry face and imperceptibly +lowered his left lid--on the side away from the jury, thus officially +indicating that, of course, the case was a lemon but that there was +nothing that could be done except to try it out to the bitter end. + +Then he rose and called out unexpectedly: "Mr. John De Puyster +Hepplewhite--take the stand!" + +It was entirely unexpected. No one had suggested that he would be called +for the prosecution. Possibly O'Brien was actuated by a slight touch of +malice; possibly he wanted to be able, if the case was lost, to accuse +Hepplewhite of losing it on his own testimony. But at any rate he +certainly had no anticipation of what the ultimate consequence of his +act would be. + +Mr. Hepplewhite suddenly felt as though his entire intestinal mechanism +had been removed. But he had no time to take counsel of his fears. +Everybody in the courtroom turned with one accord and looked at him. He +rose, feeling as one who dreams; that he is naked in the midst of a +multitude. He shrank back hesitating, but hostile hands reached out and +pushed him forward. Cringing, he slunk to the witness chair, and for the +first time faced the sardonic eyes of the terrible Tutt, his adversary +who looked scornfully from Hepplewhite to the jury and then from the +jury back to Hepplewhite as if to say: "Look at him! Call you this a +man?" + +"You are the Mr. Hepplewhite who has been referred to in the testimony +as the owner of the house in which the defendant was found?" inquired +O'Brien. + +"Yes--yes," answered Mr. Hepplewhite deprecatingly. + +"The first witness--Bibby--is in your employ?" + +"Yes--yes." + +"Did you have a silver tea set of the value of--er--at least five +hundred dollars in the house?" + +"It was worth fifteen thousand," corrected Mr. Hepplewhite. + +"Oh! Now, have you been served by the defendant's attorneys with a +summons and complaint in an action for false arrest in which damages are +claimed in the sum of one hundred thousand dollars?" + +"I object!" shouted Mr. Tutt. "It is wholly irrelevant." + +"I think it shows the importance of the result of this trial to the +witness," argued O'Brien perfunctorily. "It shows this case isn't any +joke--even if some people seem to think it is." + +"Objection sustained," ruled the court. "The question is irrelevant. The +jury is supposed to know that every case is important to those +concerned--to the defendant as well as to those who charge him with +crime." + +O'Brien bowed. + +"That's all. You may examine, Mr. Tutt." + +The old lawyer slowly unfolded his tall frame and gazed quizzically down +upon the shivering Hepplewhite. + +"You have been sued by my client for one hundred thousand dollars, +haven't you?" he demanded. + +"Object!" shot out O'Brien. + +"Overruled," snapped the court. "It is a proper question for +cross-examination. It may show motive." + +Mr. Hepplewhite sat helplessly until the shooting was over. + +"Answer the question!" suddenly shouted Mr. Tutt. + +"But I thought--" he began. + +"Don't think!" retorted the court sarcastically. "The time to think has +gone by. Answer!" + +"I don't know what the question is," stammered Mr. Hepplewhite, +thoroughly frightened. + +"Lord! Lord!" groaned O'Brien in plain hearing of the jury. + +Mr. Tutt sighed sympathetically in mock resignation. + +"My dear sir," he began in icy tones, "when you had my client arrested +and charged with being a burglar, had you made any personal inquiry as +to the facts?" + +"I didn't have him arrested!" protested the witness. + +"You deny that you ordered Bibby to charge the defendant with burglary?" +roared Mr. Tutt. "Take care! You know there is such a crime as perjury, +do you not?" + +"No--I mean yes," stuttered Mr. Hepplewhite abjectly. "That is, I've +heard about perjury--but the police attended to everything for me." + +"Aha!" cried Mr. Tutt, snorting angrily like the war horse depicted in +the Book of Job. "The police 'attended' to my client for you, did they? +What do you mean--for you? Did you pay them for their little attention?" + +"I always send them something on Christmas," said Mr. Hepplewhite. "Just +like the postmen." + +Mr. Tutt looked significantly at the jury, while a titter ran round the +court room. + +"Well," he continued with patient irony, "what we wish to know is +whether these friends of yours whom you so kindly remember at Christmas +dragged the helpless man away from your house, threw him into jail and +charged him with burglary by your authority?" + +"I didn't think anything about it," asserted Hepplewhite "Really I +didn't. I assumed that they knew what to do under such circumstances. I +didn't suppose they needed any authority from me." + +Mr. Tutt eyed sideways the twelve jurymen. + +"Trying to get out of it, are you? Attempting to avoid responsibility? +Are you thinking of what your position will be if the defendant is +acquitted--with an action against you for one hundred thousand dollars?" + +Ashamed, terrified, humiliated, Mr. Hepplewhite almost burst into tears. +He had suffered a complete moral disintegration--did not know where to +turn for help or sympathy. The whole world seemed to have risen against +him. He opened his mouth to reply, but the words would not come. He +looked appealingly at the judge, but the judge coldly ignored him. The +whole room seemed crowded with a multitude of leering eyes. Why had God +made him a rich man? Why was he compelled to suffer those terrible +indignities? He was not responsible for what had been done--why then, +was he being treated so abominably? + +"I don't want this man punished!" he suddenly broke out in fervent +expostulation. "I have nothing against him. I don't believe he intended +to do any wrong. And I hope the jury will acquit him!" + +"Oho!" whistled Mr. Tutt exultantly, while O'Brien gazed at Hepplewhite +in stupefaction. _Was_ this a man? + +"So you admit that the charge against my client is without foundation?" +insisted Mr. Tutt. + +Hepplewhite nodded weakly. + +"I don't know rightly what the charge is--but I don't think he meant any +harm," he faltered. + +"Then why did you have the police put him under arrest and hale him +away?" challenged Mr. Tutt ferociously. + +"I supposed they had to--if he came into my house," said Mr. +Hepplewhite. Then he added shamefacedly: "I know it sounds silly--but +frankly I did not know that I had anything to say in the matter. If your +client has been injured by my fault or mistake I will gladly reimburse +him as handsomely as you wish." + +O'Brien gasped. Then he made a funnel of his hands and whispered toward +the bench: "Take it away, for heaven's sake!" + +"That is all!" remarked Mr. Tutt with deep sarcasm, making an elaborate +bow in the direction of Mr. Hepplewhite. "Thank you for your excellent +intentions!" + +A snicker followed Mr. Hepplewhite as he dragged himself back to his +seat among the spectators. + +He felt as though he had passed through a clothes wringer. Dimly he +heard Mr. Tutt addressing the court. + +"And I move, Your Honor," the lawyer was paying, "that you take the +counts for burglary in the first, second and third degrees away from the +jury on the ground that there has been a complete failure of proof that +my client broke into the house of this man Hepplewhite either by night +or by day, or that he assaulted anybody or stole anything there, or ever +intended to." + +"Motion granted," agreed the judge. "I quite agree with you, Mr. Tutt. +There is no evidence here of any breaking. In fact, the inferences are +all the other way." + +"I further move that you take from the consideration of the jury the +remaining count of illegally entering the house with intent to commit a +crime and direct the jury to acquit the defendant for lack of evidence," +continued Mr. Tutt. + +"But what was your client doing in the house?" inquired the judge. "He +had no particular business in it, had he?" + +"That does not make his presence a crime, Your Honor," retorted the +lawyer. "A man is not guilty of a felony who falls asleep on my haycock. +Why should he be if he falls asleep in my bed?" + +The judge smiled. + +"We have no illegal entry statute with respect to fields or meadows, Mr. +Tutt," he remarked good-naturedly. "No, I shall be obliged to let the +jury decide whether this defendant went into that house for an honest +or dishonest purpose. It is clearly a proper question for them to pass +upon. Proceed with your case." + +Now when, as in the case of the Hepplewhite Tramp, the chief witness for +the prosecution throws up his hands and offers to repay the defendant +for the wrong he has done him, naturally it is all over but the +shouting. + +"There is no need for me to call the defendant," Mr. Tutt told the +court, "in view of the admissions made by the last witness. I am ready +to proceed with the summing up." + +"As you deem wise," answered the judge. "Proceed then." + +Through a blur of sight and sound Mr. Hepplewhite dimly heard Mr. Tutt +addressing the jury and saw them lean forward to catch his every word. + +Beside him Mr. Edgerton was saying protestingly: "May I ask why you made +those fool statements on the witness stand?" + +"Because I didn't want an innocent man convicted," returned Mr. +Hepplewhite tartly. + +"Well, you'll get your wish!" sniffed his lawyer. "And you'll get soaked +for about twenty thousand dollars for false arrest!" + +"I don't care," retorted the client. "And what's more I hope Mr. Tutt +gets a substantial fee out of it. He strikes me as a lawyer who knows +his business!" + +The oldest and fattest court officers, men so old and fat that they +remembered the trial of Boss Tweed and the days when Delancey Nicoll was +the White Hope of the Brownstone Court House--declared Mr. Tutt's +summation was the greatest that ever they heard. For the shrewd old +lawyer had an artist's hand with which he played upon the keyboard of +the jury and knew just when to pull out the stops of the _vox humana_ of +pathos and the grand diapason of indignation and defiance. So he began +by tickling their sense of humor with an ironic description of afternoon +tea at Mr. Hepplewhite's, with Bibby and Stocking as chief actors, until +all twelve shook with suppressed laughter and the judge was forced to +hide his face behind the _Law Journal_; ridiculed the idea of a criminal +who wanted to commit a crime calmly going to sleep in a pink silk bed in +broad daylight; and then brought tears to their eyes as he pictured the +wretched homeless tramp, sick, footsore and starving, who, drawn by the +need of food and warmth to this silk nest of luxury, was clubbed, +arrested and jailed simply because he had violated the supposed sanctity +of a rich man's home. + +The jury watched him as intently as a dog watches a piece of meat held +over its nose. They smiled with him, they wept with him, they glared at +Mr. Hepplewhite and they gazed in a friendly way at Schmidt, whom Mr. +Tutt had bailed out just before the trial. The very stars in their +courses seemed warring for Tutt & Tutt. In the words of Phelan: "There +was nothing to it!" + +"Thank God," concluded Mr. Tutt eloquently, "that in this land of +liberty in which we are privileged to dwell no man can be convicted of a +crime except by a jury of his peers--a right sacred under our +Constitution and inherited from Magna Charta, that foundation stone of +English liberty, in which the barons forced King John to declare that +'No freeman shall be taken, or imprisoned, or disseized, or outlawed, or +exiled, or in any way harmed ... save by the lawful judgment of his +peers or by the law of the land.' + +"Had I the time I would demonstrate to you the arbitrary character of +our laws and the inequality with which they are administered. + +"But in this case the chief witness has already admitted the innocence +of the defendant. There is nothing more to be said. The prosecution has +cried '_Peccavi!_' I leave my client in your hands." + +He resumed his seat contentedly and wiped his forehead with his silk +handkerchief. The judge looked down at O'Brien with raised eyebrows. + +"I will leave the case to the jury on Your Honor's charge," remarked +the latter carelessly. + +"Gentlemen of the jury," began the judge, "the defendant is accused of +entering the house of Mr. Hepplewhite with the intent to commit a crime +therein--" + +Mr. Hepplewhite sat, his head upon his breast, for what seemed to him +several hours. He had but one thought--to escape. His ordeal had been +far worse than he had anticipated. But he had made a discovery. He had +suddenly realized that one cannot avoid one's duties to one's fellows by +leaving one's affairs to others--not even to the police. He perceived +that he had lived with his head stuck in the sand. He had tried to +escape from his responsibilities as a citizen by hiding behind the thick +walls of his stone mansion on Fifth Avenue. He made up his mind that he +would do differently if he ever had the chance. Meanwhile, was not the +jury ever going to set the poor man free? + +They had indeed remained out a surprisingly long time in order merely to +reach a verdict which was a mere formality. Ah! There they were! Mr. +Hepplewhite watched with palpitating heart while they straggled slowly +in. The clerk made the ordinary perfunctory inquiry as to what their +verdict was. Mr. Hepplewhite did not hear what the foreman said in +reply, but he saw both the Tutts and O'Brien start from their seats and +heard a loud murmur rise throughout the court room. + +"What's that!" cried the clerk in astonished tones. "What did you say, +Mister Foreman?" + +"I said that we find the defendant guilty," replied the foreman calmly. + +Mr. Tutt stared incredulously at the twelve traitors who had betrayed +him. + +"Never mind, Mr. Tutt," whispered Number Six confidentially. "You did +the best you could. Your argument was fine--grand--but nobody could ever +make us believe that your client went into that house for any purpose +except to steal whatever he could lay his hands on. Besides, it wasn't +Mr. Hepplewhite's fault. He means well. And anyhow a nut like that has +got to be protected against himself." + +He might have enlightened Mr. Tutt further upon the psychology of the +situation had not the judge at that moment ordered the prisoner +arraigned at the bar. + +"Have you ever been convicted before?" asked His Honor sharply. + +"Sure," replied the Hepplewhite Tramp carelessly. "I've done three or +four bits, I'm a burglar. But you can't give me more than a year for +illegal entry." + +"That is quite true," admitted His Honor stiffly. "And it isn't half +enough!" He hesitated. "Perhaps under the circumstances you'll tell us +what you were doing in Mr. Hepplewhite's bed?" + +"Oh, I don't mind," returned the defendant with the superior air of one +who has put something over. "When I heard the guy in the knee breeches +coming up the stairs I just dove for the slats and played I was asleep." + +Leaving the courthouse Mr. Tutt encountered Bonnie Doon. + +"Young man," he remarked severely, "you assured me that fellow was only +a harmless tramp!" + +"Well," answered Bonnie, "that's what he said." + +"He says now he's a burglar," retorted Mr. Tutt wrathfully. "I don't +believe he knows what he is. Did you ever hear of such an outrageous +verdict? With not a scrap of evidence to support it?" + +Bonnie lit a cigarette doubtfully. + +"Oh, I don't know," he muttered. "The jury seems to have sized him up +rather better than we did." + +"Jury!" growled Mr. Tutt, rolling his eyes heavenward. "'Sweet land of +liberty!'" + + + + +Lallapaloosa Limited + + + + "Ethics: The doctrine of man's duty in respect to + himself and the rights of others." + --CENTURY DICTIONARY. + + "I don't say that all these people couldn't be squared; + but it is right to tell you that I shouldn't be sufficiently + degraded in my own estimation unless I was insulted + with a very considerable bribe." + --POOH-BAH. + +"I've been all over those securities," Miss Wiggin informed Mr. Tutt as +he entered the office one morning, "and not a single one of them is +listed on the Stock Exchange." + +"What securities are those?" asked her employer, hanging his tall hat on +the antiquated mahogany coat tree in the corner opposite the screen that +ambushed the washing apparatus. "I don't remember any securities," he +remarked as he applied a match to the off end of a particularly green +and vicious-looking stogy. + +"Why, of course you do, Mr. Tutt!" insisted Miss Wiggin. "Don't you +remember those great piles of bonds and stocks that Doctor Barrows left +here with you to keep for him?" + +"Oh, those!" Mr. Tutt smiled inscrutably. "Mr. Barrows is not a +physician," he corrected her, running his eye over the General Sessions +calendar. "He's only a 'doc'--that is to say, one who doctors. You know +you can doctor a lot of things besides the human anatomy. No, I guess +they're not listed on the Stock Exchange or anywhere else." + +"Well, here's a schedule I made of them--Miss Sondheim typed it--and +their total face value is seventeen million eight hundred thousand +dollars. I tried to find out all I could, but none of the firms on Wall +Street had ever heard of any of them--excepting of one that was traded +in on the curb up to within a few weeks. There's Great Lakes and +Canadian Southern Railway Company," she went on, "Chicago Water Front +and Terminal Company, Great Geyser Texan Petroleum and Llano Estacado +Land Company--dozens and dozens of them, and not one has an office or, +so far as I can find out, any tangible existence--but the one I spoke +of." + +"Which is this great exception?" queried Mr. Tutt absently as he +searched through the _Law Journal_ for the case he was going to try that +afternoon. "You said one of them had been dealt in on the curb? You +astonish me!" + +"It's got a funny name," she answered. "It almost sounds as if they +meant it for a joke--Horse's Neck Extension." + +"I guess they meant it for a joke all right--on the public," chuckled +her employer. "How many shares are there?" + +"A hundred thousand," she answered. + +"Jumping Jehoshaphat!" ejaculated Mr. Tutt. "How on earth did old Doc +manage to get hold of them?" + +"It sold for only ten cents a share!" replied Miss Wiggin. "That would +mean ten thousand dollars--" + +"If Doc paid for it," supplemented Mr. Tutt. "Which he probably didn't. +What's it selling for now?" + +"It isn't selling at all." + +Mr. Tutt pressed the button that summoned Willie. + +"When you haven't anything better to do," he said to her, "why don't you +go round and see what has become of--of--Horse's Neck Extension?" + +"I will," assented Miss Wiggin. "It makes me feel rich just to talk +about such things. I just love it." + +"Many a slick crook has taken advantage of just that kind of feeling," +mused Mr. Tutt. "There are two things that women--particularly trained +nurses--seem to like better than anything else in the world--babies and +stock certificates." + +Then upon the arrival of the recalcitrant William he gathered up his +papers and took down his hat from the tree. + +"I wish you'd let me get your hat ironed, Mr. Tutt," remarked Miss +Wiggin. "It would cost you only fifty cents." + +"That's all you know about it, my dear," he answered. "More likely it +would cost me a hundred thousand dollars." + + * * * * * + +Mr. Tobias Greenbaum, of Scherer, Hunn, Greenbaum & Beck, carefully +placed his cigar where it would not char his Italian Renaissance desk +and smoothed out the list which Mr. Elderberry, the secretary of The +Horse's Neck Extension Copper Mining Company, handed to him. The list +was typed on thin sheets; of foolscap and contained the names of +stockholders, but as it had lain rolled up in the bottom of Mr. +Elderberry's desk for five years without being disturbed it was inclined +to resist the gentle pressure of Mr. Greenbaum's fingers. + +Mr. Greenbaum glanced sharply round the plate-glass lake that separated +him from the other directors of Horse's Neck, rather as if he had +detected his associates in a crime. + +"Isaacs says," he announced in an arrogant, almost insulting tone, +though below the surface he was an entirely genial person, "that the new +vein in the Amphalula runs into the west drift of Horse's Neck almost to +where we quit work in Number Nine five years ago." + +"If it does it will make it a bonanza property," emphatically declared +his partner, Mr. Scherer, a dolichocephalous person with very black hair +and thin bluish cheeks. "It's a pity we didn't buy it all in at ten +cents a share." + +"We did!" retorted Greenbaum. "All that could be shaken out. We've got +all the stock that hasn't gravitated to the cemeteries." + +"Even if the Amphalula vein doesn't run into it it will come near +enough to make Horse's Neck worth dollars per share. It's a +heads-I-win-tails-you-lose proposition," commented Mr. Hunn dryly. "Who +controls Amphalula?" + +"We do," snapped Greenbaum. + +"Then it's a cinch," returned Hunn mildly. "Shake out the sleepers, +reorganize, and sell or hold as seems most advisable later on." + +Mr. Elderberry cleared his throat tentatively. + +"If you gentlemen will pardon me--I have been considering this matter +for some little time," he hazarded. Mr. Elderberry was not only the +professional salaried secretary of Horse's Neck but was also treasurer +of the Amphalula, and general factotum, representative and interlocking +director for Scherer, Hunn, Greenbaum & Beck in their various mining +enterprises, combining in his person almost as many offices as, Pooh-Bah +in "The Mikado." Though he could not have claimed to serve as "First +Lord of the Treasury, Lord Chief Justice, Commander-in-Chief, Lord High +Admiral, Master of the Buck Hounds, Groom of the Back Stairs, Archbishop +of Titipu and Lord Mayor, both acting and elect, all rolled into one," +he could with entire modesty have admitted the soft impeachment of being +simultaneously treasurer of Amphalula, vice-president of Hooligan Gulch +and Red Water, secretary of Horse's Neck, Holy Jo, Gargoyle Extension, +Cowhide Number Five, Consolidated Bimetallic, Nevada Mastodon, Leaping +Frog, Orelady Mine, Why Marry and Sol's Cliff Buttress, and president of +Blimp Consolidated. + +All these various properties were either owned or controlled by Scherer, +Hunn, Greenbaum & Beck and had been acquired with the use of the same +original capital in various entirely legal ways, which at the present +moment are irrelevant. The firm was a strictly honorable business house, +from both their own point of view and that of the Street. Everything +they did was with and by the advice of counsel. Yet not one of these +active-minded gentlemen, including Mr. Greenbaum, the dolichocephalous +Scherer and the acephalous Hunn, had ever done a stroke of productive +work or contributed anything toward the common weal. In fact, distress +to somebody in some form, and usually to a large number of persons, +inevitably followed whatever deal they undertook, since their business +was speculating in mining properties and unloading the bad ones upon an +unsuspecting public which Scherer, Hunn, Greenbaum & Beck had permitted +to deceive itself. + +Thus, when Greenbaum called upon Mr. Elderberry for advice, it savored +strongly of Koko's consulting Pooh-Bah and was sometimes almost as +confusing, for just as Pooh-Bah on these occasions was won't to reply, +"Certainly. In which of my capacities? As First Lord of the Treasury, +Lord Chamberlain, Attorney-General, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Privy +Purse or Private Secretary?" so the financial and corporate Elderberry +might equally well ask: "Exactly. But are you seeking my advice as +secretary of Horse's Neck, of Holy Jo, of Cowhide Number Five, or as +vice-president of Hooligan Gulch and Red Water, treasurer of Amphalula +or president of Blimp Consolidated?" + +Just now it was, of course, obvious that he was addressing the company +in his capacity of secretary of Horse's Neck. + +"It goes without saying, gentlemen, that this property is pretty nearly +down and out. You will recall that most of the insiders sold out on the +tail of the Goldfield Boom and waited for the market to sag until we +could buy in again. The mines are full of water, work was abandoned over +four years ago, and the property is practically defunct. The original +capitalization was ten million shares at one dollar a share. We own or +control at least four million shares, for which we paid ten to fifteen +cents, while we had sold our original holdings for one dollar sixty to +one dollar ninety-five a share. While Horse's Neck represents a handsome +profit--in my opinion"--he cleared his throat again as if deprecating +the vulgarity of his phrase--"it is good for another whirl." + +"You say it's full of water?" inquired Hunn. + +"It will cost about fifty thousand dollars to pump out the mines and a +hundred thousand to repair the machinery. Then there's quite an +indebtedness--about seventy-five thousand; and tax liens--another fifty. +Half a million dollars would put Horse's Neck on the map, and if the +Amphalula vein crosses the property it will be worth ten millions. If it +doesn't, the chance that it is going to will make a market for the +stock." + +Mr. Elderberry swept with a bland inquiring eye the shore of the glassy +sea about which his associates were gathered. + +"I've been over the ground," announced Greenbaum "and it's a good +gamble. We want Horse's Neck for ourselves--at any rate until we are +confident that it's a real lemon. Half a million will do it. I'll +personally put up a hundred thousand." + +"How are you going to get rid of the fifty thousand other stockholders?" +asked Mr. Beck dubiously "We don't want them trailing along with us." + +"I propose," answered Mr. Elderberry brightly, in his capacity as chief +conspirator for Scherer, Hunn, _et al._, "that we organize a new +corporation to be called 'Lallapaloosa Limited' and capitalize it at a +million dollars--one million shares at a dollar a share. Then we will +execute a contract between Horse's Neck and Lallapaloosa by the terms of +which the old bankrupt corporation will sell to the new corporation all +its assets for one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars. We +underwrite the stock of Lallapaloosa at fifty cents a share, thus +supplying the new corporation with the funds with which to purchase the +properties of the old. In a word we shall get Horse's Neck for a hundred +and twenty-five thousand and have three hundred and seventy-five +thousand left out of what we subscribe to underwrite the stock to put +it on its feet." + +"That's all right," debated Hunn. "But how about the other stockholders +in Horse's Neck that Beck referred to? Where do they come in?" + +"I've thought of that," returned Elderberry. "Of course you can't just +squeeze 'em out entirely. That wouldn't be legal. They must be given the +chance to subscribe at par to the stock of the new corporation on the +basis of one share in the new for every ten they hold in the old; or, as +Horse's Neck is a Delaware corporation, to have their old stock +appraised under the laws of Delaware. In point of fact, they've all +written off their holdings in Horse's Neck as a total loss years ago and +you couldn't drag 'em into putting in any new money. They'll simply let +it go--forfeit their stock in Horse's Neck and be wiped out because they +were not willing to go in and reorganize the property with us." + +"They would if they knew about Amphalula," remarked Beck. + +"Well, they don't!" snapped Greenbaum, "and we're under no obligations +to tell 'em. They can infer what they like from the fact that Horse's +Neck has been selling for ten cents a share for the last three years." + +"Is that right, Chippingham?" inquired Beck of the attorney who was in +attendance. "I mean--is it legal?" + +"Perfectly legal," replied Mr. Chippingham conclusively. "A corporation +has a perfect right to dispose of its entire assets for a proper +consideration and if any minority stockholder feels aggrieved he can +take the matter to the Delaware courts and get his equity assessed. +Besides, everybody is treated alike--all the stockholders in Horse's +Neck can subscribe pro rata for Lallapaloosa." + +"Only they won't," grinned Scherer. + +"And so, as they are wiped out--the new corporation--that is us--in fact +gets their equity, just as much as if they had deeded it to us." + +"That is, we get for nothing about one-half the value of the property," +agreed Elderberry. "Now, I've been over the list and I don't think +you'll hear a peep from any of them." + + "He's got 'em on the list--he's got 'em on the list; + And they'll none of 'em be missed--they'll none of 'em be missed!" + +hummed Mr. Beck. "It looks good to me! I'll take a hundred thousand." + +"Mr. Chippingham has the papers drawn already," continued Elderberry. +"Of course you've got to give the old stockholders notice, but we can +rush the thing through and before anybody wakes up the thing will be +done. Then they can holler all they want." + +"Well, I'll come in," announced Hunn complacently. + +"So will I," echoed Scherer. "And the firm can underwrite the last +hundred thousand, and that will clean it up." + +"Is it all right for us to underwrite the stock ourselves at half +price?" inquired Mr. Beck. "I mean--is it legal?" + +"Sure!" reiterated Mr. Chippingham. "Somebody's got to underwrite it; +why not us?" + +"Move we adjourn," said Mr. Greenbaum. "Elderberry--the usual." + +Mr. Elderberry removed from his change pocket five glittering gold +pieces and slid one across the glass sheet to each director. + +"Second motion. Carried! All up--seventh inning!" smiled Mr. Scherer; +and the directors, pocketing their gold pieces, arose. + +If, as it has been defined, ethics consists of a "system of principles +and rules concerning moral obligations and regard for the rights of +others," it may be interesting to speculate as to whether or not these +gentlemen had any or not, and, if so, what it may have been. But in +considering this somewhat nice question it should be borne in mind that +Messrs. Scherer, Hunn, Greenbaum & Beck were bankers of standing, and +were advised by a firm of attorneys of the highest reputation. On its +face, and as it was about to be represented to the stockholders of +Horse's Neck, the proposition appeared fair enough. + +The circular, shortly after sent out to all the names upon the list, +stated succinctly that financial and labor conditions had been such that +it had been found impossible to operate the mine profitably for several +years, that it had depreciated greatly in value owing to the water which +had accumulated in its lower levels, that it had exhausted its surplus, +that a heavy indebtedness had accumulated, that the corporation's +outstanding notes had been protested and that the property would be sold +under foreclosure unless money was immediately raised to pay them, the +interest due and taxes; that half a million dollars was needed to put +the property in operation and that there was no way to secure it, as +nobody was willing to loan money to a bankrupt mining concern. That +under these circumstances no practical method had been proposed except +to organize a new corporation capitalized at one million instead of ten, +to the stock of which each shareholder in Horse's Neck might subscribe +in proportion to his holdings, at par, and to which the assets of the +old corporation should be transferred practically for its debts. That +this, in a word, was the only way to save the situation and possibly +make a go of a bad business, and that it was a gamble in which the old +stockholders had a right, up to a certain date, to participate if they +saw fit. Those that did not would find their stock in Horse's Neck +entirely valueless as it would have no assets left which had not been +transferred to Lallapaloosa. Stockholders who were dissatisfied could +protest against the enabling resolution to be offered at the annual +meeting of the stockholders of Horse's Neck to be held the following +week at Wilmington, Delaware, and could avail themselves of the right to +have their equity assessed under the laws of Delaware, but as the +liabilities practically equaled the present value of the property that +equity would naturally be highly problematical. + +Now, as a matter of morals or of law the only thing that made the +proposed reorganization unethical or inequitable was the single trifling +fact that those responsible for it were the only ones who knew of the +existence and proximity of the Amphalula vein. When a mining company, a +railroad, an oil well or any other enterprise is down and out it is only +fair that the majority stockholders, who are obliged to protect their +investment, should have the right to call upon the rest to come forward +and do their share or else drop out. A minority stockholder cannot +appeal to any canon of fair play whereby he should be entitled to sit +back and let the majority take all the risks and then claim his share of +the profits. + +The imponderable element of injustice in the situation consisted in the +suppression of a fact which the directors concealed but concerning +which, however, they made no representation, false or otherwise. They +were going to risk half a million dollars of their own money and they +wanted the whole gamble for themselves. They sincerely felt that nobody +else was entitled to take that risk with them. Once they had floated +Horse's Neck they had come to look upon it as their own private affair. +The minority had no rights which they, the majority, were bound to +respect. The minority were nothing but a lot of piking gamblers, anyway, +who bought or sold for a rise or fall of a few cents. They knew nothing +of the property and cared less for its real value. They were merely +traders and if they lost they forgot it or tried to. On the other hand +Scherer, Hunn, Greenbaum & Beck were promoters, who contributed +something to the economic advancement of the nation. + + * * * * * + +"Regarding my hat, which you suggested this morning should be pressed at +a cost of fifty cents," remarked Mr. Tutt to Miss Wiggin when he +returned to the office upon the adjournment of court in the afternoon +and replaced that ancient object in its accustomed resting-place +--"regarding that precious hat of mine"--he eyed it affectionately +--"I can only say that I would as soon send myself to a dry-cleaning +establishment as to permit its profanation by the iron of a +haberdasher." + +Miss Wiggin laughed lightly. + +"That doesn't explain your cryptic statement that it would probably cost +you a hundred thousand dollars," she replied. "Still--" + +Mr. Tutt turned suddenly upon his heel and held her with an upraised +hand, the bony wrist of which was encircled, after an intervening space +of some five inches, by a frayed cuff confined with a black onyx button +the size of a quarter. + +"Behold," he cried in the deep resonant voice that he used in addressing +juries at the climax of a peroration, "the integuments of my +personality--the ancient habiliments of an honorable profession--the +panoply of the legal warrior. Here, my corslet"--he touched his dingy +waistcoat with his left hand; "my greaves"--he brushed the baggy legs of +his pantaloons; "my halberd"--he raised his old mahogany cane with its +knot of yellow ivory; "my casque"--he indicated his ruffled stove-pipe +"Arrayed in these I am Mr. Ephraim Tutt, attorney and counselor at +law--the senior partner in Tutt & Tutt--a respected member of the bar +duly accredited and authorized to practise before the Supreme Court of +the State of New York, the Court of Appeals, the District Court of the +United States, the Circuit Court of Appeals, the Supreme Court of the +United States, the Court of Claims--" + +"--the Police Court and the Coroner's Court," concluded Miss Wiggin, +making him a mock curtsy. + +"Without these indicia of my profession and my individuality I should be +like David without his sling or Samson without his hair. I should be +merely Tutt, a criminal lawyer--one of a multitude--regarded perhaps as +a shyster. But in these robes of my high office I am a high priest of +the law; just as you, my dear girl, are one of its many devoted and +worthy priestesses. Can you imagine me going to court in a bowler hat or +arguing to the jury in a cutaway coat or bobtail business suit? Can you +picture Ephraim Tutt with his hair cut short or in an Ascot tie, any +more than you can envisage him in riding breeches or wearing lilacs? No! +There is but one Mr. Tutt, and these are his only garments. He who +steals my hat may steal trash, but without it I should be like a +disembodied spirit unable to return to my earthly dwelling-place. + +"A paltry hundred thousand? + +"Nay, without my hat--my helmet!--I should be valueless to myself and +everybody else; so estimate my worth and you can assay the value of my +hat. What am I worth in your opinion?" + +And then Miss Wiggin, having glanced cautiously if quickly round, made a +most astonishing declaration. + +"Just about a million times more than anybody else in the whole world, +you old dear!" she whispered and rising upon her toes she kissed his +wrinkled cheek. + +"Dear me! You really mustn't do that!" gasped Mr. Tutt. + +"Well," she retorted, "you can discharge me if you like. But first sit +down, light a cigar and let me tell you something." + +Mr. Tutt did as he was bid, chuckling. + +"Well," said Miss Wiggin, "there is such a thing as Horse's Neck +Extension after all!" + +"Um--you don't say?" he answered, struggling to make his stogy draw. + +"And it has an office with about a hundred other corporations of various +kinds--most of them with names that sound like the zoo--Yellow Wildcat, +Jumping Leapfrog, and that sort of thing. It seems Horse's Neck is +played out and they are going to reorganize it--" + +"Who are?" demanded her employer, suddenly sitting erect. + +"Scherer, Hunn, Greenbaum & Beck." + +"The dickens they are!" he ejaculated. "That bunch of pirates? Not if I +know it!" + +"Why not?" + +"Reorganize! Reorganize? Reorganization is my middle name!" cried Mr. +Tutt. "So Scherer, Hunn, Greenbaum & Beck are going to reorganize +something, are they? Let 'em try! Not so long as I've got my hat!" + +"This is all very enigmatical to me," replied Miss Wiggin. "But then, +I'm only a woman. Aren't they all right? Why shouldn't they reorganize a +mine if it's exhausted?" + +"If it's exhausted why do they want to reorganize it?" he demanded, +climbing to his feet. "Let me tell you something, Minerva! All my life +I've been fighting against tyranny--the tyranny of the law, the tyranny +of power, the tyranny of money." + +He drew fiercely on his stogy, which being desiccated flared like a +Roman candle. + +"You don't need to tell me what this plan of reorganization is; because +they wouldn't propose one unless it was going to benefit them in some +way, and the only way it can be made to benefit them is at the expense +of the other stockholders. _Quod erat demonstrandum_." + +Mr. Tutt seemed to have become distended somehow and to have spread over +the entire wall surface of his office like the genie which the +fisherman innocently permitted to escape from the bottle. + +"There isn't one reorganization scheme in a hundred that isn't crooked +somewhere." + +"According to that, if a business is unsuccessful it ought to be allowed +to go to pot for fear that somebody might make a profit in putting it on +its feet," she countered. "I think you're a violent, irascible, +prejudiced old man!" + +"All the same," he retorted, "show me a reorganization scheme and I'll +show you a flimflam! What's this one? Bet you anything you like it's as +crooked as a ram's horn. I don't have to hear about it. Don't want to +read the plan. But I'll bust it--higher than Hades. See if I don't!" + +He spat the remaining filaments of his stogy from the window and fished +out another. + +"How do we come into it, anyhow?" he demanded. + +"Doctor--I mean Mister Barrows," replied Miss Wiggin. + +"Oh, yes. Of course. Well, you send for him to come down here and sign +the papers." + +"What papers?" + +"The complaint and order to show cause." + +"But there isn't any." + +"There will be, all right, by the time he gets here." + +Miss Wiggin looked first puzzled and then pained. + +"I don't understand," she said rather stiffly. "Do you mean that the +firm of Tutt & Tutt is going to engage in the enterprise of trying to +break up a plan of reorganization without knowing what it is? Won't you +lay us all open to the accusation of being strikers?" + +Mr. Tutt's ordinarily brown complexion became slightly tinged with +purple. + +"Let the court decide!" he cried hotly. "You say Scherer, Hunn, +Greenbaum & Beck are proposing to reorganize a mining company? You admit +we hold some of the stock? Well--as the natural-born and perennial +champion of the outraged minority--I'm going to attack it, and bust it, +and raise heck with it--on general principles. I'm going to throw that +damned old hat of mine into the ring, my child, and play hell with +everything." + +And with a cluck Mr. Tutt leaned over, produced a dingy bottle wrapped +in a coat of many colors and poured himself out a glass of malt extract. + + * * * * * + +When Mr. Greenbaum was summoned to the telephone and informed by Mr. +Elderberry in disgruntled tones that somebody had just served upon him +an order to show cause why the proposed reorganization of Horse's Neck +should not be set aside and enjoined, he not only became instantly +annoyed but highly excited. + +"What!" he almost screamed. + +"I'll read it to you, if you don't believe it!" said Mr. Elderberry. + +"'United States District Court, Southern District of New York, Edward V. +Barrows, Complainant against Horse's Neck Extension Mining Company, +Defendant. + +"'Upon the subpoena herein and the complaint duly verified the +nineteenth day of February, 1919, and the affidavit of Ephraim Tutt +and--'" + +"Who in hell is Tutt?" shouted Greenbaum, interrupting. + +"I don't know," retorted Elderberry; "or Barrows either." + +"Well, skip all the legal rot and get to the point," directed Greenbaum. + +"'Ordered--ordered, that the defendant, Horse's Neck Extension Mining +Company, show cause at a stated term to be held in and for--'" + +"I said to cut the legal rot!" + +"Um--um--'why an injunction order should not be issued herein pending +the trial of this action and enjoining the defendant from disposing of +its assets and for the appointment of a receiver of the assets of the +defendant corporation; and why the complainant should not have such +other, further and different relief as may be equitable.'" + +There was a long pause during which Mr. Elderberry was under a +convincing delusion that he could actually hear the thoughts that were +rattling round in Mr. Greenbaum's brain. + +"You there?" he inquired presently. + +"Oh, yes, I'm here!" retorted Greenbaum. "This is the devil of a note! +Have you spoken to Chippingham?" + +"Yes." + +"What does he say?" + +"He says it's awkward. They have got hold somewhere of one of our old +circulars of 1914 in which the property is described as worth about ten +million dollars--that was during the boom, you remember--and they claim +we are selling it to ourselves for less than one million and that on its +face it's a fraud on the minority stockholders who can't afford to buy +stock in the new corporation--as of course it would be if the mine was +really worth ten million or anything like it." + +"Did we really ever get out any circular like that?" demanded Greenbaum +in a protesting voice. "I don't recall any." + +"That was when we were making a market for the stock," Elderberry +reminded him. "We couldn't say enough. Honestly, to look at the thing +now is enough to make you sick!" + +"Well, it's just a hold-up--that's what it is. Some crook like this +Tutt or this Barrows has found out about Amphalula and is bringing a +strike suit. You'll have to call a meeting right away. I'd like to +strangle all these shyster lawyers!" + +And it never occurred to Mr. Greenbaum that the possible existence of +the Amphalula vein was what in fact made the order to show cause +justifiable--his actual ground of complaint being that anybody should, +as he assumed, have found out about it in defiance of his plans. + + * * * * * + +"Yeronner," said Attendant Mike Horan as he helped Judge Pollak into his +black bombazine gown in his chambers in the old Post-Office Building on +the morning of the return day, "there's a great bunch out there in the +court room waitin' for ye, an' no mistake!" + +"Indeed!" remarked His Honor. "And who are they? What is the case?" + +"Hanged if I know," answered Mike, snipping a piece of fluff off his +judgeship's shoulder. "There's a white-bearded old guy, two or three +swell gents with tall hats, Counselor Tutt and an attorney named +Chippingham, besides that pretty Miss Wiggin; and they ain't speakin' +none to one another, neither." + +"It must be that mining-reorganization case," answered the judge. "Well, +it's time to go in." + +They walked down the dirty marble corridor and entered the court room, +while the clerk rapped on the railing. + +"Hear ye! Hear ye! Hear ye! All persons having any business to do with +the District Court of the United States draw near, give your attention +and you will be heard," he intoned with unctuous authority. + +The "bunch" rose and made obeisance. + +"Good morning," said the judge pleasantly, sitting down with a side +switch of the bombazine. "Barrows against the--er--er--Horse's Neck +Mining Company. Do you represent the complainant, Mr. Tutt?" + +"I do," answered Mr. Tutt with great dignity. "Your Honor, this is a +motion for an order to show cause why an injunction _pendente lite_ +should not issue restraining the sale of the assets, of this corporation +to another in fraud of its minority stockholders--and for a receiver. My +client, an aged man living upon his farm in the northern part of the +state, is the owner of one hundred thousand shares in the Horse's Neck +Mining Company of the par value of one hundred thousand dollars. He has +owned these securities for many years. They represent his entire +capital. He is a bona fide stockholder--" + +"May I be pardoned for interrupting?" sneered Chippingham, springing to +his feet. "I think the court should be informed at the outset that this +man, Barrows, is a notorious ex-convict." + +Judge Pollak raised his eyebrows. + +"This is an outrage!" thundered Mr. Tutt, his form rising ceilingward. +"My client--like all of us--has had his misfortunes, but they are +happily a thing of the past; he has the same rights as if he were an +archbishop, the president of a university or--a judge of this honorable +court." + +"We are sitting in equity," remarked His Honor. "The question of _bona +fides_ is a vital one. _Is_ the complainant an ex-convict?" + +"This is the complainant, sir," cried Mr. Tutt, indicating old Doc, now +for the first time in his life smartly arrayed in a new checked suit, +red tie, patent-leather shoes and suède gloves, and with his beard +neatly trimmed. "This is the unfortunate man whose honest savings of a +lifetime are being wrested from him by an unscrupulous group of +manipulators who--in my opinion--are more deserving of confinement +behind prison walls than he ever was." + +The gentlemen with the tall hats bit their lips and showed signs of +poorly suppressed agitation. + +"But _is_ your client an ex-convict, Mr. Tutt?" repeated the judge +quietly. + +"Yes, Your Honor, he is." + +"When and how did he become possessed of his stock?" + +Mr. Tutt turned to Doc with an air of ineffectually striving to master +his righteous indignation. + +"Tell the court, Mr. Barrows," he cried, "in your own words." + +Doc Barrows wonderingly rose. + +"If you please, sir," he began, "it's quite a long story. You see, I was +the owner of all the stock of The Chicago Water Front and Terminal +Company--there was a flaw in the title deed which I can explain to you +privately if you wish--and when I was--er--visiting--up on the Hudson--I +met a man there who was the owner of a hundred thousand shares of +Horse's Neck, and we agreed to exchange." + +The judge tried to hide a slight smile. + +"I see," he replied pleasantly. "And what was the man's name?" + +"Oscar Bloom, sir." + +The gentlemen with the tall hats exchanged agitated glances. + +"Do you know how he got his stock?" + +"No, sir." + +"That is all. Go on, Mr. Tutt." + +Doc sat down while Mr. Tutt again unhooked his lank form. + +"To resume where I was interrupted, Your Honor, the directors +controlling a majority of the stock of this corporation, the capital of +which is ten millions of dollars, have made a contract to sell all of +its properties to another corporation, organized by themselves and +capitalized for one million, for the sum of one hundred and twenty-five +thousand dollars! + +"It is true that in their plan of reorganization they offer to permit +any stockholder in the old corporation to subscribe for stock in the new +at par--thus at first glance placing all upon what seems to be an +equality; but any stockholder who does not see fit to subscribe or +cannot afford to do so is wiped out, for there will be nothing left in +the way of assets in Horse's Neck after the transfer is completed. + +"Now these gentlemen have underwritten the stock in the new Lallapaloosa +Company at fifty cents upon the dollar, and if this nefarious deal is +permitted to go through they will thus acquire a property worth ten +millions for five hundred thousand dollars, of which they will use only +one hundred and twenty-five thousand in payment of old indebtedness. In +effect, they confiscate the equity of all the minority stockholders in +Horse's Neck who cannot afford to subscribe for stock in Lallapaloosa." +He turned upon the uncomfortable tall hats with an arraigning eye. + +"In the criminal courts, Your Honor, such a conspiracy would be +properly described as grand larceny; in Wall Street perchance it may be +viewed as high finance. But so long as there are courts of equity such a +wrong upon a helpless stockholder will not go unrebuked. Have I made +myself clear to Your Honor?" + +Judge Pollak looked interested. He was a man famous for his protection +of helpless minorities and his court had been selected by Mr. Tutt on +this account. + +"If the facts are as you state them, Mr. Tutt," he answered seriously, +"the plan on its face would seem to be inequitable. If the property is +worth ten million the consideration is palpably inadequate. Your +client's equity, worth on that basis at least one hundred thousand +dollars, would be entirely destroyed without any redress." + +"Your Honor," burst out Mr. Chippingham, whose bald head had been +bobbing about in excited contiguity with the tall hats, "this is a most +misleading statement. The assets of Horse's Neck aren't worth a hundred +thousand dollars. And if any of the minority don't want to come into the +reorganization--and I assure Your Honor that we would welcome their +participation--they can have their equity appraised under the laws of +Delaware and the finding becomes a lien on the assets even after they +have been transferred." + +"What relief does that give a man like Mr. Barrows?" shouted Mr. Tutt. +"He can't afford to go down to Wilmington with a carload of books and a +corps of experts to prove the value of Horse's Neck. It would cost him +more than his stock is worth!" + +"That remedy is not exclusive, in any event," declared the judge. "If +this complainant is going to be defrauded I will enjoin this contract +_pendente lite_ and appoint a receiver." + +"Your Honor!" protested Chippingham in great agony. "It is not the fact +that this mine is worth ten million. It isn't worth at the most more +than one hundred thousand. It is, full of water, the machinery is rusted +and falling to pieces and the workings are practically exhausted. The +only way to rehabilitate this property is for everybody to come in and +put up enough money by subscribing to the stock of the new corporation +to pump it out, buy new engines and start producing again. Is it fair to +the majority, who are willing to go on, put up more money, and make an +attempt to save the property, to have this complainant--an ex-convict +who never paid a cent for his stock, dug up from heaven knows +where--enjoin their contract and throw the corporation into the hands of +a receiver? This is nothing but a strike suit. I repeat--a strike suit!" + +He glowered breathless at his adversary. + +"Oh! Oh!" groaned Mr. Tutt in horrified tones. + +"Gentlemen! Gentlemen!" expostulated the court. "This will not do!" + +"I beg pardon--of the court," stammered Mr. Chippingham. + +"Your Honor," mourned Mr. Tutt, "I have practised here for thirty years +and this is the first time I have ever been insulted in open court. A +strike suit? I hold in my hand"--he waved it threateningly at the tall +hats--"a circular issued by these directors less than five years ago, in +which they give the itemized value of this property as ten million +dollars. Shortly after that circular was issued the stock sold in the +open market at one dollar and ninety cents a share. In two years it sank +to ten cents a share. Will a little water, a little rust, a little +trouble with labor reduce the value of a great property like this from +ten millions of dollars to one hundred thousand--one per cent of its +appraised value? Either"--he fixed Chippingham with an exultant and +terrifying glance--"they were lying then or they are lying now!" + +"Let me look at that circular," directed Judge Pollak. He took it from +Mr. Tutt's eager hand, glanced through it and turned sharply upon the +quaking Chippingham. + +"How long have you been attorney for Scherer, Hunn, Greenbaum & Beck?" + +"Twelve years, Your Honor." + +"Who is Wilson W. Elderberry?" + +"He is the secretary of the Horse's Neck Extension, Your Honor." + +"Is he in court?" + +From a distant corner Mr. Elderberry bashfully rose. + +"Come here!" ordered the court. And the Pooh-Bah of the +Scherer-Hunn-Greenbaum-Beck enterprises came cringing to the bar. + +"Did you sign this circular in 1914?" demanded Judge Pollak. + +"Yes, Your Honor." + +"Were the statements contained in it true?" + +Elderberry squirmed. + +"Ye-es, Your Honor. That is--they were to the best of my knowledge and +belief. I was, of course, obliged to take what information was at +hand--and--er--and--" + +"Did you sign the other circular, issued last month, to the effect that +the mine was practically valueless?" + +"Yes, sir." Elderberry studiously examined the moldings on the cornice +of the judge's canopy. + +"Um!" remarked the court significantly. + +There was a flurry among the tall hats. Then Mr. Greenbaum sprang to his +feet. + +"If you please, Your Honor," he announced, staccato, "we entirely +disavow Mr. Elderberry's circular of 1914. It was issued without our +knowledge or authority. It is no evidence that the mine was worth ten +millions or any other amount at that time." + +"Oh! Oh!" choked Mr. Tutt, while Miss Wiggin giggled delightedly into +her brief case. + +Judge Pollak bent upon Mr. Greenbaum a withering glance. + +"Did your firm sell any of its holdings in Horse's Neck after the +issuance of that circular?" + +Greenbaum hesitated. He would have liked to wring that judge's neck. + +"Why--how do I know? We may have." + +"_Did_ you?" + +"Say 'yes,' for God's sake," hissed Chippingham "or you'll land in the +pen!" + +"I am informed that we did," answered Greenbaum defiantly. "That is, I +don't _say_ we did. Very likely we did. Our books would show. But I +repeat--we disavow this circular and we deny any responsibility for this +man, Elderberry." + +This man, Elderberry, who for twelve long years had writhed under the +biting lash of his employer's tongue, hating him with a hatred known +only to those in subordinate positions who are bribed to suffer the +"whips and scorns of time, the oppressor's wrong, the proud man's +contumely," quivered and saw red. He was going to be made the goat! +They expected him to take all the responsibility and give them a clean +slate! The nerve of it! To hell with them! Suddenly he began to cry, +shockingly, with deep stertorous suspirations. + +"No--you won't!" he hiccuped. "You shan't lay the blame on me! I'll tell +the truth, I will! I won't stand for it! Your Honor, they want to +reorganize Horse's Neck because they think there's a vein in Amphalula +that crosses one of the old workings and that it'll make the property +worth millions and millions." + +Utter silence descended upon the court room--silence broken only by the +slow ticktack of the self-winding clock on the rear wall and the whine +of the electric cars on Park Row. One of the tall hats crept quietly to +the door and vanished. The others sat like images. + +Then the court said very quietly: "I will adjourn this matter for one +week. I need not point out that what has occurred has a very grave +interpretation. Adjourn court!" + + * * * * * + +Old Doc Barrows, the two Tutts and Miss Wiggin were sitting in Mr. +Tutt's office an hour later when Willie announced that Mr. Tobias +Greenbaum was outside and would like an interview. + +"Send him in!" directed Mr. Tutt, winking at Miss Wiggin. + +Mr. Greenbaum entered, frowning and without salutation, while Doc +partially rose, moved by the acquired instinct of disciplinary +politeness, then changed his mind and sat down again. + +"See here," snarled Greenbaum. "You sure have made a most awful hash of +this business. I don't want to argue about it. We could go ahead and +beat you, but Pollak is prejudiced and will probably give you your +injunction and appoint a receiver. If he does, that will knock the whole +property higher than a kite. Nobody would ever buy stock in it or even +finance it. Now how much do you want to call off your suit?" + +"Have a stogy?" asked Mr. Tutt politely. + +"Nope." + +"We want exactly one hundred thousand dollars." + +Greenbaum laughed derisively. + +"A hundred thousand fiddlesticks! This old jailbird swindled another +crook, Bloom--" + +"Oh, Bloom was a crook too, was he?" chuckled Mr. Tutt. "He worked for +your firm, didn't he?" + +"That's nothing to do with it!" retorted Greenbaum angrily. "Your +swindling client traded some bum stock in a fake corporation for Bloom's +stock, which he received for bona fide services--" + +"Like Elderberry's?" inquired Tutt innocently. + +"Your man never paid a cent for his holdings. That alone would throw +him out of court. The mine isn't worth a cent without the Amphalula +vein. We're taking a big chance. You've got us down and we've got to +pay; but we'll pay only ten thousand dollars--that's final." + +"I ain't any more of a swindler than you be!" said Doc with plaintive +indignation. + +"What do you wish to do, Mr. Barrows?" asked Mr. Tutt, turning to him +deferentially. + +"I leave it entirely to you, Mr. Tutt. It's your stock; I gave it all to +you months ago." + +"Then," answered Mr. Tutt with fine scorn, "I shall tell this miserable +cheating rogue and rascal either to pay you a hundred thousand dollars +or go to hell." + +Mr. Tobias Greenbaum clenched his fists and cast a black glance upon the +group. + +"You can wreck this corporation if you choose, you bunch of dirty +blackmailers, but you'll get not a cent more than ten thousand. For the +last time, will you take it or not?" + +Mr. Tutt rose and pointed toward the door. + +"Kindly remove yourself before I call the police," he said coldly. "I +advise the firm of Scherer, Hunn, Greenbaum & Beck to retain criminal +counsel. Your ten thousand may come in handy for that purpose." + +Mr. Tobias Greenbaum went. + +"And now, Miss Wiggin, how about a cup of tea?" said Mr. Tutt. + +The firm of Tutt & Tutt claimed to be the only law firm in the city of +New York which still maintained the historic English custom of having +tea at five o'clock. Whether the claim had any foundation or not the tea +was none the less an institution, undoubtedly generating a friendly, +sociable atmosphere throughout the office; and now Willie pulled aside +the screen in the corner and disclosed the gate-leg table over which +Miss Wiggin exercised her daily prerogative. Soon the room was filled +with the comfortable odor of Pekoe, of muffins toasted upon an electric +heater, of cigarettes and stogies. Yet there was, and had been ever +since their conversation about the hat, a certain restraint between Miss +Wiggin and Mr. Tutt, rising presumably out of her suggestion that his +course savored of blackmail, however justified it had afterward turned +out to be. + +"My, isn't this nice!" murmured Doc, trying unsuccessfully to eat a +muffin, drink his tea and do justice to a stogy at the same time. "It's +so homy now, isn't it?" + +"Doc," answered Mr. Tutt, "did you really want that ten thousand?" + +"Me?" repeated Doc vaguely. "Why, I told you I gave that stock to you +long ago. It isn't mine any longer. Besides, I don't want any money. +I'm perfectly happy as I am." + +Mr. Tutt laughed genially. + +"Oh, well," he said, "it's no matter who owns it. Elderberry just +telephoned me that he had received a telegram from the Amphalula that +the vein had definitely run out. It's all over--including the shouting." + +"Elderberry telephone you?" queried Miss Wiggin in astonishment. + +"Yes, Elderberry. You see, he's done, he says, with Scherer, Hunn, +Greenbaum & Beck. Wants to turn state's evidence and put 'em all in +jail. I've said I'd help him." + +"Then why didn't you take the ten thousand and call it quits while the +getting was good?" demanded his partner icily. + +"Because I knew I'd never get the ten anyway," replied Mr. Tutt. +"Greenbaum would have learned about the vein on his return to the +office." + +"Well, I must be getting along back to Pottsville!" mumbled Doc. "This +has been a very pleasant trip--very pleasant; and quite--quite--exciting. +I--" + +"What I'd like to know, Mr. Tutt," interrupted Miss Wiggin, "is how you +justify your course in this matter. When you attempted to block this +proposed reorganization you knew nothing about the Elderberry circular +of 1914 valuing the property at ten million, or of the Amphalula vein. +On its face you were attempting to wreck a perfectly honest piece of +financiering, and unless it was a strike suit--which I hope and pray it +wasn't--" + +"Strike suit!" protested Mr. Tutt with a slight twinkle in his eye. "How +can you suggest such a thing! Didn't the events demonstrate the wisdom +of my judgment?" + +"But you didn't know what was going to happen when you began your suit!" +she argued firmly. "I hate to say it, but I should think that if +everything had not come out just as it has your motives might easily +have been misconstrued." + +"It was a matter of principle with me, my dear," declared Mr. Tutt +solemnly. "Just to show there's no ill feeling, won't you give me +another cup of tea?" + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10440 *** diff --git a/10440-h/10440-h.htm b/10440-h/10440-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..cecb406 --- /dev/null +++ b/10440-h/10440-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,9687 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Tutt and Mr. Tutt, by Arthur Train</title> +<style type="text/css"> + <!-- + BODY {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%} + * { font-family: Times;} + P { margin-top: .75em; + font-size: 12pt; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; } + HR { width: 33%; } + hr.full { width: 100% } + PRE { font-family: Courier, monospaced; } + a:link {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + link {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + a:visited {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + a:hover {color:red} + + // --> +</style> +</head> +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10440 ***</div> +<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook,<br> + Tutt and Mr. Tutt, by Arthur Train</h1> +<p> </p> +<center> + </center> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full"> +<p> </p> +<h1>TUTT AND MR. TUTT</h1> +<center> +<h2>By Arthur Train </h2> +</center> +<center> +<b>1919</b> +</center> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<hr> + +<a name="TOC"><!-- TOC --></a> +<h2> + CONTENTS +</h2> + +<center><b> +<a href="#HUMAN">THE HUMAN ELEMENT</a><br> +<br> +<a href="#MOCK">MOCK HEN AND MOCK TURTLE</a><br> +<br> +<a href="#SAMUEL">SAMUEL AND DELILAH</a><br> +<br> +<a href="#ANDREW">THE DOG ANDREW</a><br> +<br> +<a href="#WILE">WILE <i>Versus</i> GUILE</a><br> +<br> +<a href="#TRAMP">HEPPLEWHITE TRAMP</a><br> +<br> +<a href="#LALLAPALOOSA">LALLAPALOOSA LIMITED</a><br> +</b></center> +<p> </p> +<hr> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<a name="HUMAN"><!-- HUMAN --></a> +<h2> +The Human Element +</h2> +<p> </p> +<blockquote><p> +Although men flatter themselves with their great actions, +they are not so often the result of great design as of +chance.—LA ROCHEFOUCAULD. +</p></blockquote> +<p> +"He says he killed him, and that's all there is about it!" said Tutt to +Mr. Tutt. "What are you going to do with a fellow like that?" The junior +partner of the celebrated firm of Tutt & Tutt, attorneys and counselors +at law, thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his yellow checked +breeches and, balancing himself upon the heels of his patent-leather +boots, gazed in a distressed, respectfully inquiring manner at his +distinguished associate. +</p> +<p> +"Yes," he repeated plaintively. "He don't make any bones about it at +all. 'Sure, I killed him!' says he. 'And I'd kill him again, the ——!' +I prefer not to quote his exact language. I've just come from the Tombs +and had quite a talk with Serafino in the counsel room, with a +gum-chewing keeper sitting in the corner watching me for fear I'd slip +his prisoner a saw file or a shotgun or a barrel of poison. I'm all in! +These murder cases drive me to drink, Mr. Tutt. I don't mind grand +larceny, forgery, assault or even manslaughter—but murder gets my goat! +And when you have a crazy Italian for a client who says he's glad he did +it and would like to do it again—please excuse me! It isn't law; it's +suicide!" +</p> +<p> +He drew out a silk handkerchief ornamented with the colors of the +Allies, and wiped his forehead despairingly. +</p> +<p> +"Oh," remarked Mr. Tutt with entire good nature. "He's glad he did it +and he's quite willing to be hanged!" +</p> +<p> +"That's it in a nutshell!" replied Tutt. +</p> +<p> +The senior partner of Tutt & Tutt ran his bony fingers through the lank +gray locks over his left eye and tilted ceilingward the stogy between +his thin lips. Then he leaned back in his antique swivel chair, locked +his hands behind his head, elevated his long legs luxuriously, and +crossed his feet upon the fourth volume of the American and English +Encyclopedia of Law, which lay open upon the desk at Champerty and +Maintenance. Even in this inelegant and relaxed posture he somehow +managed to maintain the air of picturesque dignity which always made his +tall, ungainly figure noticeable in any courtroom. Indubitably Mr. +Ephraim Tutt suggested a past generation, the suggestion being +accentuated by a slight pedantry of diction a trifle out of character +with the rushing age in which he saw fit to practise his time-honored +profession. "Cheer up, Tutt," said he, pushing a box of stogies toward +his partner with the toe of his congress boot. "Have a weed?" +</p> +<p> +Since in the office of Tutt & Tutt such an invitation like those of +royalty, was equivalent to a command, Tutt acquiesced. +</p> +<p> +"Thank you, Mr. Tutt," said Tutt, looking about vaguely for a match. +</p> +<p> +"That conscienceless brat of a Willie steals 'em all," growled Mr. Tutt. +"Ring the bell." +</p> +<p> +Tutt obeyed. He was a short, brisk little man with a pronounced +abdominal convexity, and he maintained toward his superior, though but a +few years his junior, a mingled attitude of awe, admiration and +affection such as a dickey bird might adopt toward a distinguished owl. +</p> +<p> +This attitude was shared by the entire office force. Inside the ground +glass of the outer door Ephraim Tutt was king. To Tutt the opinion of +Mr. Tutt upon any subject whatsoever was law, even if the courts might +have held to the contrary. To Tutt he was the eternal fount of wisdom, +culture and morality. Yet until Mr. Tutt finally elucidated his views +Tutt did not hesitate to hold conditional if temporary opinions of his +own. Briefly their relations were symbolized by the circumstance that +while Tutt always addressed his senior partner as "Mr. Tutt," the latter +accosted him simply as "Tutt." In a word there was only one Mr. Tutt in +the firm of Tutt & Tutt. +</p> +<p> +But so far as that went there was only one Tutt. On the theory that a +lily cannot be painted, the estate of one seemingly was as dignified as +that of the other. At any rate there never was and never had been any +confusion or ambiguity arising out of the matter since the day, twenty +years before, when Tutt had visited Mr. Tutt's law office in search of +employment. Mr. Tutt was just rising into fame as a police-court lawyer. +Tutt had only recently been admitted to the bar, having abandoned his +native city of Bangor, Maine, for the metropolis. +</p> +<p> +"And may I ask why you should come to me?" Mr. Tutt had demanded +severely from behind the stogy, which even at that early date had been +as much a part of his facial anatomy as his long ruminative nose. "Why +the devil should you come to me? I am nobody, sir—nobody! In this great +city certainly there are thousands far more qualified than I to further +your professional and financial advancement." +</p> +<p> +"Because," answered the inspired Tutt with modesty, "I feel that with +you I should be associated with a good name." +</p> +<p> +That had settled the matter. They bore no relationship to one another, +but they were the only Tutts in the city and there seemed to be a +certain propriety in their hanging together. Neither had regretted it +for a moment, and as the years passed they became indispensable to each +other. They were the necessary component parts of a harmonious legal +whole. Mr. Tutt was the brains and the voice, while Tutt was the eyes +and legs of a combination that at intervals—rare ones, it must be +confessed—made the law tremble, sometimes in fear and more often with +joy. +</p> +<p> +At first, speaking figuratively, Tutt merely carried Mr. Tutt's +bag—rode on his coat tails, as it were; but as time went on his +activity, ingenuity and industry made him indispensable and led to a +junior partnership. Tutt prepared the cases for Mr. Tutt to try. Both +were well versed in the law if they were not profound lawyers, but as +the origin of the firm was humble, their practise was of a miscellaneous +character. +</p> +<p> +"Never turn down a case," was Tutt's motto. +</p> +<p> +"Our duty as sworn officers of the judicial branch of the Government +renders it incumbent upon us to perform whatever services our clients' +exigencies demand," was Mr. Tutt's way of putting it. +</p> +<p> +In the end it amounted to exactly the same thing. As a result, in +addition to their own clientele, other members of the bar who found +themselves encumbered with matters which for one reason or another they +preferred not to handle formed the habit of turning them over to Tutt & +Tutt. A never-ending stream of peculiar cases flowed through the office, +each leaving behind it some residuum of golden dust, however small. The +stately or, as an unkind observer might have put it, the ramshackly form +of the senior partner was a constant figure in all the courts, from that +of the coroner on the one hand to the appellate tribunals upon the +other. It was immaterial to him what the case was about—whether it +dealt with the "next eventual estate" or the damages for a dog bite—so +long as he was paid and Tutt prepared it. Hence Tutt & Tutt prospered. +And as the law, like any other profession requires jacks-of-all-trades, +the firm acquired a certain peculiar professional standing of its own, +and enjoyed the good will of the bar as a whole. +</p> +<p> +They had the reputation of being sound lawyers if not overafflicted with +a sense of professional dignity, whose word was better than their bond, +yet who, faithful to their clients' interests knew no mercy and gave no +quarter. They took and pressed cases which other lawyers dared not touch +lest they should be defiled—and nobody seemed to think any the less of +them for so doing. They raised points that made the refinements of the +ancient schoolmen seem blunt in comparison. No respecters of persons, +they harried the rich and taunted the powerful, and would have as soon +jailed a bishop or a judge as a pickpocket if he deserved it. Between +them they knew more kinds of law than most of their professional +brethren, and as Mr. Tutt was a bookworm and a seeker after legal and +other lore their dusty old library was full of hidden treasures, which +on frequent occasions were unearthed to entertain the jury or delight +the bench. They were loyal friends, fearsome enemies, high chargers, and +maintained their unique position in spite of the fact that at one time +or another they had run close to the shadowy line which divides the +ethical from that which is not. Yet Mr. Tutt had brought disbarment +proceedings against many lawyers in his time and—what is more—had them +disbarred. +</p> +<p> +"Leave old Tutt alone," was held sage advice, and when other lawyers +desired to entertain the judiciary they were apt to invite Mr. Tutt to +be of the party. And Tutt gloried in the glories of Mr. Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"That's it!" repeated Tutt as he lit his stogy, which flared up like a +burning bush, the cub of a Willie having foraged successfully in the +outer office for a match. "He's willing to be hanged or damned or +anything else just for the sake of putting a bullet through the other +fellow!" +</p> +<p> +"What was the name of the unfortunate deceased?" +</p> +<p> +"Tomasso Crocedoro—a barber." +</p> +<p> +"That is almost a defense in itself," mused Mr. Tutt. "Anyhow, if I've +got to defend Angelo for shooting Tomasso you might as well give me a +short scenario of the melodrama. By the way, are we retained or assigned +by the court?" +</p> +<p> +"Assigned," chirped Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"So that all we'll get out of it is about enough to keep me in stogies +for a couple of months!" +</p> +<p> +"And—if he's convicted, as of course he will be—a good chance of +losing our reputation as successful trial counsel. Why not beg off?" +</p> +<p> +"Let me hear the story first," answered Mr. Tutt. "Angelo sounds like a +good sport. I have a mild affection for him already." +</p> +<p> +He reached into the lower compartment of his desk and lifted out a +tumbler and a bottle of malt extract, which he placed carefully at his +elbow. Then he leaned back again expectantly. +</p> +<p> +"It is a simple and naive story," began Tutt, seating himself in the +chair reserved for paying clients—that is to say, one which did not +have the two front legs sawed off an inch or so in order to make +lingering uncomfortable. "A plain, unvarnished tale. Our client is one +who makes an honest living by blacking shoes near the entrance to the +Brooklyn Bridge. He is one of several hundred original Tonys who conduct +shoe-shining emporiums." +</p> +<p> +"Emporia," corrected his partner, pouring out a tumbler of malt extract. +</p> +<p> +"He formed an attachment for a certain young lady," went on Tutt, +undisturbed, "who had previously had some sort of love affair with +Crocedoro, as a result of which her social standing had become slightly +impaired. In a word Tomasso jilted her. Angelo saw, pitied and loved +her, took her for better or for worse, and married her." +</p> +<p> +"For which," interjected Mr. Tutt, "he is entitled to everyone's +respect." +</p> +<p> +"Quite so!" agreed Tutt. "Now Tomasso, though not willing to marry the +girl himself, seems to have resented the idea of having anyone else do +so, and accordingly seized every opportunity which presented itself to +twit Angelo about the matter." +</p> +<p> +"Dog in the manger, so to speak," nodded Mr. Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"He not only jeered at Angelo for marrying Rosalina but he began to +hang about his discarded mistress again and scoff at her choice of a +husband. But Rosalina gave him the cold shoulder, with the result that +he became more and more insulting to Angelo. Finally one day our client +made up his mind not to stand it any longer, secured a revolver, sought +out Tomasso in his barber shop and put a bullet through his head. Now +however much you may sympathize with Angelo as a man and a husband there +isn't the slightest doubt that he killed Tomasso with every kind of +deliberation and premeditation." +</p> +<p> +"If the case is as you say," replied Mr. Tutt, replacing the bottle and +tumbler within the lower drawer and flicking a stogy ash from his +waistcoat, "the honorable justice who handed it to us is no friend of +ours." +</p> +<p> +"He isn't," assented his partner. "It was Babson and he hates Italians. +Moreover, he stated in open court that he proposed to try the case +himself next Monday and that we must be ready without fail." +</p> +<p> +"So Babson did that to us!" growled Mr. Tutt. "Just like him. He'll pack +the jury and charge our innocent Angelo into the middle of hades." +</p> +<p> +"And O'Brien is the assistant district attorney in charge of the +prosecution," mildly added Tutt. "But what can we do? We're assigned, +we've got a guilty client, and we've got to defend him." +</p> +<p> +"Have you set Bonnie Doon looking up witnesses?" asked Mr. Tutt. "I +thought I saw him outside during the forenoon." +</p> +<p> +"Yes," replied Tutt. "But Bonnie says it's the toughest case he ever had +to handle in which to find any witnesses for the defense. There aren't +any. Besides, the girl bought the gun and gave it to Angelo the same +day." +</p> +<p> +"How do you know that?" demanded Mr. Tutt, frowning. +</p> +<p> +"Because she told me so herself," said Tutt. "She's outside if you want +to see her." +</p> +<p> +"I might as well give her what you call 'the once over,'" replied the +senior partner. +</p> +<p> +Tutt retired and presently returned half leading, half pushing a +shrinking young Italian woman, shabbily dressed but with the features of +one of Raphael's madonnas. She wore no hat and her hands and finger +nails were far from clean, but from the folds of her black shawl her +neck rose like a column of slightly discolored Carrara marble, upon +which her head with its coils of heavy hair was poised with the grace of +a sulky empress. +</p> +<p> +"Come in, my child, and sit down," said Mr. Tutt kindly. "No, not in +that one; in that one." He indicated the chair previously occupied by +his junior. "You can leave us, Tutt. I want to talk to this young lady +alone." +</p> +<p> +The girl sat sullenly with averted face, showing in her attitude her +instinctive feeling that all officers of the law, no matter upon which +side they were supposed to be, were one and all engaged in a mysterious +conspiracy of which she and her unfortunate Angelo were the victims. A +few words from the old lawyer and she began to feel more confidence, +however. No one, in fact, could help but realize at first glance Mr. +Tutt's warmth of heart. The lines of his sunken cheeks if left to +themselves automatically tended to draw together into a whimsical smile, +and it required a positive act of will upon his part to adopt the stern +and relentless look with which he was wont to glower down upon some +unfortunate witness in cross-examination. +</p> +<p> +Inside Mr. Tutt was a benign and rather mellow old fellow, with a dry +sense of humor and a very keen knowledge of his fellow men. He made a +good deal of money, but not having any wife or child upon which to +lavish it he spent it all either on books or surreptitiously in quixotic +gifts to friends or strangers whom he either secretly admired or whom he +believed to be in need of money. There were vague traditions in the +office of presents of bizarre and quite impossible clothes made to +office boys and stenographers; of ex-convicts reoutfitted and sent +rejoicing to foreign parts; of tramps gorged to repletion and then +pumped dry of their adventures in Mr. Tutt's comfortable, dingy old +library; of a fur coat suddenly clapped upon the rounded shoulders of +old Scraggs, the antiquated scrivener in the accountant's cage in the +outer office, whose alcoholic career, his employer alleged, was marked +by a trail of empty rum kegs, each one flying the white flag of +surrender. +</p> +<p> +And yet old Ephraim Tutt could on occasion be cold as chiseled steel, +and as hard. Any appeal from a child, a woman or an outcast always met +with his ready response; but for the rich, successful and those in power +he seemed to entertain a deep and enduring grudge. He would burn the +midnight oil with equal zest to block a crooked deal on the part of a +wealthy corporation or to devise a means to extricate some no less +crooked rascal from the clutches of the law, provided that the rascal +seemed the victim of hard luck, inheritance or environment. His +weather-beaten conscience was as elastic as his heart. Indeed when under +the expansive influence of a sufficient quantity of malt extract or +ancient brandy from the cellaret on his library desk he had sometimes +been heard to enunciate the theory that there was very little difference +between the people in jail and those who were not. +</p> +<p> +He would work weeks without compensation to argue the case of some +guilty rogue before the Court of Appeals, in order, as he said, to +"settle the law," when his only real object was to get the miserable +fellow out of jail and send him back to his wife and children. He went +through life with a twinkling eye and a quizzical smile, and when he did +wrong he did it—if such a thing is possible—in a way to make people +better. He was a dangerous adversary and judges were afraid of him, not +because he ever tricked or deceived them but because of the audacity and +novelty of his arguments which left them speechless. He had the +assurance that usually comes with age and with a lifelong knowledge of +human nature, yet apparently he had always been possessed of it. +</p> +<p> +Once a judge having assigned him to look out for the interests of a +lawyerless prisoner suggested that he take his new client into the +adjoining jury room and give him the best advice he could. Mr. Tutt was +gone so long that the judge became weary, and to find out what had +become of him sent an officer, who found the lawyer reading a newspaper +beside an open window, but no sign of the prisoner. In great excitement +the officer reported the situation to the judge, who ordered Mr. Tutt to +the bar. +</p> +<p> +"What has become of the prisoner?" demanded His Honor. +</p> +<p> +"I do not know," replied the lawyer calmly. "The window was open and I +suspect that he used it as a means of exit." +</p> +<p> +"Are you not aware that you are a party to an escape—a crime?" hotly +challenged the judge. +</p> +<p> +"I most respectfully deny the charge," returned Mr. Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"I told you to take the prisoner into that room and give him the best +advice you could." +</p> +<p> +"I did!" interjected the lawyer. +</p> +<p> +"Ah!" exclaimed the judge. "You admit it! What advice did you give him?" +</p> +<p> +"The law does not permit me to state that," answered Mr. Tutt in his +most dignified tones. "That is a privileged communication from the +inviolate obligation to preserve which only my client can release me—I +cannot betray a sacred trust. Yet I might quote Cervantes and remind +Your Honor that 'Fortune leaves always some door open to come at a +remedy!'" +</p> +<p> +Now as he gazed at the tear-stained cheeks of the girl-wife whose +husband had committed murder in defense of her self-respect, he vowed +that so far as he was able he would fight to save him. The more +desperate the case the more desperate her need of him—the greater the +duty and the greater his honor if successful. +</p> +<p> +"Believe that I am your friend, my dear!" he assured her. "You and I +must work together to set Angelo free." +</p> +<p> +"It's no use," she returned less defiantly. "He done it. He won't deny +it." +</p> +<p> +"But he is entitled to his defense," urged Mr. Tutt quietly. +</p> +<p> +"He won't make no defense." +</p> +<p> +"We must make one for him." +</p> +<p> +"There ain't none. He just went and killed him." +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt shrugged his shoulders. +</p> +<p> +"There is always a defense," he answered with conviction. "Anyhow we +can't let him be convicted without making an effort. Will they be able +to prove where he got the pistol?" +</p> +<p> +"He didn't get the pistol," retorted the girl with a glint in her black +eyes. "I got it. I'd ha' shot him myself if he hadn't. I said I was +goin' to, but he wouldn't let me." +</p> +<p> +"Dear, dear!" sighed Mr. Tutt. "What a case! Both of you trying to see +which could get hanged first!" +</p> +<hr> +<p> +The inevitable day of Angelo's trial came. Upon the bench the Honorable +Mr. Justice Babson glowered down upon the cowering defendant flanked by +his distinguished counsel, Tutt & Tutt, and upon the two hundred good +and true talesmen who, "all other business laid aside," had been dragged +from the comfort of their homes and the important affairs of their +various livelihoods to pass upon the merits of the issue duly joined +between The People of the State of New York and Angelo Serafino, +charged with murder. +</p> +<p> +One by one as his name was called each took his seat in the witness +chair upon the <i>voir dire</i> and perjured himself like a gentleman in +order to escape from service, shyly confessing to an ineradicable +prejudice against the entire Italian race and this defendant in +particular, and to an antipathy against capital punishment which, so +each unhesitatingly averred, would render him utterly incapable of +satisfactorily performing his functions if selected as a juryman. Hardly +one, however, but was routed by the Machiavellian Babson. Hardly one, +however ingenious his excuse—whether about to be married or immediately +become a father, whether engaged in a business deal involving millions +which required his instant and personal attention whether in the last +stages of illness or obligated to be present at the bedside of a dying +wife—but was browbeaten into helplessness and ordered back to take his +place amidst the waiting throng of recalcitrant citizens so disinclined +to do their part in elevating that system of trial by jury the failure +of which at other times they so loudly condemned. +</p> +<p> +This trifling preliminary having been concluded, the few jurymen who had +managed to wriggle through the judicial sieve were allowed to withdraw, +the balance of the calendar was adjourned, those spectators who were +standing up were ordered to sit down and those already sitting down were +ordered to sit somewhere else, the prisoners in the rear of the room +were sent back to the Tombs to await their fate upon some later day, the +reporters gathered rapaciously about the table just behind the +defendant, a corpulent Ganymede in the person of an aged court officer +bore tremblingly an opaque glass of yellow drinking water to the bench, +O'Brien the prosecutor blew his nose with a fanfare of trumpets, Mr. +Tutt smiled an ingratiating smile which seemed to clasp the whole world +to his bosom—and the real battle commenced; a game in which every card +in the pack had been stacked against the prisoner by an unscrupulous +pair of officials whose only aim was to maintain their record of +convictions of "murder in the first" and who laid their plans with +ingenuity and carried them out with skill and enthusiasm to habitual +success. +</p> +<p> +They were a grand little pair of convictors, were Babson and O'Brien, +and woe unto that man who was brought before them. It was even alleged +by the impious that when Babson was in doubt what to do or what O'Brien +wanted him to do the latter communicated the information to his +conspirator upon the bench by a system of preconcerted signals. But +indeed no such system was necessary, for the judge's part in the drama +was merely to sustain his colleague's objections and overrule those of +his opponent, after which he himself delivered the <i>coup de grace</i> with +unerring insight and accuracy. When Babson got through charging a jury +the latter had always in fact been instructed in brutal and sneering +tones to convict the defendant or forever after to regard themselves as +disloyal citizens, oath violators and outcasts though the stenographic +record of his remarks would have led the reader thereof to suppose that +this same judge was a conscientious, tender-hearted merciful lover of +humanity, whose sensitive soul quivered at the mere thought of a prison +cell, and who meticulously sought to surround the defendant with every +protection the law could interpose against the imputation of guilt. +</p> +<p> +He was, as Tutt put it, "a dangerous old cuss." O'Brien was even worse. +He was a bull-necked, bullet-headed, pugnosed young ruffian with beery +eyes, who had an insatiable ambition and a still greater conceit, but +who had devised a blundering, innocent, helpless way of conducting +himself before a jury that deceived them into believing that his +inexperience required their help and his disinterestedness their loyal +support. Both of them were apparently fair-minded, honest public +servants; both in reality were subtly disingenuous to a degree beyond +ordinary comprehension, for years of practise had made them sensitive to +every whimsy of emotion and taught them how to play upon the psychology +of the jury as the careless zephyr softly draws its melody from the +aeolian harp. In a word they were a precious pair of crooks, who for +their own petty selfish ends played fast and loose with liberty, life +and death. +</p> +<p> +Both of them hated Mr. Tutt, who had more than once made them ridiculous +before the jury and shown them up before the Court of Appeals, and the +old lawyer recognized well the fact that these two legal wolves were in +revenge planning to tear him and his helpless client to pieces, having +first deliberately selected him as a victim and assigned him to +officiate at a ceremony which, however just so far as its consummation +might be concerned, was nothing less in its conduct than judicial +murder. Now they were laughing at him in their sleeves, for Mr. Tutt +enjoyed the reputation of never having defended a client who had been +convicted of murder, and that spotless reputation was about to be +annihilated forever. +</p> +<p> +Though the defense had thirty peremptory challenges Mr. Tutt well knew +that Babson would sustain the prosecutor's objections for bias until the +jury box would contain the twelve automata personally selected by +O'Brien in advance from what Tutt called "the army of the gibbet." Yet +the old war horse outwardly maintained a calm and genial exterior, +betraying none of the apprehension which in fact existed beneath his +mask of professional composure. The court officer rapped sharply for +silence. +</p> +<p> +"Are you quite ready to proceed with the case?" inquired the judge with +a courtesy in which was ill concealed a leer of triumph. +</p> +<p> +"Yes, Your Honor," responded Mr. Tutt in velvet tones. +</p> +<p> +"Call the first talesman!" +</p> +<p> +The fight was on, the professional duel between traditional enemies, in +which the stake—a human life—was in truth the thing of least concern, +had begun. Yet no casual observer would have suspected the actual +significance of what was going on or the part that envy, malice, +uncharitableness, greed, selfishness and ambition were playing in it. He +would have seen merely a partially filled courtroom flooded with +sunshine from high windows, an attentive and dignified judge in a black +silk robe sitting upon a dais below which a white-haired clerk drew +little slips of paper from a wheel and summoned jurymen to a service +which outwardly bore no suggestion of a tragedy. +</p> +<p> +He would have seen a somewhat unprepossessing assistant district +attorney lounging in front of the jury box, taking apparently no great +interest in the proceedings, and a worried-looking young Italian sitting +at the prisoner's table between a rubicund little man with a round red +face and a tall, grave, longish-haired lawyer with a frame not unlike +that of Abraham Lincoln, over whose wrinkled face played from time to +time the suggestion of a smile. Behind a balustrade were the reporters, +scribbling on rough sheets of yellow paper. Then came rows of benches, +upon the first of which, as near the jury box as possible, sat Rosalina +in a new bombazine dress and wearing a large imitation gold cross +furnished for the occasion out of the legal property room of Tutt & +Tutt. Occasionally she sobbed softly. The bulk of the spectators +consisted of rejected talesmen, witnesses, law clerks, professional +court loafers and women seeking emotional sensations which they had not +the courage or the means to satisfy otherwise. The courtroom was +comparatively quiet, the silence broken only by the droning voice of the +clerk and the lazy interplay of question and answer between talesman and +lawyer. +</p> +<p> +Yet beneath the humdrum, casual, almost indifferent manner in which the +proceedings seemed to be conducted each side was watching every move +made by the other with the tension of a tiger ready to spring upon its +prey. Babson and O'Brien were engaged in forcing upon the defense a jury +composed entirely of case-hardened convictors, while Tutt & Tutt were +fighting desperately to secure one so heterogeneous in character that +they could hope for a disagreement. +</p> +<p> +By recess thirty-seven talesmen had been examined without a foreman +having been selected, and Mr. Tutt had exhausted twenty-nine of his +thirty challenges, as against three for the prosecution. The court +reconvened and a new talesman was called, resembling in appearance a +professional hangman who for relaxation leaned toward the execution of +Italians. Mr. Tutt examined him for bias and every known form of +incompetency, but in vain—then challenged peremptorily. Thirty +challenges! He looked on Tutt with slightly raised eyebrows. +</p> +<p> +"Patrick Henry Walsh—to the witness chair, please, Mr. Walsh!" called +the clerk, drawing another slip from the box. +</p> +<p> +Mr. Walsh rose and came forward heavily, while Tutt & Tutt trembled. He +was the one man they were afraid of—an old-timer celebrated as a +bulwark of the prosecution, who could always be safely counted upon to +uphold the arms of the law, who regarded with reverence all officials +connected with the administration of justice, and from whose +composition all human emotions had been carefully excluded by the +Creator. He was a square-jawed, severe, heavily built person, with a +long relentless upper lip, cheeks ruddy from the open air; engaged in +the contracting business; and he had a brogue that would have charmed a +mavis off a tree. Mr. Tutt looked hopelessly at Tutt. +</p> +<p> +Babson and O'Brien had won. +</p> +<p> +Once more Mr. Tutt struggled against his fate. Was Mr. Walsh sure he had +no prejudices against Italians or foreigners generally? Quite. Did he +know anyone connected with the case? No. Had he any objection to the +infliction of capital punishment? None whatever. The defense had +exhausted all its challenges. Mr. Tutt turned to the prospective foreman +with an endearing smile. +</p> +<p> +"Mr. Walsh," said he in caressing tones, "you are precisely the type of +man in whom I feel the utmost confidence in submitting the fate of my +client. I believe that you will make an ideal foreman I hardly need to +ask you whether you will accord the defendant the benefit of every +reasonable doubt, and if you have such a doubt will acquit him." +</p> +<p> +Mr. Walsh gazed suspiciously at Mr. Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"Sure," he responded dryly, "Oi'll give him the benefit o' the doubt, +but if Oi think he's guilty Oi'll convict him." +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt shivered. +</p> +<p> +"Of course! Of course! That would be your duty! You are entirely +satisfactory, Mr. Walsh!" +</p> +<p> +"Mr. Walsh is more than satisfactory to the prosecution!" intoned +O'Brien. +</p> +<p> +"Be sworn, Mr. Walsh," directed the clerk; and the filling of the jury +box in the memorable case of People versus Serafino was begun. +</p> +<p> +"That chap doesn't like us," whispered Mr. Tutt to Tutt. "I laid it on a +bit too thick." +</p> +<p> +In fact, Mr. Walsh had already entered upon friendly relations with Mr. +O'Brien, and as the latter helped him arrange a place for his hat and +coat the foreman cast a look tinged with malevolence at the defendant +and his counsel, as if to say "You can't fool me. I know the kind of +tricks you fellows are all up to." +</p> +<p> +O'Brien could not repress a grin. The clerk drew forth another name. +</p> +<p> +"Mr. Tompkins—will you take the chair?" +</p> +<p> +Swiftly the jury was impaneled. O'Brien challenged everybody who did not +suit his fancy, while Tutt & Tutt sat helpless. +</p> +<p> +Ten minutes and the clerk called the roll, beginning with Mr. Walsh, and +they were solemnly sworn a true verdict to find, and settled themselves +to the task. +</p> +<p> +The mills of the gods had begun to grind, and Angelo was being dragged +to his fate as inexorably and as surely, with about as much chance of +escape, as a log that is being drawn slowly toward a buzz saw. +</p> +<p> +"You may open the case, Mr. O'Brien," announced Judge Babson, leaning +back and wiping his glasses. +</p> +<p> +Then surreptitiously he began to read his mail as his fellow conspirator +undertook to tell the jury what it was all about. One by one the +witnesses were called—the coroner's physician, the policeman who had +arrested Angelo outside the barber shop with the smoking pistol in his +hand, the assistant barber who had seen the shooting, the customer who +was being shaved. Each drove a spike into poor Angelo's legal coffin. +Mr. Tutt could not shake them. This evidence was plain. He had come into +the shop, accused Crocedoro of making his wife's life unbearable +and—shot him. +</p> +<p> +Yet Mr. Tutt did not lose any of his equanimity. With the tips of his +long fingers held lightly together in front of him, and swaying slightly +backward and forward upon the balls of his feet, he smiled benignly down +upon the customer and the barber's assistant as if these witnesses were +merely unfortunate in not being able to disclose to the jury all the +facts. His manner indicated that a mysterious and untold tragedy lay +behind what they had heard, a tragedy pregnant with primordial vital +passions, involving the most sacred of human relationships, which when +known would rouse the spirit of chivalry of the entire panel. +</p> +<p> +On cross-examination the barber testified that Angelo had said: "You +maka small of my wife long enough!" +</p> +<p> +"Ah!" murmured Mr. Tutt, waving an arm in the direction of Rosalina. Did +the witness recognize the defendant's young wife? The jury showed +interest and examined the sobbing Rosalina with approval. Yes, the +witness recognized her. Did the witness know to what incident or +incidents the defendant had referred by his remark—what the deceased +Crocedoro had done to Rosalina—if anything? No, the witness did not. +Mr. Tutt looked significantly at the row of faces in the jury box. +</p> +<p> +Then leaning forward he asked significantly: "Did you see Crocedoro +threaten the defendant with his razor?" +</p> +<p> +"I object!" shouted O'Brien, springing to his feet. "The question is +improper. There is no suggestion that Crocedoro did anything. The +defendant can testify to that if he wants to!" +</p> +<p> +"Oh, let him answer!" drawled the judge. +</p> +<p> +"No—" began the witness. +</p> +<p> +"Ah!" cried Mr. Tutt. "You did not see Crocedoro threaten the defendant +with his razor! That will do!" +</p> +<p> +But forewarned by this trifling experience, Mr. O'Brien induced the +customer, the next witness, to swear that Crocedoro had not in fact made +any move whatever with his razor toward Angelo, who had deliberately +raised his pistol and shot him. +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt rose to the cross-examination with the same urbanity as before. +Where was the witness standing? The witness said he wasn't standing. +Well, where was he sitting, then? In the chair. +</p> +<p> +"Ah!" exclaimed Mr. Tutt triumphantly. "Then you had your back to the +shooting!" +</p> +<p> +In a moment O'Brien had the witness practically rescued by the +explanation that he had seen the whole thing in the glass in front of +him. The firm of Tutt & Tutt uttered in chorus a groan of outraged +incredulity. Several jurymen were seen to wrinkle their foreheads in +meditation. Mr. Tutt had sown a tiny—infinitesimally tiny, to be +sure—seed of doubt, not as to the killing at all but as to the complete +veracity of the witness. +</p> +<p> +And then O'Brien made his coup. +</p> +<p> +"Rosalina Serafino—take the witness stand!" he ordered. +</p> +<p> +He would get from her own lips the admission that she bought the pistol +and gave it to Angelo! +</p> +<p> +But with an outburst of indignation that would have done credit to the +elder Booth Mr. Tutt was immediately on his feet protesting against the +outrage, the barbarity, the heartlessness, the illegality of making a +wife testify against her husband! His eyes flashed, his disordered locks +waved in picturesque synchronization with his impassioned gestures +Rosalina, her beautiful golden cross rising and falling hysterically +upon her bosom, took her seat in the witness chair like a frightened, +furtive creature of the woods, gazed for one brief instant upon the +twelve men in the jury box with those great black eyes of hers, and then +with burning cheeks buried her face in her handkerchief. +</p> +<p> +"I protest against this piece of cruelty!" cried Mr. Tutt in a voice +vibrating with indignation. "This is worthy of the Inquisition. Will not +even the cross upon her breast protect her from being compelled to +reveal those secrets that are sacred to wife and motherhood? Can the law +thus indirectly tear the seal of confidence from the Confessional? Mr. +O'Brien, you go too far! There are some things that even you—brilliant +as you are—may not trifle with." +</p> +<p> +A juryman nodded. The eleven others, being more intelligent, failed to +understand what he was talking about. +</p> +<p> +"Mr. Tutt's objection is sound—if he wishes to press it," remarked the +judge satirically. "You may step down, madam. The law will not compel a +wife to testify against her husband. Have you any more witnesses, Mister +District Attorney?" +</p> +<p> +"The People rest," said Mr. O'Brien. "The case is with the defense." +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt rose with solemnity. +</p> +<p> +"The court will, I suppose, grant me a moment or two to confer with my +client?" he inquired. Babson bowed and the jury saw the lawyer lean +across the defendant and engage his partner in what seemed to be a +weighty deliberation. +</p> +<p> +"I killa him! I say so!" muttered Angelo feebly to Mr. Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"Shut up, you fool!" hissed Tutt, grabbing him by the leg. "Keep still +or I'll wring your neck." +</p> +<p> +"If I could reach that old crook up on the bench I would twist his +nose," remarked Mr. Tutt to Tutt with an air of consulting him about the +Year Books. "And as for that criminal O'Brien, I'll get him yet!" +</p> +<p> +With great dignity Mr. Tutt then rose and again addressed the court: +</p> +<p> +"We have decided under all the circumstances of this most extraordinary +case, Your Honor, not to put in any defense. I shall not call the +defendant—" +</p> +<p> +"I killa him—" began Angelo, breaking loose from Tutt and struggling +to his feet. It was a horrible movement. But Tutt clapped his hand over +Angelo's mouth and forced him back into his seat. +</p> +<p> +"The defense rests," said Mr. Tutt, ignoring the interruption. "So far +as we are concerned the case is closed." +</p> +<p> +"Both sides rest!" snapped Babson. "How long do you want to sum up?" +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt looked at the clock, which pointed to three. The regular hour +of adjournment was at four. Delay was everything in a case like this. A +juryman might die suddenly overnight or fall grievously ill; or some +legal accident might occur which would necessitate declaring a mistrial. +There is, always hope in a criminal case so long as the verdict has not +actually been returned and the jury polled and discharged. If possible +he must drag his summing up over until the following day. Something +might happen. +</p> +<p> +"About two hours, Your Honor," he replied. +</p> +<p> +The jury stirred impatiently. It was clear that they regarded a two-hour +speech from him under the circumstances as an imposition. But Babson +wished to preserve the fiction of impartiality. +</p> +<p> +"Very well," said he. "You may sum up until four-thirty, and have half +an hour more to-morrow morning. See that the doors are closed, Captain +Phelan. We do not want any interruption while the summations are going +on." +</p> +<p> +"All out that's goin' out! Everybody out that's got no business, with +the court!" bellowed Captain Phelan. +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt with an ominous heightening of the pulse realized that the real +ordeal was at last at hand, for the closing of the case had wrought in +the old lawyer an instant metamorphosis. With the words "The defense +rests" every suggestion of the mountebank, the actor or the shyster had +vanished. The awful responsibility under which he labored; the +overwhelming and damning evidence against his client; the terrible +consequences of the least mistake that he might make; the fact that only +the sword of his ability, and his alone, stood between Angelo and a +hideous death by fire in the electric chair—sobered and chastened him. +Had he been a praying man in that moment he would have prayed—but he +was not. +</p> +<p> +For his client was foredoomed—foredoomed not only by justice but also +by trickery and guile—and was being driven slowly but surely towards +the judicial shambles. For what had he succeeded in adducing in his +behalf? Nothing but the purely apocryphal speculation that the dead +barber might have threatened Angelo with his razor and that the +witnesses might possibly have drawn somewhat upon their imaginations in +giving the details of their testimony. A sorry defense! Indeed, no +defense at all. All the sorrier in that he had not even been able to get +before the jury the purely sentimental excuses for the homicide, for he +could only do this by calling Rosalina to the stand, which would have +enabled the prosecution to cross-examine her in regard to the purchase +of the pistol and the delivery of it to her husband—the strongest +evidence of premeditation. Yet he must find some argument, some plea, +some thread of reason upon which the jury might hang a disagreement or a +verdict in a lesser degree. +</p> +<p> +With a shuffling of feet the last of the crowd pushed through the big +oak doors and they were closed and locked. An officer brought a corroded +tumbler of brackish water and placed it in front of Mr. Tutt. The judge +leaned forward with malicious courtesy. The jury settled themselves and +turned toward the lawyer attentively yet defiantly, hardening their +hearts already against his expected appeals to sentiment. O'Brien, +ostentatiously producing a cigarette, lounged out through the side door +leading to the jury room and prison cells. The clerk began copying his +records. The clock ticked loudly. +</p> +<p> +And Mr. Tutt rose and began going through the empty formality of +attempting to discuss the evidence in such a way as to excuse or +palliate Angelo's crime. For Angelo's guilt of murder in the first +degree was so plain that it had never for one moment been in the +slightest doubt. Whatever might be said for his act from the point of +view of human emotion only made his motive and responsibility under the +statues all the clearer. There was not even the unwritten law to appeal +to. Yet there was fundamentally a genuine defense, a defense that could +not be urged even by innuendo: the defense that no accused ought to be +convicted upon any evidence whatever, no matter how conclusive in a +trial conducted with essential though wholly concealed unfairness. +</p> +<p> +Such was the case of Angelo. No one could demonstrate it, no one could +with safety even hint at it; any charge that the court was anything but +impartial would prove a boomerang to the defense; and yet the facts +remained that the whole proceeding from start to finish had been +conducted unfairly and with illegality, that the jury had been duped and +deceived, and that the pretense that the guilty Angelo had been given an +impartial trial was a farce. Every word of the court had been an +accusation, a sneer, an acceptance of the defendant's guilt as a matter +of course, an abuse far more subversive of our theory of government than +the mere acquittal of a single criminal, for it struck at the very +foundations of that liberty which the fathers had sought the shores of +the unknown continent to gain. +</p> +<p> +Unmistakably the proceedings had been conducted throughout upon the +theory that the defendant must prove his innocence and that presumably +he was a guilty man; and this as well as his own impression that the +evidence was conclusive the judge had subtly conveyed to the jury in his +tone of speaking, his ironical manner and his facial expression. Guilty +or not Angelo was being railroaded. That was the real defense—the +defense that could never be established even in any higher court, except +perhaps in the highest court of all, which is not of earth. +</p> +<p> +And so Mr. Tutt, boiling with suppressed indignation weighed down with +the sense of his responsibility, fully realizing his inability to say +anything based on the evidence in behalf of his client, feeling twenty +years older than he had during the verbal duel of the actual +cross-examination, rose with a genial smile upon his puckered old face +and with a careless air almost of gaiety, which seemed to indicate the +utmost confidence and determination, and with a graceful compliment to +his arch enemy upon the bench and the yellow dog who had hunted with +him, assured the jury that the defendant had had the fairest of fair +trials and that he, Mr. Tutt, would now proceed to demonstrate to their +satisfaction his client's entire innocence; nay, would show them that he +was a man not only guiltless of any wrong-doing but worthy of their +hearty commendation. +</p> +<p> +With jokes not too unseemly for the occasion he overcame their +preliminary distrust and put them in a good humor. He gave a historical +dissertation upon the law governing homicide, on the constitutional +rights of American citizens, on the laws of naturalization, marriage, +and the domestic relations; waxed eloquent over Italy and the Italian +character, mentioned Cavour, Garibaldi and Mazzini in a way to imply +that Angelo was their lineal descendant; and quoted from D'Annunzio back +to Horace, Cicero and Plautus. +</p> +<p> +"Bunk! Nothing but bunk!" muttered Tutt, studying the twelve faces +before him. "And they all know it!" +</p> +<p> +But Mr. Tutt was nothing if not interesting. These prosaic citizens of +New York County, these saloon and hotel keepers, these contractors, +insurance agents and salesmen were learning something of history, of +philosophy, of art and beauty. They liked it. They felt they were +hearing something worth while, as indeed they were, and they forgot all +about Angelo and the unfortunate Crocedoro in their admiration for Mr. +Tutt, who had lifted them out of the dingy sordid courtroom into the +sunlight of the Golden Age. And as he led them through Greek and Roman +literature, through the early English poets, through Shakespeare and the +King James version, down to John Galsworthy and Rupert Brooke, he +brought something that was noble, fine and sweet into their grubby +materialistic lives; and at the same time the hand of the clock crept +steadily on until he and it reached Château-Thierry and half past four +together. +</p> +<p> +"Bang!" went Babson's gavel just as Mr. Tutt was leading Mr. Walsh, Mr. +Tompkins and the others through the winding paths of the Argonne forests +with tin helmets on their heads in the struggle for liberty. +</p> +<p> +"You may conclude your address in the morning, Mr. Tutt," said the judge +with supreme unction. "Adjourn court!" +</p> +<hr> +<p> +Gray depression weighed down Mr. Tutt's soul as he trudged homeward. He +had made a good speech, but it had had absolutely nothing to do with the +case, which the jury would perceive as soon as they thought it over. It +was a confession of defeat. Angelo would be convicted of murder in the +first degree and electrocuted, Rosalina would be a widow, and somehow he +would be in a measure responsible for it. The tragedy of human life +appalled him. He felt very old, as old as the dead-and-gone authors from +whom he had quoted with such remarkable facility. He belonged with them; +he was too old to practise his profession. +</p> +<p> +"Law, Mis' Tutt," expostulated Miranda, his ancient negro handmaiden, as +he pushed away the chop and mashed potato, and even his glass of claret, +untasted, in his old-fashioned dining room on West Twenty-third Street, +"you ain't got no appetite at all! You's sick, Mis' Tutt." +</p> +<p> +"No, no, Miranda!" he replied weakly. "I'm just getting old." +</p> +<p> +"You's mighty spry for an old man yit," she protested. "You kin make dem +lawyer men hop mighty high when you tries. Heh, heh! I reckon dey ain't +got nuffin' on my Mistah Tutt!" +</p> +<p> +Upstairs in his library Mr. Tutt strode up and down before the empty +grate, smoking stogy after stogy, trying to collect his thoughts and +devise something to say upon the morrow, but all his ideas had flown. +There wasn't anything to say. Yet he swore Angelo should not be offered +up as a victim upon the altar of unscrupulous ambition. The hours passed +and the old banjo clock above the mantel wheezed eleven, twelve; then +one, two. Still he paced up and down, up and down in a sort of trance. +The air of the library, blue with the smoke of countless stogies, +stifled and suffocated him. Moreover he discovered that he was hungry. +He descended to the pantry and salvaged a piece of pie, then unchained +the front door and stepped forth into the soft October night. +</p> +<p> +A full moon hung over the deserted streets of the sleeping city. In +divers places, widely scattered, the twelve good and true men were +snoring snugly in bed. To-morrow they would send Angelo to his death +without a quiver. He shuddered, striding on, he knew not whither, into +the night. His brain no longer worked. He had become a peripatetic +automaton self-dedicated to nocturnal perambulation. +</p> +<p> +With his pockets bulging with stogies and one glowing like a headlight +in advance of him he wandered in a sort of coma up Tenth Avenue, crossed +to the Riverside Drive, mounted Morningside Heights, descended again +through the rustling alleys of Central Park, and found himself at Fifth +Avenue and Fifty-ninth Street just as the dawn was paling the electric +lamps to a sickly yellow and the trees were casting strange unwonted +shadows in the wrong direction. He was utterly exhausted. He looked +eagerly for some place to sit down, but the doors of the hotels were +dark and tightly closed and it was too cold to remain without moving in +the open air. +</p> +<p> +Down Fifth Avenue he trudged, intending to go home and snatch a few +hours' sleep before court should open, but each block seemed miles in +length. Presently he approached the cathedral, whose twin spires were +tinted with reddish gold. The sky had become a bright blue. Suddenly all +the street lamps went out. He told himself that he had never realized +before the beauty of those two towers reaching up toward eternity, +typifying man's aspiration for the spiritual. He remembered having heard +that a cathedral was never closed, and looking toward the door he +perceived that it was open. With utmost difficulty he climbed the steps +and entered its dark shadows. A faint light emanated from the tops of +the stained-glass windows. Down below a candle burned on either side of +the altar while a flickering gleam shone from the red cup in the +sanctuary lamp. Worn out, drugged for lack of sleep, faint for want of +food, old Mr. Tutt sank down upon one of the rear seats by the door, and +resting his head upon his arms on the back of the bench in front of him +fell fast asleep. +</p> +<p> +He dreamed of a legal heaven, of a great wooden throne upon which sat +Babson in a black robe and below him twelve red-faced angels in a double +row with harps in their hands, chanting: "Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!" An +organ was playing somewhere, and there was a great noise of footsteps. +Then a bell twinkled and he raised his head and saw that the chancel was +full of lights and white-robed priests. It was broad daylight. Horrified +he looked at his watch, to find that it was ten minutes after ten. His +joints creaked as he pulled himself to his feet and his eyes were half +closed as he staggered down the steps and hailed a taxi. +</p> +<p> +"Criminal Courts Building—side door. And drive like hell!" he muttered +to the driver. +</p> +<p> +He reached it just as Judge Babson and his attendant were coming into +the courtroom and the crowd were making obeisance. Everybody else was in +his proper place. +</p> +<p> +"You may proceed, Mr. Tutt," said the judge after the roll of the jury +had been called. +</p> +<p> +But Mr. Tutt was in a daze, in no condition to think or speak. There was +a curious rustling in his ears and his sight was somewhat blurred. The +atmosphere of the courtroom seemed to him cold and hostile; the jury sat +with averted faces. He rose feebly and cleared his throat. +</p> +<p> +"Gentlemen of the jury," he began, "I—I think I covered everything I +had to say yesterday afternoon. I can only beseech you to realize the +full extent of your great responsibility and remind you that if you +entertain a reasonable doubt upon the evidence you are sworn to give the +benefit of it to the defendant." +</p> +<p> +He sank back in his chair and covered his eyes with his hands, while a +murmur ran along the benches of the courtroom. The old man had +collapsed—tough luck—the defendant was cooked! Swiftly O'Brien leaped +to his feet. There had been no defense. The case was as plain as a +pike-staff. There was only one thing for the jury to do—return a +verdict of murder in the first. It would not be pleasant, but that made +no difference! He read them the statute, applied it to the facts, and +shook his fist in their faces. They must convict—and convict of only +one thing—and nothing else—murder in the first degree. They gazed at +him like silly sheep, nodding their heads, doing everything but bleat. +</p> +<p> +Then Babson cleared his decks and rising in dignity expounded the law to +the sheep in a rich mellow voice, in which he impressed upon them the +necessity of preserving the integrity of the jury system and the +sanctity of human life. He pronounced an obituary of great beauty upon +the deceased barber—who could not, as he pointed out, speak for +himself, owing to the fact that he was in his grave. He venomously +excoriated the defendant who had deliberately planned to kill an +unarmed man peacefully conducting himself in his place of business, and +expressed the utmost confidence that he could rely upon the jury, whose +character he well knew, to perform their full duty no matter how +disagreeable that duty might be. The sheep nodded. +</p> +<p> +"You may retire, gentlemen." +</p> +<p> +Babson looked down at Mr. Tutt with a significant gleam in his eye. He +had driven in the knife to the hilt and twisted it round and round. +Angelo had almost as much chance as the proverbial celluloid cat. Mr. +Tutt felt actually sick. He did not look at the jury as they went out. +They would not be long—and he could hardly face the thought of their +return. Never in his long experience had he found himself in such a +desperate situation. Heretofore there had always been some argument, +some construction of the facts upon which he could make an appeal, +however fallacious or illogical. +</p> +<p> +He leaned back and closed his eyes. The judge was chatting with O'Brien, +the court officers were betting with the reporters as to the length of +time in which it would take the twelve to agree upon a verdict of murder +in the first. The funeral rites were all concluded except for the final +commitment of the corpse to mother earth. +</p> +<p> +And then without warning Angelo suddenly rose and addressed the court in +a defiant shriek. +</p> +<p> +"I killa that man!" he cried wildly. "He maka small of my wife! He no +good! He bad egg! I killa him once—I killa him again!" +</p> +<p> +"So!" exclaimed Babson with biting sarcasm. "You want to make a +confession? You hope for mercy, do you? Well, Mr. Tutt, what do you wish +to do under the circumstances? Shall I recall the jury and reopen the +case by consent?" +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt rose trembling to his feet. +</p> +<p> +"The case is closed, Your Honor," he replied. "I will consent to a +mistrial and offer a plea of guilty of manslaughter. I cannot agree to +reopen the case. I cannot let the defendant go upon the stand." +</p> +<p> +The spectators and reporters were pressing forward to the bar, anxious +lest they should lose a single word of the colloquy. Angelo remained +standing, looking eagerly at O'Brien, who returned his gaze with a grin +like that of a hyena. +</p> +<p> +"I killa him!" Angelo repeated. "You killa me if you want." +</p> +<p> +"Sit down!" thundered the judge. "Enough of this! The law does not +permit me to accept a plea to murder in the first degree, and my +conscience and my sense of duty to the public will permit me to accept +no other. I will go to my chambers to await the verdict of the jury. +Take the prisoner downstairs to the prison pen." +</p> +<p> +He swept from the bench in his silken robes. Angelo was led away. The +crowd in the courtroom slowly dispersed. Mr. Tutt, escorted by Tutt, +went out in the corridor to smoke. +</p> +<p> +"Ye got a raw deal, counselor," remarked Captain Phelan, amiably +accepting a stogy. "Nothing but an act of Providence c'd save that +Eyetalian from the chair. An' him guilty at that!" +</p> +<p> +An hour passed; then another. At half after four a rumor flew along the +corridors that the jury in the Serafino case had reached a verdict and +were coming in. A messenger scurried to the judge's chambers. Phelan +descended the iron stairs to bring up the prisoner, while Tutt to +prevent a scene invented an excuse by which he lured Rosalina to the +first floor of the building. The crowd suddenly reassembled out of +nowhere and poured into the courtroom. The reporters gathered +expectantly round their table. The judge entered, his robes, gathered in +one hand. +</p> +<p> +"Bring in the jury," he said sharply. "Arraign the prisoner at the bar." +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt took his place beside his client at the railing, while the +jury, carrying their coats and hats, filed slowly in. Their faces were +set and relentless. They looked neither to the right nor to the left. +O'Brien sauntered over and seated himself nonchalantly with his back to +the court, studying their faces. Yes, he told himself, they were a +regular set of hangmen—he couldn't have picked a tougher bunch if he'd +had his choice of the whole panel. +</p> +<p> +The clerk called the roll, and Messrs. Walsh, Tompkins, <i>et al.</i>, stated +that they were all present. +</p> +<p> +"Gentlemen of the jury, have you agreed upon a verdict?" inquired the +clerk. +</p> +<p> +"We have!" replied Mr. Walsh sternly. +</p> +<p> +"How say you? Do you find the defendant guilty or not guilty?" +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt gripped the balustrade in front of him with one hand and put +his other arm round Angelo. He felt that now in truth murder was being +done. +</p> +<p> +"We find the defendant not guilty," said Mr. Walsh defiantly. +</p> +<p> +There was a momentary silence of incredulity. Then Babson and O'Brien +shouted simultaneously: "What!" +</p> +<p> +"We find the defendant not guilty," repeated Mr. Walsh stubbornly. +</p> +<p> +"I demand that the jury be polled!" cried the crestfallen O'Brien, his +face crimson. +</p> +<p> +And then the twelve reiterated severally that that was their verdict and +that they hearkened unto it as it stood recorded and that they were +entirely satisfied with it. +</p> +<p> +"You are discharged!" said Babson in icy tones. "Strike the names of +these men from the list of jurors—as incompetent. Haven't you any other +charge on which you can try this defendant?" +</p> +<p> +"No, Your Honor," answered O'Brien grimly. "He didn't take the stand, so +we can't try him for perjury; and there isn't any other indictment +against him." +</p> +<p> +Judge Babson turned ferociously upon Mr. Tutt: +</p> +<p> +"This acquittal is a blot upon the administration of criminal justice; a +disgrace to the city! It is an unconscionable verdict; a reflection upon +the intelligence of the jury! The defendant is discharged. This court is +adjourned." +</p> +<p> +The crowd surged round Angelo and bore him away, bewildered. The judge +and prosecutor hurried from the room. Alone Mr. Tutt stood at the bar, +trying to grasp the full meaning of what had occurred. +</p> +<p> +He no longer felt tired; he experienced an exultation such as he had +never known before. Some miracle had happened! What was it? +</p> +<p> +Unexpectedly the lawyer felt a rough warm hand clasped over his own upon +the rail and heard the voice of Mr. Walsh with its rich brogue saying: +"At first we couldn't see that there was much to be said for your side +of the case, Mr. Tutt; but when Oi stepped into the cathedral on me way +down to court this morning and spied you prayin' there for guidance I +knew you wouldn't be defendin' him unless he was innocent, and so we +decided to give him the benefit of the doubt." +</p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<a name="MOCK"><!-- MOCK --></a> +<h2> +Mock Hen and Mock Turtle +</h2> +<p> </p> +<blockquote><p> +"Oh, East is East and West is West, and never the +twain shall meet."—BALLAD OF EAST AND WEST. +</p></blockquote> +<blockquote><p> +"But the law of the jungle is jungle law only, and the +law of the pack is only for the pack."—OTHER SAYINGS OF SHERE KHAN. +</p></blockquote> +<p> +A half turn from the clattering hubbub of Chatham Square and you are in +Chinatown, slipping, within ten feet, through an invisible wall, from +the glitter of the gin palace and the pawn-shop to the sinister shadows +of irregular streets and blind alleys, where yellow men pad swiftly +along greasy asphalt beneath windows glinting with ivory, bronze and +lacquer; through which float the scents of aloes and of incense and all +the subtle suggestion of the East. +</p> +<p> +No one better than the Chink himself realizes the commercial value of +the taboo, the bizarre and the unclean. Nightly the rubber-neck car +swinging gayly with lanterns stops before the imitation joss house, the +spurious opium joint and tortuous passage to the fake fan-tan and faro +game, with a farewell call at Hong Joy Fah's Oriental restaurant and the +well-stocked novelty store of Wing, Hen & Co. The visitors see what they +expect to see, for the Chinaman always gives his public exactly what it +wants. +</p> +<p> +But a dollar does not show you Chinatown. To some the ivories will +always be but crudely carven bone, the jades the potter's sham, the musk +and aloes the product of a soap factory, the joss but a cigar-store +Indian, and the Oriental dainties of Hong Fah the scrappings of a Yankee +grocery store. Yet behind the shoddy tinsel of Doyers and Pell Streets, +as behind Alice's looking-glass, there is another Chinatown—a strange, +inhuman, Oriental world, not necessarily of trapdoors and stifled +screams, but one moved by influences undreamed of in our banal +philosophies. Hearken then to the story of the avenging of Wah Sing. +</p> +<pre> + <i>'Tis a tale was undoubtedly true + In the reign of the Emperor Hwang</i>. +</pre> +<p> +In the murky cellar of a Pell Street tenement seventeen Chinamen sat +cross-legged in a circle round an octagonal teakwood table. To an +Occidental they would have appeared to differ in no detail except that +of a varying degree of fatness. An oil lamp flickered before a joss near +by, and the place reeked with the odor of starch, sweat, tobacco, rice +whisky and the incense that rose ceilingward in thin, shaking columns +from two bowls of Tibetan soapstone. An obese Chinaman with a walnutlike +countenance in which cunning and melancholy were equally commingled was +speaking monotonously through long, rat-tailed mustaches, while the +others listened with impassive decorum. It was a special meeting of the +Hip Leong Tong, held in their private clubrooms at the Great Shanghai +Tea Company, and conducted according to rule. +</p> +<p> +"Therefore," said Wong Get, "as a matter of honor it is necessary that +our brother be avenged and that no chances be taken. A much too long +time has already elapsed. I have written the letter and will read it." +</p> +<p> +He fumbled in his sleeve and drew forth a roll of brown paper covered +with heavy Chinese characters unwinding it from a strip of bamboo. +</p> +<blockquote><p> +<i>To the Honorable Members of the On Gee Tong:</i> +</p><p> +Whereas it has pleased you to take the life of our beloved +friend and relative Wah Sing, it is with greatest courtesy +and the utmost regret that we inform you that it is +necessary for us likewise to remove one of your esteemed +society, and that we shall proceed thereto without delay. +</p><p> +Due warning being thus honorably given I subscribe +myself with profound appreciation, +</p><p> +For the Hip Leong Tong, +</p><p> +WONG GET. +</p></blockquote> +<p> +He ceased reading and there was a perfunctory grunt of approval from +round the circle. Then he turned to the official soothsayer and directed +him to ascertain whether the time were propitious. The latter tossed +into the air a handful of painted ivory sticks, carefully studied their +arrangement when fallen, and nodded gravely. +</p> +<p> +"The omens are favorable, O honorable one!" +</p> +<p> +"Then there is nothing left but the choice of our representatives," +continued Wong Get. "Pass the fateful box, O Fong Hen." +</p> +<p> +Fong Hen, a slender young Chinaman, the official slipper, or messenger, +of the society, rose and, lifting a lacquered gold box from the table, +passed it solemnly to each member. +</p> +<p> +"This time there will be four," said Wong Get. +</p> +<p> +Each in turn averted his eyes and removed from the box a small sliver of +ivory. At the conclusion of the ceremony the four who had drawn red +tokens rose. Wong Get addressed them. +</p> +<p> +"Mock Hen, Mock Ding, Long Get, Sui Sing—to you it is confided to +avenge the murder of our brother Wah Sing. Fail not in your purpose!" +</p> +<p> +And the four answered unemotionally: "Those to whom it is confided will +not fail." +</p> +<p> +Then pivoting silently upon their heels they passed out of the cellar. +</p> +<p> +Wong Get glanced round the table. +</p> +<p> +"If there is no further business the society will disperse after the +customary refreshment." +</p> +<p> +Fong Hen placed thirteen tiny glasses upon the table and filled them +with rice whisky scented with aniseed and a dash of powdered ginger. At +a signal from Wong Get the thirteen Chinamen lifted the glasses and +drank. +</p> +<p> +"The meeting is adjourned," said he. +</p> +<hr> +<p> +Eighty years before, in a Cantonese rabbit warren two yellow men had +fought over a white woman, and one had killed the other. They had +belonged to different societies, or tongs. The associates of the +murdered man had avenged his death by slitting the throat of one of the +members of the other organization, and these in turn had retaliated thus +establishing a vendetta which became part and parcel of the lives of +certain families, as naturally and unavoidably as birth, love and death. +As regularly as the solstice they alternated in picking each other off. +Branches of the Hip Leong and On Gee tongs sprang up in San Francisco +and New York—and the feud was transferred with them to Chatham Square, +a feud imposing a sacred obligation rooted in blood, honor and religion +upon every member, who rather than fail to carry it out would have +knotted a yellow silken cord under his left ear and swung himself gently +off a table into eternal sleep. +</p> +<p> +Young Mock Hen, one of the four avengers, had created a distinct place +for himself in Chinatown by making a careful study of New York +psychology. He was a good-looking Chink, smooth-faced, tall and supple; +he knew very well how to capitalize his attractiveness. By day he +attended Columbia University as a special student in applied +electricity, keeping a convenient eye meanwhile on three coolies whom he +employed to run The College Laundry on Morningside Heights. By night he +vicariously operated a chop-suey palace on Seventh Avenue, where +congregated the worst elements of the Tenderloin. But his heart was in +the gambling den which he maintained in Doyers Street, and where anyone +who knew the knock could have a shell of hop for the asking, once Mock +had given him the once-over through the little sliding panel. +</p> +<p> +Mock was a Christian Chinaman. That is to say, purely for business +reasons—for what he got out of it and the standing that it gave him—he +attended the Rising Star Mission and also frequented Hudson House, the +social settlement where Miss Fanny Duryea taught him to play ping-pong +and other exciting parlor games, and read to him from books adapted to +an American child of ten. He was a great favorite at both places, for he +was sweet-tempered and wore an expression of heaven-born innocence. He +had even been to church with Miss Duryea, temporarily absenting himself +for that purpose of a Sunday morning from the steam-heated flat +where—unknown to her, of course—he lived with his white wife, Emma +Pratt, a lady of highly miscellaneous antecedents. +</p> +<p> +Except when engaged in transacting legal or oilier business with the +municipal, sociologic or religious world—at which times his vocabulary +consisted only of the most rudimentary pidgin—Mock spoke a fluent and +even vernacular English learned at night school. Incidentally he was the +head of the syndicate which controlled and dispensed the loo, faro, +fan-tan and other gambling privileges of Chinatown. +</p> +<hr> +<p> +Detective Mooney, of the Second, detailed to make good District Attorney +Peckham's boast that there had never been so little trouble with the +foreign element since the administration—of which he was an +ornament—came into office, saw Quong Lee emerge from his doorway in +Doyers Street just before four o'clock the following Thursday and slip +silently along under the shadow of the eaves toward Ah Fong's +grocery—and instantly sensed something peculiar in the Chink's walk. +</p> +<p> +"Hello, Quong!" he called, interposing himself. "Where you goin'?" +</p> +<p> +Quong paused with a deprecating gesture of widely spread open palms. +</p> +<p> +"'Lo yourself!" replied blandly. "Me go buy li'l' glocery." +</p> +<p> +Mooney ran his hands over the rotund body, frisking him for a possible +forty-four. +</p> +<p> +"For the love of Mike!" he exclaimed, tearing open Quong's blouse. "What +sort of an undershirt is that?" Quong grinned broadly as the detective +lifted the suit of double-chain mail which swayed heavily under his blue +blouse from his shoulders to his knees. +</p> +<p> +"So-ho!" continued the plain-clothes man. "Trouble brewin', eh?" +</p> +<p> +He knew already that something was doing in the tongs from his +lobby-gow, Wing Foo. +</p> +<p> +"Must weigh eighty pounds!" he whistled. "I'd like to see the pill that +would go through that!" It was, in fact, a medieval corselet of finest +steel mesh, capable of turning an elephant bullet. +</p> +<p> +"Go'long!" ordered Mooney finally. "I guess you're safe!" +</p> +<p> +He turned back in the direction of Chatham Square, while Quong resumed +his tortoiselike perambulation toward Ah Fong's. Pell and Doyers Streets +were deserted save for an Italian woman carrying a baby, and were +pervaded by an unnatural and suspicious silence. Most of the shutters on +the lower windows were down. Ah Fong's subsequent story of what happened +was simple, and briefly to the effect that Quong, having entered his +shop and priced various litchi nuts and pickled starfruit, had purchased +some powdered lizard and, with the package in his left hand, had opened +the door to go out. As he stood there with his right hand upon the knob +and facing the afternoon sun four shadows fell aslant the window and a +man whom he positively identified as Sui Sing emptied a bag of +powder—afterward proved to be red pepper—upon Quong's face; then +another, Long Get, made a thrust at him with a knife, the effect of +which he did not observe, as almost at the same instant Mock Hen felled +him with a blow upon the head with an iron bar, while a fourth, Mock +Ding, fired four shots at his crumpling body with a revolver one of +which glanced off and fractured a very costly Chien Lung vase and ruined +four boxes of mandarin-blossom tea. In his excitement he ducked behind +the counter, and when sufficiently revived he crawled forth to find what +had once been Quong lying across the threshold, the murderers gone, and +the Italian woman prostrate and shrieking with a hip splintered by a +stray bullet. On the sidewalk outside the window lay the remnants of the +bag of pepper, a knife broken short off at the handle, a heavy bar of +soft iron slightly bent, and a partially emptied forty-four-caliber +revolver. Quong's suit of mail had effectually protected him from the +knife thrust and the revolver shots, but his skull was crushed beyond +repair. Thus was the murder of Wah Sing avenged in due and proper form. +</p> +<p> +Detective Mooney, distant not more than two hundred feet, rushed back to +the corner at the sound of the first shot—just in time to catch a side +glimpse of Mock Hen as he raced across Pell Street and disappeared into +the cellar of the Great Shanghai Tea Company. The Italian woman was +filling the air with her outcries, but the detective did not pause in +his hurtling pursuit. He was too late, however. The cellar door +withstood all his efforts to break it open. +</p> +<p> +Bull Neck Burke, the wrestler, who tied Zabisko once on the stage of the +old Grand Opera House in 1913, had been promenading with Mollie Malone, +of the Champagne Girls and Gay Burlesquers Company. Both heard the +fusillade and saw Mock—a streak of flying blue—pass within a few feet +of them. +</p> +<p> +"God!" ejaculated Mollie. "Sure as shootin', that's Mock Hen—and he's +murdered somebody!" +</p> +<p> +"It's Mock all right!" agreed Bull Neck. "That puts us in as witnesses +or strike me!" And he looked at his watch—four one. +</p> +<p> +"Here, Burke, put your shoulder to this!" shouted Mooney from the cellar +steps. "Now then!" +</p> +<p> +The two of them threw their combined weight against it, the lock flew +open and they fell forward into the darkness. Three doors leading in +different directions met the glare of Mooney's match. But the fugitive +had a start of at least four minutes, which was three and a half more +than he required. +</p> +<hr> +<p> +Mock Hen took the left-hand of the three doors and crept along a passage +opening into an empty opium parlor back of the Hip Leong clubroom. +</p> +<p> +Diving beneath one of the bunks he inserted his body between the lower +planking at the back and the cellar wall, wormed his way some twelve +feet, raised a trap and emerged into a tunnel by means of which and +others he eventually reached the end of the block and the rooms of his +friend Hong Sue. +</p> +<p> +Here he changed from the Oriental costume according to Chinese etiquette +necessary to the homicide, into a nobby suit of American clothes, put on +a false mustache, and walked boldly down Park Row, while just behind +him Doyers and Pell Streets swarmed with bluecoats and excited +citizenry. +</p> +<p> +Hudson House, the social settlement presided over by Miss Fanny and +affected for business reasons by Mock Hen, was a mile and a half away. +But Mock took his time. Twenty-five full minutes elapsed before he +leisurely climbed the steps and slipped into the big reading room. There +was no one there and Mock deftly turned back the hand of the automatic +clock over the platform to three-fifty-five. Then he began to whistle. +Presently Miss Fanny entered from the rear room, her face lighting with +pleasure at the sight of her pet convert. +</p> +<p> +"Good afternoon, Mock Hen! You are early to-day." +</p> +<p> +Mock took her hand and stroked it affectionately. +</p> +<p> +"I go Fulton Mark' buy li'l' terrapin. Stop in on way to see dear Miss +Fan'." +</p> +<p> +They stood thus for a moment, and while they did so the clock struck +four. +</p> +<p> +"I go now!" said Mock suddenly. "Four o'clock already." +</p> +<p> +"It's early," answered Miss Fanny. "Won't you stay a little while?" +</p> +<p> +"I go now," he repeated with resolution. "Good-by li'l' teacher!" +</p> +<p> +She watched until his lithe figure passed through the door, and +presently returned to the back room. Mock waited outside until she had +disappeared. +</p> +<p> +Then he changed back the clock. +</p> +<hr> +<p> +"We've got you, you blarsted heathen!" cried Mooney hoarsely as he and +two others from the Central Office threw themselves upon Mock Hen on the +landing outside the door of his flat. "Look out, Murtha. Pipe that thing +under his arm!" +</p> +<p> +"It's a bloody turtle!" gasped Murtha, shuddering +</p> +<p> +"What's the matter, boys?" inquired Mock. "Leggo my arm, can't yer? +What'd yer want, anyway?" +</p> +<p> +"We want you, you yellow skunk!" retorted Mooney. "Open that door! +Lively now!" +</p> +<p> +"Sure!" answered Mock amiably. "Come on in! What's bitin' yer?" +</p> +<p> +He unlocked the door and threw it open. +</p> +<p> +"Take a chair," he invited them. "Have a cigar? You there, Emma?" +</p> +<p> +Emma Pratt, clad in a wrapper and lying on the big double brass bedstead +in the rear room, raised herself on one elbow. +</p> +<p> +"Yep!" she called through the passage. "Got the bird?" +</p> +<p> +Mock looked at Murtha, who was carrying the terrapin. +</p> +<p> +"Sure!" he called back. "Sit down, boys. What'd yer want? Can't yer +tell a feller?" +</p> +<p> +"We want you for croaking Quong Lee!" snapped Mooney. "Where have you +been?" +</p> +<p> +"Fulton Market—and Hudson House. I left here quarter of four. I haven't +seen Quong Lee. Where was he killed?" +</p> +<p> +Mooney laughed sardonically. +</p> +<p> +"That'll do for you, Mock! Your alibi ain't worth a damn this time. I +saw you myself." +</p> +<p> +"You saw someone else," Mock assured him politely. "I haven't been in +Chinatown." +</p> +<p> +"Say, what yer doin' wit' my Chink?" demanded Emma, appearing in the +doorway. "He was sittin' here wit' me all the afternoon, until about +just before four I sent him over to Fulton Market to buy a bird. Who's +been croaked, eh?" +</p> +<p> +"Aw, cut it out, Emma!" replied Mooney. "That old stuff won't go here. +Your Chink's goin' to the chair. Murtha, look through the place while we +put Mock in the wagon. Hell!" he added under his breath. "Won't this +make Peckham sick!" +</p> +<hr> +<p> +Mr. Ephraim Tutt just finished his morning mail when he was informed +that Mr. Wong Get desired an interview. Though the old lawyer did not +formally represent the Hip Leong Tong he was frequently retained by its +individual members, who held him in high esteem, for they had always +found him loyal to their interests and as much a stickler for honor as +themselves. Moreover, between him and Wong Get there existed a curious +sympathy as if in some previous state of existence Wong Get might have +been Mr. Tutt, and Mr. Tutt Wong Get. Perhaps, however, it was merely +because both were rather weary, sad and worldly wise. +</p> +<p> +Wong Get did not come alone. He was accompanied by two other Hip Leongs, +the three forming the law committee appointed to retain the best +available counsel to defend Mock Hen. In his expansive frock coat and +bowler hat Wong might easily have excited mirth had it not been for the +extreme dignity of his demeanor. They were there, he stated, to request +Mr. Tutt to protect the interests of Mock Hen, and they were prepared to +pay a cash retainer and sign a written contract binding themselves to a +balance—so much if Mock should be convicted; so much if acquitted; so +much if he should die in the course of the trial without having been +either convicted or acquitted. It was, said Wong Get gently, a matter of +grave importance and they would be glad to give Mr. Tutt time to think +it over and decide upon his terms. Suppose, then, that they should +return at noon? With this understanding, accordingly, they departed. +</p> +<p> +"There's no point in skinning a Chink just because he is a Chink," said +the junior Tutt when his partner had explained the situation to him. +"But it isn't the highest-class practise and they ought to pay well." +</p> +<p> +"What do you call well?" inquired Mr. Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, a thousand dollars down, a couple more if he's convicted, and five +altogether if he's acquitted." +</p> +<p> +"Do you think they can raise that amount of money?" +</p> +<p> +"I think so," answered Tutt. "It might be a good deal for an individual +Chink to cough up on his own account, but this is a coöperative affair. +Mock Hen didn't kill Quong Lee to get anything out of it for himself, +but to save the face of his society." +</p> +<p> +"He didn't kill him at all!" declared Mr. Tutt, hardly moving a muscle +of his face. +</p> +<p> +"Well, you know what I mean!" said Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"He wasn't there," insisted Mr. Tutt. "He was way over in Fulton Market +buying a terrapin." +</p> +<p> +"That is what, if I were district attorney, I should call a Mock Hen +with a mockturtle defense!" grunted Tutt. +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt chuckled. +</p> +<p> +"I shall have to get that off myself at the beginning of the case, or it +might convict him," he remarked. "But he wasn't there—unless the jury +find that he was." +</p> +<p> +"In which case he will—or shall—have been there—whatever the verb +is," agreed Tutt. "Anyhow they'll tax every laundry and chop-suey palace +from the Bronx to the Battery to pay us." +</p> +<p> +"I'd hate to take our fee in bird's-nest soup, shark's fin, +bamboo-shoots salad and ya ko main," mused Mr. Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"Or in ivory chopsticks, oolong tea, imitation jade, litchi nuts and +preserved leeches!" groaned Tutt. "Be sure and get the thousand down; it +may be all the cash we'll ever see!" +</p> +<p> +Promptly at twelve the law committee of the Hip Leong Tong returned to +the office of Tutt & Tutt. With them came a venerable Chinaman in native +costume, his wrinkled face as inscrutable as that of a snapping turtle. +The others took chairs, but this high dignitary preferred to sit upon +his heels on the floor, creating something of the impression of an +ancient slant-eyed Buddha. +</p> +<p> +Wong Get translated for his benefit the arrangement proposed by Mr. +Tutt, after which there was a long pause while His Eminence remained +immovable, without even the flicker of an eyelid. Then he delivered +himself in an interminable series of gargles and gurgles, supplemented +by a few cough-like hisses, while Wong Get translated with rapid +dexterity, running verbally in and out among his words like a carriage +dog between the wheels of a vehicle. +</p> +<p> +It was, declared Buddha, an affair of great moment touching upon and +appertaining to the private honor of the Duck, the Wong, the Fong, the +Long, the Sui and various other families, both in America and China. The +life of one of their members was at stake. Their face required that the +proceedings should be as dignified as possible. The price named by Mr. +Tutt was quite inadequate. +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt, repressing a smile, passed a box of stogies. What amount, he +inquired through Wong Get, would satisfy the face of the Duck family? A +somewhat lengthy discussion ensued. Then Buddha rendered his decision. +</p> +<p> +The honor of the Ducks, Longs and Fongs would not be satisfied unless +Mr. Tutt received five thousand dollars down, five more if Mock Hen was +convicted, three more if he died before the conclusion of the trial, and +twenty thousand if he was acquitted. +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt, assuming an equal impassivity, pondered upon the matter for +about an inch of stogy and then informed the committee that the terms +were eminently satisfactory. Buddha thereupon removed from the folds of +his tunic a gigantic roll of soiled bills of all denominations and +carefully counting out five thousand dollars placed it upon the table. +</p> +<p> +"H'm!" remarked Tutt when he learned of the proceeding. "<i>His</i> face is +<i>our</i> fortune!" +</p> +<hr> +<p> +"Look here," expostulated District Attorney Peckham in his office to Mr. +Tutt a month later. "What's the use of our both wasting a couple of +weeks trying a Chinaman who is bound to be convicted? Your time's too +valuable for that sort of thing, and so is mine. We've got three white +witnesses that saw him do it, and a couple of dozen Chinks besides. He +doesn't stand a chance; but just because he is a Chink, and to get the +case out of the way, I'll let you plead him to murder in the second +degree. What do you say?" +</p> +<p> +He tried to conceal his anxiety by nervously lighting a cigar. He would +have given a year's salary to have Mock Hen safely up the river, even on +a conviction for manslaughter in the third, for the newspapers were +making his life a burden with their constant references to the seeming +inability of the police department and district attorney's office to +prevent the recurrence of feud killings in the Chinatown districts. What +use was it, they demanded, to maintain the expensive machinery of +criminal justice if the tongs went gayly on shooting each other up and +incidentally taking the lives of innocent bystanders? Wasn't the law +intended to cover Chinamen as much as Italians, Poles, Greeks and +niggers? And now that one of these murdering Celestials had been caught +red-handed it was up to the D.A. to go to it, convict him, and send him +to the chair! They did not express themselves precisely that way, but +that was the gist of it. But Peckham knew that it was one thing to catch +a Chinaman, even red-handed, and another to convict him. And so did Mr. +Tutt. +</p> +<p> +The old lawyer smiled blandly—after the fashion of the Hip Leong Tong. +Of course, he admitted, it would be much simpler to dispose of the case +as Mr. Peckham suggested, but his client was insistent upon his +innocence and seemed to have an excellent alibi. He regretted, +therefore, that he had no choice except to go to trial. +</p> +<p> +"Then," groaned Peckham, "we may as well take the winter for it. After +this there's going to be a closed season on Chinamen in New York City!" +</p> +<p> +Now though it was true that Mock Hen insisted upon his innocence, he had +not insisted upon it to Mr. Tutt, for the latter had not seen him. In +fact, the old lawyer, recognizing what the law did not, namely that a +system devised for the trial and punishment of Occidentals is totally +inadequate to cope with the Oriental, calmly went about his affairs, +intrusting to Mr. Bonnie Doon of his office the task of interviewing the +witnesses furnished by Wong Get. There was but one issue for the jury to +pass upon. Quong Lee was dead and his honorable soul was with his +illustrious ancestors. He had died from a single blow upon the head, +delivered with an iron bar, there present, to be in evidence, marked +"Exhibit A." Mock Hen was alleged to have done the deed. Had he? There +would be nothing for Mr. Tutt to do but to cross-examine the witnesses +and then call such as could testify to Mock's alibi. So he made no +preparation at all and dismissed the case from his mind. He had hardly +seen a dozen Chinamen in his life—outside of a laundry. +</p> +<hr> +<p> +On the morning set for the trial Mr. Tutt, having been delayed by an +accident in the Subway, entered the Criminal Courts Building only a +moment or two before the call of the calendar. Somewhat preoccupied, he +did not notice the numerous Chinamen who dawdled about the entrance or +the half dozen who crowded with him into the elevator, but when Pat the +elevator man called, "Second floor!—Part One to your right!—Part Two +to the left!" and he stepped out into the marble-floored corridor that +ran round the inside of the building, he was confronted with an unusual +and somewhat ominous spectacle. +</p> +<p> +The entire hallway on two sides of the building was lined with +Chinamen! They sat there motionless as blue-coated images, faces front, +their hands in their laps, their legs crossed beneath them. If anyone +appeared in the offing a couple of hundred pairs of glinting eyes +shifted automatically and followed him until he disappeared, but +otherwise no muscle quivered. +</p> +<p> +"Say," growled Hogan, Judge Bender's private attendant, who was the +first to run the gantlet, "those Chinks are enough to give you the +Willies! Their eyes scared me to death, sticking me through the back!" +</p> +<p> +Even dignified Judge Bender himself as he stalked along the hall, +preceded by two police officers, was not immune from a slight feeling of +uncanniness, and he instinctively drew his robe round his legs that it +might not come into contact with those curious slippers with felt soles +that protruded across the marble slabs. +</p> +<p> +"Eyes right!" They had picked him up the instant he stepped out of the +private elevator—the four hundred of them. If he turned and looked they +were seemingly not watching him, but if he dropped his glance they swung +back in a single moment and focused themselves upon him. And every one +of them probably had a gun hidden somewhere in his baggy pants! The +judge confessed to not liking these foreign homicide cases. You never +could tell what might happen or when somebody was going to get the death +sign. There was Judge Deasy—he had the whole front of his house blown +clean out by a bomb! That had been a close call! And these Chinks—with +their secret oaths and rituals—they'd think nothing at all of jabbing a +knife into you. He didn't fancy it at all and, as he hurried along, +supremely conscious of the deadly cumulative effect of those beady eyes, +he fancied it less and less. What was there to prevent one of them from +getting right up in court and putting a bullet through you? He shivered, +recalling the recent assassination of a judge upon the bench by a Hindu +whom he had sentenced. When he reached his robing room he sent for +Captain Phelan. +</p> +<p> +"See here, captain," he directed sharply, "I want you to keep all those +Chinamen out in the corridor; understand?" +</p> +<p> +"I've got to let some of 'em in, judge," urged Phelan. "You've got to +have an interpreter—and there's a Chinese lawyer associated with Tutt & +Tutt—and of course Mr. O'Brien has to have a couple of 'em so's he'll +know what's going on. Y' see, judge, the On Gee Tong is helping the +prosecution against the Hip Leongs, so both sides has to be more or less +represented." +</p> +<p> +"Well, make sure none of 'em is armed," ordered Judge Bender. "I don't +like these cases." +</p> +<p> +Now the judge, being recently elected and unfamiliar with the situation, +did not realize that nothing could have been farther from the Oriental +mind or intention than an attack upon the officers engaged in the +administration of local justice, whom they regarded merely as nuisances. +What these Chinamen supremely desired was to be allowed to settle their +own affairs in their own historic and traditional way—the way of the +revolver, the silken cord, the knife and the iron bar. Once enmeshed in +Anglo-Saxon juridical procedure, to be sure, they were not averse to +letting it run its course on the bare chance that it might automatically +accomplish their revenge. But they distrusted it, being brought up +according to a much more effective system—one which when it wanted to +punish anybody simply reached out, grabbed him by the pigtail, yanked +him to his knees and sliced off his head. This so-called American +justice was all talk—words, words, words! From their point of view +judges, jurymen and prosecutors were useless pawns in life's game of +chess. Perhaps they are! Who knows! +</p> +<p> +When Judge Bender entered the court room it was, in spite of his +injunction, full of blue blouses. A special panel of two hundred +talesmen filled the first half dozen rows of benches, the others being +occupied by witnesses both Chinese and white, policemen and the +miscellaneous human flotsam and jetsam that always manages somehow or +other to find its way to a murder trial. Inside the rail O'Brien, the +assistant district attorney, was busy in conversation with three cueless +Chinamen in American clothes. At the bar sat Mock Hen with Mr. Tutt +beside him, flanked by Wong Get, Tutt, Bonnie Doon and Buddha. +</p> +<p> +The judge beckoned Mr. Tutt and O'Brien to the front of the bench. +</p> +<p> +"Is there any chance of disposing of this case by a plea?" he inquired. +</p> +<p> +O'Brien looked expectantly at Mr. Tutt, who shook his head. The judge +shrugged his shoulders. +</p> +<p> +"Well, how long is it going to take?" +</p> +<p> +"About six weeks," answered the old lawyer quietly. +</p> +<p> +"What!" ejaculated judge and prosecutor in unison. +</p> +<p> +"A day or two less, perhaps," affirmed Mr. Tutt, "but, likely as not, +considerably longer." +</p> +<p> +"I shall cut it down as much as I can," announced the judge, appalled at +the prospect. "I shall not permit this trial to be dragged out +indefinitely." +</p> +<p> +"Nothing would please me better, Your Honor," said Mr. Tutt with the +shadow of a smile. "Shall we proceed to select the jury?" +</p> +<p> +The accuracy of Mr. Tutt's prophecy as to the probable length of the +trial was partially demonstrated when it developed that most of the +talesmen had a pronounced antipathy to Chinese murder cases, and a +deep-rooted prejudice against the race as a whole. In fact, a certain +subconscious influence affecting most of them was formulated by the +thirty-ninth talesman to be rejected, who, in a moment of resentment, +burst forth, "I don't mind trying decent American criminals, but I hold +it isn't any part of a citizen's duty to try Chinamen!" and was promptly +struck off the jury list. +</p> +<p> +"I say, chief," disgustedly declared O'Brien to Peckham at the noon +recess as they clinked glasses over the bar at Pont's, "you've handed me +a ripe, juicy Messina all right! I won't be able to get a jury. We've +been at it since ten o'clock and we haven't lured a single sucker into +the box!" +</p> +<p> +"What's the matter?" inquired the D.A. apprehensively. +</p> +<p> +"I can't quite make out," answered O'Brien. "But most of 'em seem to +have a sort of idea that to kill a Chinaman ain't a crime but a virtue!" +</p> +<p> +"Well, don't tell anybody," whispered Peckham, "but I'm somewhat of that +way of thinking myself. Set 'em up again, John!" +</p> +<p> +However, by invoking the utmost celerity a jury was at last selected and +sworn at the end of the nineteenth day of the trial. As a jury O'Brien +confidentially admitted to Peckham it wasn't much! But what could you +expect of a bunch who were willing to swear that they hadn't any +prejudice against a Chink and would as soon acquit him as a white man? +The truth was that they were all gentlemen who, having lost their jobs, +were willing to swear to anything that would bring them in two dollars a +day. The more days the better! And it is historic fact that during the +sixty-nine days of Mock Hen's prosecution not one of them protested at +being kept away from his wife and children, his business or his +pleasure. On the contrary they all slumbered peacefully from ten until +four—and when the trial ended, on the whole they rather regretted that +it was over, the only genuine opinion regarding the case being that the +Chinks were all as funny as hell and that Mr. Tutt was a bully old boy. +</p> +<p> +The evidence respecting the death of the unfortunate Quong Lee made +little impression upon them. Seemingly they regarded the story much as +they did that of Elisha and the bears or Bel and the dragon—as a sort +of apocryphal narrative which they were required to listen to, but in no +wise bound to believe. They were much interested in Quong's suit of +chain mail, however, and from time to time awoke to enjoy the various +verbal encounters between the judge and Mr. Tutt. As factors in the +proceedings they did not count, except to receive their two dollars per +diem, board, lodging and hack fare. +</p> +<p> +The trial of Mock Hen being conducted in a foreign language, the first +judicial step was the swearing of an interpreter. The On Gees had +promptly produced one, whom O'Brien told the court was a very learned +man; a graduate of the Imperial University at Peking, and a Son of the +Sacred Dragon. Be that as it may, he was not prepossessing in his +appearance and Mr. Tutt assured Judge Bender that far from being what +the district attorney pretended, the man was a well-known gambler, who +made his living largely by blackmail. He might be a son of a dragon or +he might not; anyway he was a son of Belial. An interpreter was the +conduit through which all the evidence must pass. If the official were +biased or corrupt the testimony would be distorted, colored or +suppressed. +</p> +<p> +Now he—Mr. Tutt—had an interpreter, the well-known Dr. Hong Su, +against whom nothing could be said, and upon whose fat head rested no +imputation of partiality; a graduate of Harvard, a writer of note, a— +</p> +<p> +O'Brien sprang to his feet: "My interpreter says your interpreter is an +opium smuggler, that he murdered his aunt in Hong Kong, that he isn't a +doctor at all, and that he never graduated from anything except a +chop-suey joint," he interjected. +</p> +<p> +"This is outrageous!" cried Mr. Tutt, palpably shocked at such language. +</p> +<p> +"Gentlemen! Gentlemen!" groaned Judge Bender. "What am I to do? I don't +know anything about these men. One looks to me about the same as the +other. The court has no time to inquire into their antecedents. They may +both be learned scholars or they may each be what the other says he +is—I don't know. But we've got to begin to try this case sometime." +</p> +<p> +It was finally agreed that in order that there might be no possible +question of partiality there should be two interpreters—one for the +prosecution and one for the defense. Both accordingly were sworn and the +first witness, Ah Fong, was called. +</p> +<p> +"Ask him if he understands the nature of an oath," directed O'Brien. +</p> +<p> +The interpreter for the state turned to Ah Fong and said something +sweetly to him in multitudinous words. +</p> +<p> +Instantly Doctor Su rose indignantly. The other interpreter was not +putting the question at all, but telling the witness what to say. +Moreover, the other interpreter belonged to the On Gee Tong. He stood +waving his arms and gobbling like an infuriated turkey while his +adversary replied in similar fashion. +</p> +<p> +"This won't do!" snapped the judge. "This trial will degenerate into +nothing but a cat fight if we are not careful." Then a bright idea +suggested itself to his Occidental mind. "Suppose I appoint an official +umpire to say which of the other two interpreters is correct—and let +them decide who he shall be?" +</p> +<p> +This proposition was received with grunts of satisfaction by the two +antagonists, who conferred together with astonishing amiability and +almost immediately conducted into the court room a tall, emaciated +Chinaman who they alleged was entirely satisfactory to both of them. He +was accordingly sworn as a third interpreter, and the trial began again. +</p> +<p> +It was observed that thereafter there was no dispute whatever regarding +the accuracy of the testimony, and as each interpreter was paid for his +services at the rate of ten dollars a day it was rumored that the whole +affair had been arranged by agreement between the two societies, which +divided the money, amounting to some eighteen hundred dollars, between +them. But, as O'Brien afterward asked Peckham, "How in thunder could you +tell?" +</p> +<p> +The court's troubles had, however, only begun. Ah Fong was a +whimsical-looking person, who gave an impression of desiring to make +himself generally agreeable. He was, of course, the star witness—if a +Chinaman can ever be a star witness—and presumably had been carefully +schooled as to the manner in which he should give his testimony. He and +he alone had seen the whole tragedy from beginning to end. He it was, if +anybody, who would tuck Mock Hen comfortably into his coffin. +</p> +<p> +The problem of the interpreters having been solved Fong settled himself +comfortably in the witness chair, crossed his hands upon his stomach and +looked complacently at Mock Hen. +</p> +<p> +"Well, now let's get along," adjured His Honor. "Swear the witness." +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt immediately rose. +</p> +<p> +"If the court please," said he, "I object to the swearing of the witness +unless it is made to appear that he will regard himself as bound by the +oath as administered. Now this man is a Chinaman. I should like to ask +him a preliminary question or two." +</p> +<p> +"That seems fair, Mr. O'Brien," agreed the court. "Do you see any reason +why Mr. Tutt shouldn't interrogate the witness?" +</p> +<p> +"Oh, let me qualify my own witness!" retorted O'Brien fretfully. "Ah +Fong, will you respect the oath to testify truthfully, about to be +administered to you?" +</p> +<p> +The interpreter delivered a broadside of Chinese at Ah Fong, who +listened attentively and replied at equal length. Then the interpreter +went at him again, and again Ah Fong affably responded. It was +interminable. +</p> +<p> +The two muttered and chortled at each other until O'Brien, losing +patience, jumped up and called out: "What's all this? Can't you ask him +a simple question and get a simple answer? This isn't a debating +society." +</p> +<p> +The interpreter held up his hand, indicating that the prosecutor should +have patience. +</p> +<p> +"<i>Ah-ya-ya-oo-aroo-yung-ung-loy-a-a-ya oo-chu-a-oy-ah-ohay-tching</i>!" he +concluded. +</p> +<p> +"<i>A-yah-oy-a-yoo-oy-ah-chuck-uh-ung-loy-oo-ayah-a-yoo-chung-chung-szt- +oo-aha-oy-ou-ungaroo—yah-yah-yah!</i>" replied Ah Fong. +</p> +<p> +"Thank heaven, that's over!" sighed O'Brien. +</p> +<p> +The interpreter drew himself up to his full height. +</p> +<p> +"He says yes," he declared dramatically. +</p> +<p> +"It's the longest yes I ever heard!" audibly remarked the foreman, who +was feeling his oats. +</p> +<p> +"Does not that satisfy you?" inquired the court of Mr. Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"I am sorry to say it does not!" replied the latter. "Mr. O'Brien has +simply asked whether he will keep his oath. His reply sheds no light on +whether his religious belief is such that it would obligate him to +respect an oath." +</p> +<p> +"Well, ask him yourself!" snorted O'Brien. +</p> +<p> +"Ah Fong, do you believe in any god?" inquired Mr. Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"He says yes," answered the interpreter after the usual interchange. +</p> +<p> +"What god do you believe in?" persisted Mr. Tutt. +</p> +<p> +Suddenly Ah Fong made answer without the intervention of the +interpreter. +</p> +<p> +"When I in this country," he replied complacently in English, "I b'lieve +Gees Clist; when I in China I b'lieve Chinese god." +</p> +<p> +"Does Your Honor hold that an obliging acquiescence in local theology +constitutes such a religious belief as to make this man's oath sacred?" +inquired Mr. Tutt. +</p> +<p> +The judge smiled. +</p> +<p> +"I don't see why not!" he declared. "There isn't any precedent as far as +I am aware. But he says he believes in the Deity. Isn't that enough?" +</p> +<p> +"Not unless he believes that the Deity will punish him if he breaks his +oath," answered Mr. Tutt. "Let me try him on that?" +</p> +<p> +"Ah Fong, do you think God will punish you if you tell a lie?" +</p> +<p> +Fong looked blank. The interpreter fired a few salvos. +</p> +<p> +"He says it makes a difference the kind of oath." +</p> +<p> +"Suppose it is a promise to tell the truth?" +</p> +<p> +"He says what kind of a promise?" +</p> +<p> +"A promise on the Bible," answered Mr. Tutt patiently. +</p> +<p> +"He says what god you mean!" countered the interpreter. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, any god!" roared Mr. Tutt. +</p> +<p> +The interpreter, after a long parley, made reply. +</p> +<p> +"Ah Fong says there is no binding oath except on a chicken's head." +</p> +<p> +Judge Bender, O'Brien and Mr. Tutt gazed at one another helplessly. +</p> +<p> +"Well, there you are!" exclaimed the lawyer. "Mr. O'Brien's oath wasn't +any oath at all! What kind of a chicken's head?" +</p> +<p> +"A white rooster." +</p> +<p> +"Quite so!" nodded Mr. Tutt. "Your Honor, I object to this witness being +sworn by any oath or in any form except on the head of a white rooster!" +</p> +<p> +"Well, I don't happen to have a white rooster about me!" remarked +O'Brien, while the jury rocked with glee. "Ask him if something else +won't do. A big book for instance?" +</p> +<p> +The interpreter put the question and then shook his head. According to +Ah Fong there was no virtue in books whatever, either large or small. On +some occasions an oath could be properly taken on a broken plate—also +white—but not in murder cases. It was chicken or nothing. +</p> +<p> +"Are you not willing to waive the formality of an oath, Mr. Tutt?" asked +the judge in slight impatience. +</p> +<p> +"And wave my client into the chair?" demanded the lawyer. "No, sir!" +</p> +<p> +"I don't see what we can do except to adjourn court until you can +procure the necessary poultry," announced Judge Bender. "Even then we +can't slaughter them in court. We'll have to find some suitable place!" +</p> +<p> +"Why not kill one rooster and swear all the witnesses at once?" +suggested Mr. Tutt in a moment of inspiration. +</p> +<hr> +<p> +"My God, chief!" exclaimed O'Brien at four o'clock. "There ain't a white +rooster to be had anywhere! Hens, yes! By the hundred! But roosters are +extinct! Tomorrow will be the twenty-first day of this prosecution and +not a witness sworn yet." +</p> +<p> +However, a poultryman was presently discovered who agreed simply for +what advertising there was in it to furnish a crate of white roosters, +a hatchet and a headsman's block, and to have them in the basement of +the building promptly at ten o'clock. +</p> +<p> +Accordingly, at that hour Judge Bender convened Part IX of the General +Sessions in the court room and then adjourned downstairs, where all the +prospective witnesses for the prosecution were lined up in a body and +told to raise their right hands. +</p> +<p> +Meantime Clerk McGuire was handed the hatchet, and approached the coop +with obvious misgivings. Ah Fong had already given a dubious approval to +the sex and quality of the fowls inside and naught remained but to +submit the proper oath and remove the head of the unfortunate victim. A +large crowd of policemen, witnesses, reporters, loafers, truckmen and +others drawn by the unusual character of the proceedings had assembled +and now proceeded without regard for the requirements of judicial +dignity to encourage McGuire in his capacity of executioner, by profane +shouts and jeers, to do his deadly deed. +</p> +<p> +But the clerk had had no experience with chickens and in bashfully +groping for the selected rooster allowed several other occupants of the +crate to escape. Instantly the air was filled with fluttering, squawking +fowls while fifty frenzied police officers and Chinamen attempted +vainly to reduce them to captivity again. In the midst of the mêlée +McGuire caught his rooster, and fearful lest it should escape him +managed somehow to decapitate it. The body, however, had been flopping +around spasmodically several seconds upon the floor before he realized +that the oath had not been administered, and his voice suddenly rose +above the pandemonium in an excited brogue. +</p> +<p> +"Hold up your hands, you! You do solemnly swear that in the case of The +People against Mock Hen you will tell the truth, the whole truth and +nothing but the truth so help you God!" +</p> +<p> +But the interpreter was at that moment engaged in clasping to his bosom +a struggling rooster and was totally unable to fulfill his functions. +Meantime the jury, highly edified at this illustration of the +administration of justice, gazed down upon the spectacle from the +stairs. +</p> +<p> +"This farce has gone far enough!" declared Judge Bender disgustedly. "We +will return to the court room. Put those roosters back where they +belong!" +</p> +<p> +Once more the participants ascended to Part IX and Ah Fong took his seat +in the witness chair. The interpreter's blouse was covered with +pin-feathers and one of his thumbs was bleeding profusely. +</p> +<p> +"Ask the witness if the oath that he has now taken will bind his +conscience?" directed the court. +</p> +<p> +Again the interpreter and Ah Fong held converse. +</p> +<p> +"He says," translated that official calmly, "that the chicken oath is +all right in China, but that it is no good in United States, and that +anyway the proper form of words was not used." +</p> +<p> +"Good Lord!" ejaculated O'Brien. "Where am I?" +</p> +<p> +"Me tell truth, all light," suddenly announced Ah Fong in English. "Go +ahead! Shoot!" And he smiled an inscrutable age-long Oriental smile. +</p> +<p> +The jury burst into laughter. +</p> +<p> +"He's stringing you!" the foreman kindly informed O'Brien, who cursed +silently. +</p> +<p> +"Go on, Mister District Attorney, examine the witness," directed the +judge. "I shall permit no further variations upon the established forms +of procedure." +</p> +<p> +Then at last and not until then—on the morning of the twenty-first +day—did Ah Fong tell his simple story and the jury for the first time +learn what it was all about. But by then they had entirely ceased to +care, being engrossed in watching Mr. Tutt at his daily amusement of +torturing O'Brien into a state of helpless exasperation. +</p> +<p> +Ah Fong gave his testimony with a clarity of detail that left nothing +to be desired, and he was corroborated in most respects by the Italian +woman, who identified Mock Hen as the Chinaman with the iron bar. Their +evidence was supplemented by that of Bull Neck Burke and Miss Malone, +who also were positive that they had seen Mock running from the scene of +the murder at exactly four-one o'clock. +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt hardly cross-examined Fong at all, but with Mr. Burke he +pursued very different tactics, speedily rousing the wrestler to such a +condition of fury that he was hardly articulate, for the old lawyer +gently hinted that Mr. Burke was inventing the whole story for the +purpose of assisting his friends in the On Gee Tong. +</p> +<p> +"But I tell yer I don't know no Chinks!" bellowed Burke, looking more +like a bull than ever. "This here Mock Hen run right by me. My goil saw +him too. I looked at me ticker to get the time!" +</p> +<p> +"Ah! Then you expected to be a witness for the On Gee Tong!" +</p> +<p> +"Naw! I tell yer I was walkin' wit' me goil!" +</p> +<p> +"What is the lady's name?" +</p> +<p> +"Miss Malone." +</p> +<p> +"What is her occupation?" +</p> +<p> +"She's a gay burlesquer." +</p> +<p> +"A gay burlesquer?" +</p> +<p> +"Sure—champagne goil and gay burlesquer." +</p> +<p> +"A champagne girl!" +</p> +<p> +"Dat's what I said." +</p> +<p> +"You mean that she is upon the stage?" +</p> +<p> +"Sure—dat's it!" +</p> +<p> +"Oh!" Mr. Tutt looked relieved. +</p> +<p> +"What had you and Miss Malone been doing that afternoon?" +</p> +<p> +"I told yer—walkin'." +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt coughed slightly. +</p> +<p> +"Is that all?" +</p> +<p> +"Say, watcha drivin' at?" +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt elevated his bushy eyebrows. +</p> +<p> +"How do you earn your living?" he demanded, changing his method of +attack. +</p> +<p> +Bull Neck allowed his head to sink still farther into the vast bulk of +his immense torso, strangely resembling, in this position, the fabled +anthropophagi whose heads are reputed thus to "grow beneath their +shoulders." +</p> +<p> +Then throwing out his jaw he announced proudly between set teeth: "I'm a +perfessor of physical sculture!" +</p> +<p> +The jury sniggered. Mr. Tutt appeared politely puzzled. +</p> +<p> +"A professor of what?" +</p> +<p> +"A perfessor of physical sculture!" repeated Bull Neck with great +satisfaction. +</p> +<p> +"Oh! A professor of physical sculpture!" exclaimed Mr. Tutt, light +breaking over his wrinkled countenance. "And what may that be?" +</p> +<p> +Bull Neck looked round disgustedly at the jury as if to say: "What +ignorance!" +</p> +<p> +"Trainin' an' developin' prominent people!" he explained. +</p> +<p> +"Um!" remarked Mr. Tutt. "Who invited you to testify in this case?" +</p> +<p> +"Mr. Mooney." +</p> +<p> +"Oh, you're a friend of Mooney's! That is all!" +</p> +<p> +Now it is apparent from these questions and answers that Mr. Burke had +testified to nothing to his discredit and had conducted himself as a +gentleman and a sportsman according to his best lights. Yet owing to the +subtle suggestions contained in Mr. Tutt's inflections and demeanor the +jury leaped unhesitatingly to the conclusion that here was a man so +ignorant and debased that if he were not deliberately lying he was being +made a cat's-paw by the police in the interest of the On Gee Tong. +</p> +<p> +Miss Malone fared even worse, for after a preliminary skirmish she +flatly refused to give Mr. Tutt or the jury any information whatever +regarding her past life, while Mooney, of course, labored from the +beginning to the end of his testimony under the curse of being a +policeman, one of that class whom most jurymen take pride in saying they +hold in natural distrust. In a word, the white witnesses to the +dastardly murder of Quong Lee created a general impression of +unreliability upon the minds of the jury, who wholly failed to realize +the somewhat obvious truth that the witnesses to a crime in Chinatown +will naturally if not inevitably be persons who either reside in or +frequent that locality. +</p> +<p> +Twenty-four days had now been consumed in the trial, and as yet no +Chinese witnesses except Ah Fong had been called. Now, however, they +appeared in cohorts. Though Mooney had sworn that the streets were +practically empty at the time of the homicide forty-one Chinese +witnesses swore positively that they had been within easy view, claiming +variously to have been behind doors, peeking through shutters, at upper +windows and even on the roofs. All had identified Mock Hen as the +murderer, and none of them had ever heard of either the On Gee or the +Hip Leong Tong! Mr. Tutt could not shake them upon cross-examination, +and O'Brien began to show signs of renewed confidence. Each testified to +substantially the same story and they occupied seventeen full days in +the telling, so that when the prosecution rested, forty-two days had +been consumed since the first talesman had been called. The trial had +sunk into a dull, unbroken monotony, as Mr. Tutt said, of the "vain +repetitions of the heathen." Yet the police and the district attorney +had done all that could reasonably have been expected of them. They were +simply confronted by the very obvious fact—a condition and not a +theory—that the legal processes of Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence are of +slight avail in dealing with people of another race. +</p> +<p> +Now it is possible that even had Mr. Tutt put in no defense whatever the +jury might have refused to convict, for there was a curious air of +unreality surrounding the whole affair. It all seemed somehow as +if—assuming that it had ever taken place at all—it had occurred in +some other world and in some other age. Perhaps under what might have +been practically a direction of the court a verdict of conviction might +have been returned—but it is doubtful. The more witnesses testified to +exactly the same thing in precisely the same words the less likely it +appeared to be. +</p> +<p> +But Mr. Tutt was taking no chances and, upon the forty-third day of the +trial, at a nod from the bench, he opened his case. Never had he been +more serious; never more persuasive. Abandoning every suggestion of +frivolity, he weighed the testimony of each white witness and pointed +out its obvious lack of probative value. Not one, he said, except the +Italian woman, had had more than a fleeting glance of the face of the +man now accused of the crime. Such an identification was useless. The +Chinamen were patently lying. They had not been there at all! Would any +member of the jury hang a dog, even a yellow one, on such testimony? Of +course not! Much less a human being. The people had called forty +witnesses to prove that Mock Hen had killed Quong Lee. It made no +difference. The On Gee could have just as easily produced four hundred. +Moreover, Mr. Tutt did a very daring thing. He pronounced all Chinese +testimony in an American court of justice as absolutely valueless, and +boasted that for every Chinaman who swore Mock Hen was guilty he would +bring forward two who would swear him innocent. +</p> +<p> +The thing was, as he had carefully explained to Bonnie Doon, to prove +that Mock was a good Chinaman and, if the jury did not believe that +there was any such animal, to convince them that it was possible. His +first task, however, was to polish off the Chinese testimony by calling +the witnesses who had been secured under the guidance of Wong Get. He +admitted afterward that in view of the exclusion law he had not supposed +there were so many Chinamen in the United States, for they crowded the +corridors and staircases of the Criminal Courts Building, arriving in +companies—the Wong family, the Mocks, the Fongs, the Lungs, the Sues, +and others of the sacred Hip Sing Society from near at hand and from +distant parts—from Brooklyn and Flatbush, from Flushing and Far +Rockaway, from Hackensack and Hoboken, from Trenton and Scranton, from +Buffalo and Saratoga, from Chicago and St. Louis, and each and every one +of them swore positively upon the severed neck of the whitest +rooster—the broken fragments of the whitest of porcelain plates—the +holiest of books—that he had been present in person at Fulton Market in +New York City at precisely four-fifteen o'clock in the afternoon and +assisted Mock Hen, the defendant, in selecting and purchasing a terrapin +for stew. +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt grinned at the jury and the jury grinned affectionately back at +Mr. Tutt. Indeed, after the length of time they had all been together +they had almost as much respect for him as for the judge upon the bench. +The whole court seemed to be a sort of Tutt Club, of which even O'Brien +was a member. +</p> +<p> +"Now," said Mr. Tutt, "I will call a few witnesses to show you what kind +of a man this is whom these highbinders accuse of the crime of murder!" +</p> +<p> +Mock, rolling his eyes heavenward, assumed an expression of infantile +helplessness and trust. +</p> +<p> +"Don't overdo it!" growled Tutt. "Just look kind of gentle." +</p> +<p> +So Mock looked as gentle as a suckling dove while two professors from +Columbia University, three of his landlords in his more reputable +business enterprises, the superintendent of the Rising Sun Mission, four +ex-police officers, a fireman, and an investigator for the Society for +the Suppression of Sin swore upon Holy Writ and with all sincerity that +Mock Hen was not only a person of the most excellent character and +reputation but a Christian and a gentleman. +</p> +<p> +And then Mr. Tutt played his trump card. +</p> +<p> +"I will call Miss Frances Duryea, of Hudson House," he announced. "Miss +Duryea, will you kindly take the witness chair?" +</p> +<p> +Miss Fanny modestly rose from her seat in the rear of the room and came +forward. No one could for an instant doubt the honesty and impartiality +of this devoted middle-aged woman, who, surrendering the comforts and +luxuries of her home uptown, to which she was well entitled by reason of +her age, was devoting herself to a life of service. If a woman like +that, thought the jury, was ready to vouch for Mock's good character, +why waste any more time on the case? But Miss Fanny was to do much more. +</p> +<p> +"Miss Duryea," began Mr. Tutt, "do you know the defendant?" +</p> +<p> +"Yes, sir; I do," she answered quietly. +</p> +<p> +"How long have you known him?" +</p> +<p> +"Six years." +</p> +<p> +"Do you know his reputation for peace and quiet?" +</p> +<p> +Miss Fanny half turned to the judge and then faced the jury. +</p> +<p> +"He is one of the sweetest characters I have ever known," she replied, +"and I have known many—" +</p> +<p> +"Oh, I object!" interrupted O'Brien. "This lady can't be permitted to +testify to anything like that. She must be limited by the rules of +evidence!" +</p> +<p> +With one movement the jury wheeled and glared at him. +</p> +<p> +"I guess this lady can say anything she wants!" declared the foreman +chivalrously. +</p> +<p> +O'Brien sank down in his seat. What was the use! +</p> +<p> +"Go on, please," gently directed Mr. Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"As I was saying, Mr. Mock Hen is a very remarkable character," +responded Miss Fanny. "He is devoted to the mission and to us at the +settlement. I would trust him absolutely in regard to anything." +</p> +<p> +"Thank you," said Mr. Tutt, smiling benignly. "Now, Miss Duryea, did you +see Mock Hen at any time on May sixth?" +</p> +<p> +Instantly the jury showed renewed signs of life. May sixth? That was +the day of the murder. +</p> +<p> +"I did," answered Miss Fanny with conviction. "He came to see me at +Hudson House in the afternoon and while we were talking the clock struck +four." +</p> +<p> +The jury looked at one another and nodded. +</p> +<p> +"Well, I guess that settles this case!" announced the foreman. +</p> +<p> +"Right!" echoed a talesman behind him. +</p> +<p> +"I object!" wailed O'Brien. "This is entirely improper!" +</p> +<p> +"Quite so!" ruled Judge Bender sternly. "The jurymen will not make any +remarks!" +</p> +<p> +"But, Your Honor—we all agreed at recess there was nothing in this +case," announced the foreman. "And now this testimony simply clinches +it. Why go on with it!" +</p> +<p> +"That's so!" ejaculated another. "Let us go, judge." +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt's weather-beaten face was wreathed in smiles. +</p> +<p> +"Easy, gentlemen!" he cautioned. +</p> +<p> +The judge shrugged his shoulders, frowning. +</p> +<p> +"This is very irregular!" he said. +</p> +<p> +Then he beckoned to O'Brien, and the two whispered together for several +minutes, while all over the court room on the part of those who had sat +there so patiently for sixty-nine days there was a prolonged and +ecstatic wriggling of arms and legs. Instinctively they all knew that +the farce was over. +</p> +<p> +The assistant district attorney returned to his table but did not sit +down. +</p> +<p> +"If the court please," he said rather wearily, "the last witness, Miss +Duryea, by her testimony, which I personally am quite ready to accept as +truthful, has interjected a reasonable doubt of the defendant's guilt +into what otherwise would in my opinion be a case for the jury. If Mock +Hen was at Hudson House, nearly two miles from Pell and Doyers Streets, +at four o'clock on the afternoon of the homicide, manifestly he could +not have been one of the assailants of Quong Lee at one minute past +four. I am satisfied that no jury would convict—" +</p> +<p> +"Not on your life!" snorted the foreman airily. +</p> +<p> +"—and I therefore," went on O'Brien, "ask the court to direct an +acquittal." +</p> +<hr> +<p> +In the grand banquet hall of the Shanghai and Hongkong American-Chinese +Restaurant, Ephraim Tutt, draped in a blue mandarin coat with a tasseled +pill box rakishly upon his old gray head, sat beside Wong Get and Buddha +at the head of a long table surrounded by three hundred Chinamen in +their richest robes of ceremony. Lanterns of party-colored glass +swaying from gilded rafters shed a strange light upon a silken cloth +marvelously embroidered and laden with the choicest of Oriental dishes, +and upon the pale faces of the Hip Leong Tong—the Mocks, the Wongs, the +Fongs and the rest—both those who had testified and also those who had +merely been ready if duty called to do so, all of whom were now gathered +together to pay honor where they felt honor to be due; namely, at the +shrine of Mr. Tutt. +</p> +<p> +Deft Chinese waiters slipped silently from guest to guest with +bird's-nest soup, guy soo main, mon goo guy pan, shark's fin and lung +har made of shreds of lobster, water chestnuts, rice and the succulent +shoots of the young bamboo, while three musicians in a corner sang +through their nose a syncopated dirge. "Wang-ang-ang-ang!" it rose and +fell as Mr. Tutt, his neck encircled by a wreath of lilies, essayed to +manipulate a pair of long black chop-sticks. "Wang-ang-ang-ang!" About +him were golden limes, ginger in syrup, litchi nuts, pickled leeches. +</p> +<p> +Then he felt a touch upon his shoulder and turned to see Fong Hen, the +slipper, standing beside him. It was the duty of Fong Hen to drink with +each guest—more than that, to drink as much as each guest drank! He +gravely offered Mr. Tutt a pony of rice brandy. It was not the fiery +lava he had anticipated, but a soft, caressing nectar, fragrant as if +distilled from celestial flowers of the time of Confucius. The slipper +swallowed the same quantity at a gulp, bowed and passed along. +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt vainly tried to grasp the fact that he was in his own native +city of New York. Long sleeves covered with red and purple dragons hid +his arms and hands, and below the collar a smooth tight surface of silk +across his breast made access to his pockets quite impossible. In one of +them reposed twenty one-thousand-dollar bills—his fee for securing the +acquittal of Mock Hen. Yes, he was in New York! +</p> +<p> +The monotonous wail of the instruments, the pungency of the incense, the +subdued light, the humid breath of the roses carried the thoughts of Mr. +Tutt far away. Before him, against the blue misty sunshine, rose the +yellow temples of Peking. He could hear the faint tintinnabulation of +bells. He was wandering in a garden fragrant with jasmine blossoms and +adorned with ancient graven stones and carved gilt statues. The air was +sweet. Mr. Tutt was very tired.... +</p> +<p> +"Let him sleep!" nodded Buddha, deftly conveying to his wrinkled lips a +delicate morsel of guy yemg dun. "Let him sleep! He has earned his +sleep. He has saved our face!" +</p> +<p> +It was after midnight when Mr. Tutt, heavily laden with princely gifts +of ivory and jade and boxes of priceless teas, emerged from the side +door of the Shanghai and Hongkong American-Chinese Restaurant. The sky +was brilliant with stars and the sidewalks of Doyers and Pell Streets +were crowded with pedestrians. Near by a lantern-bedecked rubber-neck +wagon was in process of unloading its cargo of seekers after the curious +and unwholesome. On either side of him walked Wong Get and Buddha. They +had hardly reached the corner when five shots echoed in quick succession +above the noise of the traffic and the crowd turned with one accord and +rushed in the direction from which he had just come. +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt, startled, stopped and looked back. Courteously also stopped +Wong Get and Buddha. A throng was fast gathering in front of the +Shanghai and Hongkong Restaurant. +</p> +<p> +Then Murtha appeared, shouldering his way roughly through the mob. +Catching sight of Mr. Tutt, he paused long enough to whisper hoarsely in +the lawyer's ear: "Well, they got Mock Hen! Five bullets in him! But if +they were going to, why in hell couldn't they have done it three months +ago?" +</p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<a name="SAMUEL"><!-- SAMUEL --></a> +<h2> +Samuel and Delilah +</h2> +<p> </p> +<blockquote><p> +"And it came to pass, when she pressed him daily with +her words, and urged him, so that his soul was vexed +unto death; that he told her all his heart, and said unto +her, There hath not come a razor upon mine head; ... +if I be shaven, then my strength will go from me, and I +shall become weak and be like any other man."—JUDGES XVI, 16, 17. +</p></blockquote> +<p> +"Have you seen '76 Fed.' anywhere, Mr. Tutt?" inquired Tutt, appearing +suddenly in the doorway of his partner's office. +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt looked up from Page 364 of the opinion he was perusing in "The +United States vs. One Hundred and Thirty-two Packages of Spirituous +Liquors and Wines." +</p> +<p> +"Got it here in front of me," he answered shortly. "What do you want it +for?" +</p> +<p> +Tutt looked over his shoulder. +</p> +<p> +"That's a grand name for a case, isn't it? 'Packages of Wines!'" he +chuckled. "I made a note once of a matter entitled 'United States vs. +Forty-three Cases of Frozen Eggs'; and of another called 'United States +vs. One Feather Mattress and One Hundred and Fifty Pounds of +Butter'—along in 197 Federal Reports, if I remember correctly. And you +recall that accident case we had—Bump against the Railroad?" +</p> +<p> +"You can't tell me anything about names," remarked Mr. Tutt. "I once +tried a divorce action. Fuss against Fuss; and another, Love against +Love. Do you really want this book?" +</p> +<p> +"Not if you are using it," replied Tutt. "I just wanted to show an +authority to Mr. Sorg, the president of the Fat and Skinny Club. You +know our application for a certificate of incorporation was denied +yesterday by Justice McAlpin." +</p> +<p> +"No, I didn't know it," returned Mr. Tutt. "Why?" +</p> +<p> +"Here's his memorandum in the Law Journal," answered his partner. "Read +it for yourself": +</p> +<blockquote><p> +Matter of Fat and Skinny Club, Inc. This is an +application for approval of a certificate of incorporation +as a membership corporation. The stated purposes are +to promote and encourage social intercourse and good +fellowship and to advance the interests of the community. +The name selected is the Fat and Skinny Club. If this +be the most appropriate name descriptive of its membership +it is better that it remain unincorporated. Application +denied. +</p></blockquote> +<p> +"Now who says the law isn't the perfection of common sense?" ruminated +Mr. Tutt. "Its general principles are magnificent." +</p> +<p> +"And yet," mused Tutt, "only last week Judge McAlpin granted the +petition of one Solomon Swackhamer to change his name to Phillips Brooks +Vanderbilt. Is that right? Is that justice? Is it equity? I ask +you!—when he turns down the Fat and Skinnies?" +</p> +<p> +"Oh, yes it is," retorted Mr. Tutt. "When you consider that Mr. +Swackhamer could have assumed the appellation of P.B. Vanderbilt or any +other name he chose without asking the court's permission at all." +</p> +<p> +"What!" protested Tutt incredulously. +</p> +<p> +"That's the law," returned the senior partner. "A man can call himself +what he chooses and change his name as often as he likes—so long, of +course, as he doesn't do it to defraud. The mere fact that a statute +likewise gives him the right to apply to the courts to accomplish the +same result makes no difference." +</p> +<p> +"Of course it might make him feel a little more comfortable about it to +do it that way," suggested Tutt. "Do you know, as long as I've practised +law in this town I've always assumed that one had to get permission to +change one's name." +</p> +<p> +"You've learned something," said Mr. Tutt suavely. "I hope you will put +it to good account. Here's '76 Fed.' Take it out and console the Fat and +Skinny Club with it if you can." +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt surrendered the volume without apparent regret and Tutt retired +to his own office and to the task of soothing the injured feelings of +Mr. Sorg. +</p> +<p> +A simple-minded little man was Tutt, for all his professional shrewdness +and ingenuity. Like many a hero of the battlefield and of the bar, once +inside the palings of his own fence he became modest, gentle, even +timorous. For Abigail, his wife, had no illusions about him and did not +affect to have any. To her neither Tutt nor Mr. Tutt was any such great +shakes. Had Tutt dared to let her know of many of the schemes which he +devised for the profit or safety of his clients she would have thought +less of him still; in fact, she might have parted with him forever. In a +sense Mrs. Tutt was an exacting woman. Though she somewhat reluctantly +consented to view the hours from nine a.m. to five p.m. in her husband's +day as belonging to the law, she emphatically regarded the rest of the +twenty-four hours as belonging to her. +</p> +<p> +The law may be, as Judge Holmes has called it, "a jealous mistress," but +in the case of Tutt it was not nearly so jealous as his wife. So Tutt +was compelled to walk the straight-and-narrow path whether he liked it +or not. On the whole he liked it well enough, but there were +times—usually in the spring—when without being conscious of what was +the matter with him he mourned his lost youth. For Tutt was only +forty-eight and he had had a grandfather who had lived strenuously to +upward of twice that age. He was vigorous, sprightly, bright-eyed and as +hard as nails, even if somewhat resembling in his contours the late Mr. +Pickwick. Mrs. Tutt was tall, spare, capable and sardonic. She made Tutt +comfortable, but she no longer appealed to his sense of romance. Still +she held him. As the playwright hath said "It isn't good looks they +want, but good nature; if a warm welcome won't hold them, cold cream +won't." +</p> +<p> +However, Tutt got neither looks nor cold cream. His welcome, in fact, +was warm only if he stayed out too late, and then the later the warmer. +His relationship to his wife was prosaic, respectful. In his heart of +hearts he occasionally thought of her as exceedingly unattractive. In a +word Mrs. Tutt performed her wifely functions in a purely matter-of-fact +way. Anything else would have seemed to her unseemly. She dressed in a +manner that would have been regarded as conservative even on Beacon +Hill. She had no intention of making an old fool of herself or of +letting him be one either. When people had been married thirty years +they could take some things for granted. Few persons therefore had ever +observed Mr. Tutt in the act of caressing Mrs. Tutt; and there were +those who said that he never had. Frankly, she was a trifle forbidding: +superficially not the sort of person to excite a great deal of +sentiment; and occasionally, as we have hinted, in the spring Tutt +yearned for a little sentiment. +</p> +<p> +He did his yearning, however, entirely on the side and within those +hours consecrated to the law. In his wife's society he yearned not at +all. In her company he carefully kept his thoughts and his language +inside the innermost circle of decorum. At home his talk was entirely +"Yea, yea," and "Nay, nay," and dealt principally with politics and the +feminist movement, in which Abigail was deeply interested. +</p> +<p> +And by this we do not mean to suggest that at other times or places Tutt +was anything but conventionally proper. He was not. He only yearned to +be, well knowing that he was deficient in courage if not in everything +else. +</p> +<p> +But habit or no habit, likely or unlikely, Mrs. Tutt had no intention of +taking any chances so far as Tutt was concerned. If he did not reach +home precisely at six explanations were in order, and if he came in half +an hour later he had to demonstrate his integrity beyond a reasonable +doubt according to the established rules of evidence. +</p> +<p> +Perhaps Mrs. Tutt did wisely to hold Tutt thus in leash considering the +character of many of the firm's clients. For it was quite impossible to +conceal the nature of the practise of Tutt & Tutt; much of which figured +flamboyantly in the newspapers. Some women would have taken it for +granted under like circumstances that their husbands had acquired a +touch at least of the wisdom of the serpent even if they remained quite +harmless. Abigail countenanced no thought of any demoralization in her +spouse. To her he was like the artist who smears himself and his smock +with paint while in his studio, but appears at dinner in spotless linen +without even a whiff of benzine about him to suggest his occupation. So +Tutt, though hand and glove in his office with the most notorious of the +elite of Longacre Square, came home to supper with the naiveté and +innocence of a theological student for whom an evening at a picture show +is the height of dissipation. +</p> +<p> +Yet Tutt was no more of a Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde than most of us. +Merely, his daily transition was a little more abrupt. And when all is +said and done most of the devices invented by his fertile little brain +to further the interests of his clients were no more worthy of +condemnation than those put forward by far higher-priced and much more +celebrated attorneys. +</p> +<p> +Not that Mrs. Tutt was blind to the dangers to which her husband by +virtue of his occupation was exposed. Far from it. Indeed she made it +her business to pay periodical visits to the office, ostensibly to see +whether or not it was properly cleaned and the windows washed, but in +reality—or at least so Tutt suspected—to find out whether the +personnel was entirely suitable for a firm of their standing and +particularly for a junior partner of his susceptibilities. +</p> +<p> +But she never discovered anything to give her the slightest cause for +alarm. The dramatis personae of the offices of Tutt & Tutt were +characteristic of the firm, none of their employees—except Miss +Sondheim, the tumultous-haired lady stenographer—and Willie, the office +boy, being under forty years of age. +</p> +<p> +When not engaged in running errands or fussing over his postage-stamp +album, Willie spent most of his time teasing old Scraggs, the scrivener, +an unsuccessful teetotaler. A faint odor of alcohol emanated from the +cage in which he performed his labors and lent an atmosphere of +cheerfulness to what might otherwise have seemed to Broadway clients an +unsympathetic environment, though there were long annual periods during +which he was as sober as a Kansas judge. The winds of March were apt, +however, to take hold of him. Perhaps it was the spring in his case +also. +</p> +<p> +The backbone of the establishment was Miss Minerva Wiggin. In every law +office there is usually some one person who keeps the shop going. +Sometimes it is a man. If so, he is probably a sublimated stenographer +or law clerk who, having worked for years to get himself admitted to the +bar, finds, after achieving that ambition, that he has neither the +ability nor the inclination to brave the struggle for a livelihood by +himself. Perchance as a youth he has had visions of himself arguing test +cases before the Court of Appeals while the leaders of the bar hung upon +his every word, of an office crowded with millionaire clients and +servile employees, even as he is servile to the man for whom he labors +for a miserly ten dollars a week. +</p> +<p> +His ambition takes him by the hand and leads him to high places, from +which he gazes down into the land of his future prosperity and +greatness. The law seems a mysterious, alluring, fascinating profession, +combining the romance of the drama with the gratifications of the +intellect. He springs to answer his master's bell; he sits up until all +hours running down citations and making extracts from opinions; he +rushes to court and answers the calendar and sometimes carries the +lawyer's brief case and attends him throughout a trial. Three years go +by—five—and he finds that he is still doing the same thing. He is now +a member of the bar, he has become the managing clerk, he attends to +fairly important matters, engages the office force, superintends +transfer of title, occasionally argues a motion. Five years more go by +and perhaps his salary is raised a trifle more. Then one day he awakes +to the realization that his future is to be only that of a trusted +servitor. +</p> +<p> +Perchance he is married and has a baby. The time has come for him to +choose whether he will go forth and put his fortune to the test "to win +or lose it all" or settle down into the position of faithful legal hired +man. He is getting a bit bald, he has had one or two tussles with his +bank about accidental overdrafts. The world looks pretty bleak outside +and the big machine of the law goes grinding on heartless, inevitable. +Who is he to challenge the future? The old job is fairly easy; they +can't get on without him, they say; here is where he belongs; he knows +his business—give him his thirty-five hundred a year and let him stay! +</p> +<p> +That is Binks, or Calkins, or Shivers, or any one of those worried +gray-haired men who sit in the outer office behind a desk strewn with +papers and make sure that no mistakes have been made. To them every +doubtful question of practise is referred and they answer +instantly—sometimes wrongly, but always instantly. They know the last +day for serving the demurrer in Bilbank against Terwilliger and whether +or not you can tax a referee's fee as a disbursement in a bill of costs; +they are experts on the precise form for orders in matrimonial actions +and the rule in regard to filing a summons and complaint in Oneida +County; they stand between the members of the firm and disagreeable +clients; they hire and discharge the office boys; they do everything +from writing a brief for the Supreme Court of the United States down to +making the contract with the window cleaners; they are the only lawyers +who really know anything and they were once promising young men, who +have found out at last that life and the Sunday-school books are very +far apart; but they run the works and make the law a gentleman's +profession for the rest of us. They are always there. Others come, grow +older, go away, but they remain. Many of them drink. All of which would +be irrelevant, incompetent and immaterial if this were not a legal +story. +</p> +<p> +Scraggs had been one of these, but he had also been one of those who +drank, and now he was merely a bookkeeper. Miss Wiggin reigned in his +stead. +</p> +<p> +A woman and not a man kept Tutt & Tutt on the map. When this sort of +thing occurs it is usually because the woman in question is the ablest +and very likely also the best person in the outfit, and she assumes the +control of affairs by a process of natural selection. Miss Wiggin was +the conscience, if Mr. Tutt was the heart, of Tutt & Tutt. Nobody, +unless it was Mr. Tutt, knew where she had come from or why she was +working if at all in only a semi-respectable law office. Without her +something dreadful would have happened to the general morale. Everybody +recognized that fact. +</p> +<p> +Her very appearance gave the place tone—neutralized the faint odor of +alcohol from the cage. For in truth she was a fine-looking woman. Had +she been costumed by a Fifth Avenue dressmaker and done her coiffure +differently she would have been pretty. Because she drew her gray hair +straight back from her low forehead and tied it in a knob on the back of +her head, wore paper cuffs and a black dress, she looked nearer fifty +than forty-one, which she was. Two hundred dollars would have taken +twenty years off her apparent age—a year for every ten dollars; but she +would not have looked a particle less a lady. +</p> +<p> +Her duties were ambiguous. She was always the first to arrive at the +office and was the only person permitted to open the firm mail outside +of its members. She overlooked the books that Scraggs kept and sent out +the bills. She kept the key to the cash box and had charge of the safe. +She made the entries in the docket and performed most of the duties of a +regular managing clerk. She had been admitted to the bar. She checked up +the charge accounts and on Saturdays paid off the office force. In +addition to all these things she occasionally took a hand at a brief, +drew most of the pleadings, and kept track of everything that was done +in the various cases. +</p> +<p> +But her chief function, one which made her invaluable was that of +receiving clients who came to the office, and in the first instance +ascertaining just what their troubles were; and she was so sympathetic +and at the same time so sensible that many a stranger who casually +drifted in and would otherwise just as casually have drifted out again +remained a permanent fixture in the firm's clientele. Scraggs and +William adored her in spite of her being an utter enigma to them. She +was quiet but businesslike, of few words but with a latent sense of +humor that not infrequently broke through the surface of her gravity, +and she proceeded upon the excellent postulate that everyone with whom +she came in contact was actuated by the highest sense of honor. She +acted as a spiritual tonic to both Mr. Tutt and Tutt—especially to the +latter, who was the more in need of it. If they were ever tempted to +stray across the line of professional rectitude her simple assumption +that the thing couldn't be done usually settled the matter once and for +all. On delicate questions Mr. Tutt frankly consulted her. Without her, +Tutt & Tutt would have been shysters; with her they were almost +respectable. She received a salary of three thousand dollars a year and +earned double that amount, for she served where she loved and her first +thought was of Tutt & Tutt. If you can get a woman like that to run your +law office do not waste any time or consideration upon a man. Her price +is indeed above rubies. +</p> +<p> +Yet even Miss Wiggin could not keep the shadow of the vernal equinox off +the simple heart of the junior Tutt. She had seen it coming for several +weeks, had scented danger in the way Tutt's childish eye had lingered +upon Miss Sondheim's tumultous black hair and in the rather rakish, +familiar way he had guided the ladies who came to get divorces out to +the elevator. And then there swam into his life the beautiful Mrs. +Allison, and for a time Tutt became not only hysterically young again, +but—well, you shall see. +</p> +<p> +Yet, curiously enough, though we are a long way from where this story +opened, it all goes back to Phillips Brooks Vanderbilt and the Fat and +Skinny Club and the right to call ourselves by what names we please. +Moreover, as must be apparent, all that happened occurred beyond Miss +Wiggin's sphere of spiritual influence. Yet, had it not, even she could +not have harnessed Leviathan or loosed the bands of Orion—to say +nothing of counteracting the effect of spring. +</p> +<p> +When Tutt returned with "76 Fed." after the departure of Mr. Sorg he +found his partner smoking the usual stogy and gazing pensively down upon +the harbor. The immediate foreground was composed of rectangular roofs +of divers colors, mostly reddish, ornamented with eccentrically shaped +chimney pots, pent-houses, skylights and water tanks, in addition to +various curious whistle-like protuberances from which white wraiths of +steam whirled and danced in the gay breeze. Beyond, in the middle +distance, a great highway of sparkling jewels led across the waves to +the distant faintly green hills of Staten Island. Three tiny aeroplanes +wove invisible threads against the blue woof of the sky above the New +Jersey shore. It was not a day to practise law at all. It was a day to +lie on one's back in the grass and watch the clouds or throw one's +weight against the tugging helm of a racing sloop and bite the spindrift +blown across her bows—not a day for lawyers but for lovers! +</p> +<p> +"Here's '76 Fed.'," said Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"What's become of Sorg?" +</p> +<p> +"Gone. Mad. Says the whole point of the Fat and Skinny Club is in the +name." +</p> +<p> +"I fancy—from looking at Mr. Sorg—that that is quite true," remarked +Mr. Tutt. He paused and reaching down into a lower compartment of his +desk, lifted out a tumbler and his bottle of malt extract, which he +placed carefully at his elbow and leaned back again contemplatively. +"Look here, Tutt," he said. "I want to ask you something. Is there +anything the matter with you?" +</p> +<p> +Tutt regarded him with the air of a small boy caught peeking through a +knot hole. +</p> +<p> +"Why,—no!" he protested lamely. "That is—nothing in particular. I do +feel a bit restless—sort of vaguely dissatisfied." +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt nodded sympathetically. +</p> +<p> +"How old are you, Tutt?" +</p> +<p> +"Forty-eight." +</p> +<p> +"And you feel just at present as if life were 'flat, stale and +unprofitable?'" +</p> +<p> +"Why—yes; you might put it that way. The fact is every day seems just +like every other day. I don't even get any pleasure out of eating. The +very sight of a boiled egg beside my plate at breakfast gives me the +willies. I can't eat boiled eggs any more. They sicken me!" +</p> +<p> +"Exactly!" Mr. Tutt poured out a glass of the malt extract. +</p> +<p> +"I feel the same way about a lot of things," Tutt hurried on. "Special +demurrers, for instance. They bore me horribly. And supplementary +proceedings get most frightfully upon my nerves." +</p> +<p> +"Exactly!" repeated Mr. Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"What do you mean by 'exactly?'" snapped Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"You're bored," explained his partner. +</p> +<p> +"Rather!" agreed Tutt. "Bored to death. Not with anything special, you +understand; just everything. I feel as if I'd like to do something +devilish." +</p> +<p> +"When a man feels like that he better go to a doctor," declared Mr. +Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"A doctor!" exclaimed Tutt derisively. "What good would a doctor do me?" +</p> +<p> +"He might keep you from getting into trouble." +</p> +<p> +"Oh, you needn't be alarmed. I won't get into any trouble." +</p> +<p> +"It's the dangerous age," said Mr. Tutt. "I've known a lot of +respectable married men to do the most surprising things round fifty." +</p> +<p> +Tutt looked interested. +</p> +<p> +"Have you now?" he inquired. "Well, I've no doubt it did some of 'em a +world of good. Tell you frankly sometimes I feel as if I'd rather like +to take a bit of a fling myself!" +</p> +<p> +"Your professional experience ought to be enough to warn you of the +dangers of that sort of experiment," answered Mr. Tutt gravely. "It's +bad enough when it occurs inadvertently, so to speak, but when a man in +your condition of life deliberately goes out to invite trouble it's a +sad, sad spectacle." +</p> +<p> +"Do you mean to imply that I'm not able to take care of myself?" +demanded Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"I mean to imply that no man is too wise to be made a fool of by some +woman." +</p> +<p> +"That every Samson has his Delilah?" +</p> +<p> +"If you want to put it that way—yes." +</p> +<p> +"And that in the end he'll get his hair cut?" +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt took a sip from the tumbler of malt and relit his stogy. +</p> +<p> +"What do you know about Samson and Delilah, Tutt?" he challenged. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, about as much as you do, I guess, Mr. Tutt," answered his partner +modestly. +</p> +<p> +"Well, who cut Samson's hair?" demanded the senior member. +</p> +<p> +He emptied the dregs of the malt-extract bottle into his glass and +holding it to the light examined it critically. +</p> +<p> +"Delilah, of course!" ejaculated Tutt. +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt shook his head. +</p> +<p> +"There you go off at half-cock again, Tutt!" he retorted whimsically. +"You wrong her. She did no such thing." +</p> +<p> +"Why, I'll bet you a hundred dollars on it!" cried Tutt excitedly. +</p> +<p> +"Make it a simple dinner at the Claridge Grill and I'll go you." +</p> +<p> +"Done!" +</p> +<p> +There were four books on the desk near Mr. Tutt's right hand—the New +York Code of Civil Procedure, an almanac, a Shakesperean concordance and +a Bible. +</p> +<p> +"Look it up for yourself," said Mr. Tutt, waving his arm with a gesture +of the utmost impartiality. "That is, if you happen to know in what part +of Holy Writ said Delilah is to be found." +</p> +<p> +Tutt followed the gesture and sat down at the opposite side of the desk. +</p> +<p> +"There!" he exclaimed, after fumbling over the leaves for several +minutes. "What did I tell you? Listen, Mr. Tutt! It's in the sixteenth +chapter of Judges: 'And it came to pass, when she pressed him daily with +her words, and urged him, so that his soul was vexed unto death; That he +told her all his heart, and said unto her, There hath not come a razor +upon mine head.' Um—um." +</p> +<p> +"Read on, Tutt!" ordered Mr. Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"Um. 'And when Delilah saw that he had told her all his heart, she sent +and called for the lords of the Philistines, saying, Come up this once.' +Um-um." +</p> +<p> +"Yes, go on!" +</p> +<p> +"'And she made him sleep upon her knees; and she called for a man, and +she caused him to shave off the seven locks of his head.' Well, I'll be +hanged!" exclaimed Tutt. "Now, I would have staked a thousand dollars on +it. But look here, you don't win! Delilah did cut Samson's hair—through +her agent. '<i>Qui facit per alium facit per se!</i>'" +</p> +<p> +"Your point is overruled," said Mr. Tutt. "A barber cut Samson's hair. +Let it be a lesson to you never to take anything on hearsay. Always look +up your authorities yourself. Moreover"—and he looked severely at +Tutt—"the cerebral fluid—like malt extract—tends to become cloudy +with age." +</p> +<p> +"Well, anyhow, I'm no Samson," protested Tutt. "And I haven't met anyone +that looked like a Delilah. I guess after the procession of +adventuresses that have trailed through this office in the last twenty +years I'm reasonably safe." +</p> +<p> +"No man is safe," meditated Mr. Tutt. "For the reason that no man knows +the power of expansion of his heart. He thinks it's reached its +limit—and then he finds to his horror or his delight that it hasn't. To +put it another way, a man's capacity to love may be likened to a +thermometer. At twenty-five or thirty he meets some young person, falls +in love with her, thinks his amatory thermometer has reached the +boiling-point and accordingly marries her. In point of fact it +hasn't—it's only marking summer heat—hasn't even registered the +temperature of the blood. Well, he goes merrily on life's way and some +fine day another lady breezes by, and this safe and sane citizen, who +supposes his capacity for affection was reached in early youth, suddenly +discovers to his amazement that his mercury is on the jump and presently +that his old thermometer has blown its top off." +</p> +<p> +"Very interesting, Mr. Tutt," observed Tutt after a moment's silence. +"You seem to have made something of a study of these things." +</p> +<p> +"Only in a business way—only in a business way!" Mr. Tutt assured him. +"Now, if you're feeling stale—and we all are apt to get that way this +time of year—why don't you take a run down to Atlantic City?" +</p> +<p> +Now Tutt would have liked to go to Atlantic City could he have gone by +himself, but the idea of taking Abigail along robbed the idea of its +attraction. She had got more than ever on his nerves of late. But his +reply, whatever it might have been, was interrupted by the announcement +of Miss Wiggin, who entered at that moment, that a lady wished to see +him. +</p> +<p> +"She asked for Mr. Tutt," explained Minerva. +</p> +<p> +"But I think her case is more in your line," and she nodded to Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"Good looking?" inquired Tutt roguishly. +</p> +<p> +"Very," returned Miss Wiggin. "A blonde." +</p> +<p> +"Thanks," answered Tutt, smoothing his hair; "I'm on my way." +</p> +<p> +Now this free, almost vulgar manner of speech was in reality foreign to +both Tutt and Miss Wiggin and it was born of the instant, due doubtless +to some peculiar juxtaposition of astral bodies in Cupid's horoscope +unknown to them, but which none the less had its influence. Strange +things happen on the eve of St. Agnes and on Midsummer Night—even in +law offices. +</p> +<p> +Mrs. Allison was sitting by the window in Tutt's office when he came in, +and for a full minute he paused upon the threshold while she pretended +she did not know that he was there. The deluge of sunlight that fell +upon her face betrayed no crack or wrinkle—no flaw of any kind—in the +white marble of its perfection. It was indeed a lovely face, classic in +the chiseling of its transparent alabaster; and when she turned, her +eyes were like misty lakes of blue. Bar none, she was the most beautiful +creature—and there had been many—that had ever wandered into the +offices of Tutt & Tutt. He sought for a word. "Wonderful"; that was, it, +she was "wonderful." His stale spirit soared in ecstasy, and left him +tongue-tied. In vulgar parlance he was rattled to death, this +commonplace little lawyer who for a score of years had dealt cynically +with the loves and lives of the flock of female butterflies who +fluttered annually in and out of the office. Throughout that period he +had sat unemotionally behind his desk and listened in an aloof, cold, +professional manner to the stories of their wrongs as they sobbed or +hissed them forth. Wise little lawyer that he was, he had regarded them +all as just what they were and nothing else—specimens of the Cecropia. +And he had not even patted them upon the shoulder or squeezed their +hands when he had bade them good-by—maintaining always an impersonal +and dignified demeanor. +</p> +<p> +Therefore he was surprised to hear himself say in soothing, almost +cooing tones: +</p> +<p> +"Well, my dear, what can I do for you?" +</p> +<p> +Shades of Abigail! "Well, my dear!" Tutt—Tutt! Tutt! +</p> +<p> +"I am in great trouble," faltered Mrs. Allison, gazing in misty +helplessness out of her blue grottoes at him while her beautiful red +lips trembled. +</p> +<p> +"I hope I can help you!" he breathed. "Tell me all about it! Take your +time. May I relieve you of your wrap?" +</p> +<p> +She wriggled out of it gratefully and he saw for the first time the +round, slender pillar of her neck. What a head she had—in its nimbus of +hazy gold. What a figure! His forty-eight-year-old lawyer's heart +trembled under its heavy layer of half-calf dust. He found difficulty in +articulating. He stammered, staring at her most shamelessly both of +which symptoms she did not notice. She was used to them in the other +sex. Tutt did not know what was the matter with him. He had in fact +entered upon that phase at which the wise man, be he old or young, turns +and runs. +</p> +<p> +But Tutt did not run. In legal phrase he stopped, looked and listened, +experiencing a curious feeling of expansion. This enchanting creature +transmuted the dingy office lined with its rows of calfskin bindings +into a golden grot in which he stood spellbound by the low murmur of her +voice. A sense of infinite leisure emanated from her—a subtle denial of +the ordinary responsibilities—very relaxing and delightful to Tutt. But +what twitched his very heartstrings was the dimple that came and went +with that pathetic little twisted smile of hers. +</p> +<p> +"I came to you," said Mrs. Allison, "because I knew you were both kind +and clever." +</p> +<p> +Tutt smiled sweetly. +</p> +<p> +"Kind, perhaps—not clever!" he beamed. +</p> +<p> +"Why, everyone says you are one of the cleverest lawyers in New York," +she protested. Then, raising her innocent China-blue eyes to his she +murmured, "And I so need kindness!" +</p> +<p> +Tutt's breast swelled with an emotion which he was forced to admit was +not altogether avuncular—that curious sentimental mixture that +middle-aged men feel of paternal pity, Platonic tenderness and +protectiveness, together with all those other euphemistic synonyms, that +make them eager to assist the weak and fragile, to try to educate and +elevate, and particularly to find out just how weak, fragile, uneducated +and unelevated a helpless lady may be. But in spite of his half century +of experience Tutt's knowledge of these things was purely vicarious. He +could have told another man when to run, but he didn't know when to run +himself. He could have saved another, himself he could not save—at any +rate from Mrs. Allison. +</p> +<p> +He had never seen anyone like her. He pulled his chair a little nearer. +She was so slender, so supple, so—what was it?—svelte! And she had an +air of childish dignity that appealed to him tremendously. There was +nothing, he assured himself, of the vamp about her at all. +</p> +<p> +"I only want to get my rights," she said, tremulously. "I'm nearly out +of my mind. I don't know what to do or where to turn!" +</p> +<p> +"Is there"—he forced himself to utter the word with difficulty—"a—a +man involved?" +</p> +<p> +She flushed and bowed her head sadly, and instantly a poignant rage +possessed him. +</p> +<p> +"A man I trusted absolutely," she replied in a low voice. +</p> +<p> +"His name?" +</p> +<p> +"Winthrop Oaklander." +</p> +<p> +Tutt gasped audibly, for the name was that of one of Manhattan's most +distinguished families, the founder of which had swapped glass beads and +red-flannel shirts with the aborigines for what was now the most +precious water frontage in the world—and moreover, Mrs. Allison +informed Tutt, he was a clergyman. +</p> +<p> +"I don't wonder you're surprised!" agreed Mrs. Allison. +</p> +<p> +"Why—I—I'm—not surprised at all!" prevaricated Tutt, at the same time +groping for his silk handkerchief. "You don't mean to say you've got a +case against this man Oaklander!" +</p> +<p> +"I have indeed!" she retorted with firmly compressed lips. "That is, if +it is what you call a case for a man to promise to marry a woman and +then in the end refuse to do so." +</p> +<p> +"Of course it is!" answered Tutt. "But why on earth wouldn't he?" +</p> +<p> +"He found out I had been divorced," she explained. "Up to that time +everything had been lovely. You see he thought I was a widow." +</p> +<p> +"Ah!" +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt experienced another pang of resentment against mankind in +general. +</p> +<p> +"I had a leading part in one of the season's successes on Broadway," she +continued miserably. "But when Mr. Oaklander promised to marry me I left +the stage; and now—I have nothing!" +</p> +<p> +"Poor child!" sighed Tutt. +</p> +<p> +He would have liked to take her in his arms and comfort her, but he +always kept the door into the outer office open on principle. +</p> +<p> +"You know, Mr. Oaklander is the pastor of St. Lukes-Over-the-Way," said +Mrs. Allison. "I thought that maybe rather than have any publicity he +might do a little something for me." +</p> +<p> +"I suppose you've got something in the way of evidence, haven't you? +Letters or photographs or something?" inquired Tutt, reverting +absent-mindedly to his more professional manner. +</p> +<p> +"No," she answered. "We never wrote to one another. And when we went out +it was usually in the evening. I don't suppose half a dozen people have +ever seen us together." +</p> +<p> +"That's awkward!" meditated Tutt, "if he denies it." +</p> +<p> +"Of course he will deny it!" +</p> +<p> +"You can't tell. He may not." +</p> +<p> +"Oh, yes, he will! Why, he even refuses to admit that he ever met me!" +declared Mrs. Allison indignantly. +</p> +<p> +Now, to Tutt's credit be it said that neither at this point nor at any +other did any suspicion of Mrs. Allison's sincerity enter his mind. For +the first time in his professional existence he accepted what a lady +client told him at its face value. Indeed he felt that no one, not even +a clergyman, could help loving so miraculous a woman, or that loving her +one could refrain from marrying her save for some religious or other +permanent obstacle He was sublimely, ecstatically happy in the mere +thought that he, Tutt, might be of help to such a celestial being, and +he desired no reward other than the privilege of being her willing slave +and of reading her gratitude in those melting, misty eyes. +</p> +<p> +Mrs. Allison went away just before lunch time, leaving her telephone +number, her handkerchief, a pungent odor of violet talc, and a +disconsolate but highly excited Tutt. Never, at any rate within twenty +years, had he felt so young. Life seemed tinged with every color of the +spectrum. The radiant fact was that he would—he simply had to—see her +again. What he might do for her professionally—all that aspect of the +affair was shoved far into the background of his mind. His only thought +was how to get her back into his office at the earliest possible moment. +</p> +<p> +"Shall I enter the lady's name in the address book?" inquired Miss +Wiggin coldly as he went out to get a bite of lunch. +</p> +<p> +Tutt hesitated. +</p> +<p> +"Mrs. Georgie Allison is her name," he said in a detached sort of way. +</p> +<p> +"Address?" +</p> +<p> +Tutt felt in his waistcoat pocket. +</p> +<p> +"By George!" he muttered, "I didn't take it. But her telephone number is +Lincoln Square 9187." +</p> +<p> +To chronicle the details of Tutt's second blooming would be needlessly +to derogate from the dignity of the history of Tutt & Tutt. There is a +silly season in the life of everyone—even of every lawyer—who can call +himself a man, and out of such silliness comes the gravity of knowledge. +Tutt found it necessary for his new client to come to the office almost +every day, and as she usually arrived about the noon hour what was more +natural than that he should invite her out to lunch? Twice he walked +home with her. The telephone was busy constantly. And the only thorn in +the rose of Tutt's delirious happiness was the fear lest Abigail might +discover something. The thought gave him many an anxious hour, cost him +several sleepless nights. At times this nervousness about his wife +almost exceeded the delight of having Mrs. Allison for a friend. Yet +each day he became on more and more cordial terms with her, and the +lunches became longer and more intimate. +</p> +<p> +The Reverend Winthrop Oaklander gave no sign of life, however. The +customary barrage of legal letters had been laid down, but without +eliciting any response. The Reverend Winthrop must be a wise one, opined +Tutt, and he began to have a hearty contempt as well as hatred for his +quarry. The first letter had been the usual vague hint that the +clergyman might and probably would find it to his advantage to call at +the offices of Tutt & Tutt, and so on. The Reverend Winthrop, however +did not seem to care to secure said advantage whatever it might be. The +second epistle gave the name of the client and proposed a friendly +discussion of her affairs. No reply. The third hinted at legal +proceedings. Total silence. The fourth demanded ten thousand dollars +damages and threatened immediate suit. +</p> +<p> +In answer to this last appeared the Reverend Winthrop himself. He was a +fine-looking young chap with a clear eye—almost as blue as +Georgie's—and a skin even pinker than hers, and he stood six feet five +in his Oxfords and his fist looked to Tutt as big as a coconut. +</p> +<p> +"Are you the blackmailer who's been writing me those letters?" he +demanded, springing into Tutt's office. "If you are, let me tell you +something. You've got hold of the wrong monkey. I've been dealing with +fellows of your variety ever since I got out of the seminary. I don't +know the lady you pretend to represent, and I never heard of her. If I +get any more letters from you I'll go down and lay the case before the +district attorney; and if he doesn't put you in jail I'll come up here +and knock your head off. Understand? Good day!" +</p> +<p> +At any other period in his existence Tutt could not have failed to be +impressed with the honesty of this husky exponent of the church +militant, but he was drugged as by the drowsy mandragora. The blatant +defiance of this muscular preacher outraged him. This canting hypocrite, +this wolf in priest's clothing must be brought to book. But how? Mrs. +Allison had admitted the literal truth when she had told him that there +were no letters, no photographs. There was no use commencing an action +for breach of promise if there was no evidence to support it. And once +the papers were filed their bolt would have been shot. Some way must be +devised whereby the Reverend Winthrop Oaklander could be made to +perceive that Tutt & Tutt meant business, and—equally +imperative—whereby Georgie would be impressed with the fact that not +for nothing had she come to them—that is, to him—for help. +</p> +<p> +The fact of the matter was that the whole thing had become rather +hysterical. Tutt, though having nothing seriously to reproach himself +with, was constantly haunted by a sense of being rather ridiculous and +doing something behind his wife's back. He told himself that his +Platonic regard for Georgie was a noble thing and did him honor, but it +was an honor which he preferred to wear as an entirely private +decoration. He was conscious of being laughed at by Willie and Scraggs +and disapproved of by Miss Wiggin, who was very snippy to him. And in +addition there was the omnipresent horror of having Abigail unearth his +philandering. He now not only thought of Mrs. Allison as Georgie but +addressed her thus, and there was quite a tidy little bill at the +florist's for flowers that he had sent her. In one respect only did he +exhibit even the most elementary caution—he wrote and signed all his +letters to her himself upon the typewriter, and filed copies in the +safe. +</p> +<p> +"So there we are!" he sighed as he gave to Mrs. Allison a somewhat +expurgated, or rather emasculated version of the Reverend Winthrop's +visit. "We have got to hand him something hot or make up our minds to +surrender. In a word we have got to scare him—Georgie." +</p> +<p> +And then it was that, like the apocryphal mosquito, the Fat and Skinny +Club justified its attempted existence. For the indefatigable Sorg made +an unheralded reappearance in the outer office and insisted upon seeing +Tutt, loudly asserting that he had reason to believe that if a new +application were now made to another judge—whom he knew—it would be +more favorably received. Tutt went to the doorway and stood there +barring the entrance and expostulating with him. +</p> +<p> +"All right!" shouted Sorg. "All right! I hear you! But don't tell me +that a man named Solomon Swackhamer can change his name to Phillips +Brooks Vanderbilt and in the same breath a reputable body of citizens be +denied the right to call themselves what they please!" +</p> +<p> +"He don't understand!" explained Tutt to Georgie, who had listened with +wide, dreamy eyes. "He don't appreciate the difference between doing a +thing as an individual and as a group." +</p> +<p> +"What thing?" +</p> +<p> +"Why, taking a name." +</p> +<p> +"I don't get you," said Georgie. +</p> +<p> +"Sorg wanted to call his crowd the Fat and Skinny Club, and the court +wouldn't let him—thought it was silly." +</p> +<p> +"Well?" +</p> +<p> +"But he could have called himself Mr. Fat or Mr. Skinny or Mr. Anything +Else without having to ask anybody—Oh, I say!" +</p> +<p> +Tutt had stiffened into sculpture. +</p> +<p> +"What is it?" demanded Georgie fascinated. +</p> +<p> +"I've got an idea," he cried. "You can call yourself anything you like. +Why not call yourself Mrs. Winthrop Oaklander?" +</p> +<p> +"But what good would that do?" she asked vaguely. +</p> +<p> +"Look here!" directed Tutt. "This is the surest thing you know! Just go +up to the Biltmore and register as Mrs. Winthrop Oaklander. You have a +perfect legal right to do it. You could call yourself Mrs. Julius Caesar +if you wanted to. Take a room and stay there until our young Christian +soldier offers you a suitable inducement to move along. Even if you're +violating the law somehow his first attempt to make trouble for you will +bring about the very publicity he is anxious to avoid. Why, it's +marvelous—and absolutely safe? They can't touch you. He'll come across +inside of two hours. If he doesn't a word to the reporters will start +things in the right direction." +</p> +<p> +For a moment Mrs. Allison looked puzzled. Then her beautiful face broke +into an enthusiastic classic smile and she laid her little hand softly +on his arm. +</p> +<p> +"What a clever boy you are—Sammy!" +</p> +<p> +A subdued snigger came from the direction of the desk usually occupied +by William. Tutt flushed. It was one thing to call Mrs. Allison +"Georgie" in private and another to have her "Sammy" him within hearing +of the office force. And just then Miss Wiggin passed by with her nose +slightly in the air. +</p> +<p> +"What a perfectly wonderful idea!" went on Mrs. Allison rapturously. "A +perfectly wonderful idea!" +</p> +<p> +Then she smiled a strange, mysterious, significant smile that almost +tore Tutt's heart out by the roots. +</p> +<p> +"Listen, Sammy," she whispered, with a new light in those beautiful +eyes. "I want five thousand dollars." +</p> +<p> +"Five?" repeated Tutt simply. "I thought you wanted ten thousand!" +</p> +<p> +"Only five from you, Sammy!" +</p> +<p> +"Me!" he gagged. +</p> +<p> +"You—dearest!" +</p> +<p> +Tutt turned blazing hot; then cold, dizzy and sea-sick. His sight was +slightly blurred. Slowly he groped for the door and closed it +cautiously. +</p> +<p> +"What—are—you—talking about?" he choked, though he knew perfectly +well. +</p> +<p> +Georgie had thrown herself back in the leather chair by his desk and had +opened her gold mesh-bag. +</p> +<p> +"About five thousand dollars," she replied with the careful enunciation +of a New England school-mistress. +</p> +<p> +"What five thousand dollars?" +</p> +<p> +"The five you're going to hand me before I leave this office, Sammy +darling," she retorted dazzlingly. +</p> +<p> +Tutt's head swam and he sank weakly into his swivel chair. It was +incredible that he, a veteran of the criminal bar, should have been so +tricked. Instantly, as when a reagent is injected into a retort of +chemicals and a precipitate is formed leaving the previously cloudy +liquid like crystal, Tutt's addled brain cleared. He was caught! The +victim of his own asininity. He dared not look at this woman who had +wound him thus round her finger, innocent as he was of any wrongdoing; +he was ashamed to think of his wife. +</p> +<p> +"My Lord!" he murmured, realizing for the first time the depth of his +weakness. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, it isn't as bad as that!" she laughed. "Remember you were going to +charge Oaklander ten thousand. This costs you only five. Special rates +for physicians and lawyers!" +</p> +<p> +"And suppose I don't choose to give it to you?" he asked. +</p> +<p> +"Listen here, you funny little man!" she answered in caressing tones +that made him writhe. "You'd stand for twenty if I insisted on it. Oh, +don't jump! I'm not going to. You're getting off easy—too easy. But I +want to stay on good terms with you. I may need you sometime in my +business. Your certified check for five thousand dollars—and I leave +you." +</p> +<p> +She struck a match and started to light a tiny gold-tipped cigarette. +</p> +<p> +"Don't!" he gasped. "Not in the office." +</p> +<p> +"Do I get the five thousand?" +</p> +<p> +He ground his teeth, not yet willing to concede defeat. +</p> +<p> +"You silly old bird!" she said. "Do you know how many times you've had +me down here in your office in the last three weeks? Fifteen. How many +times you've taken me out to lunch? Ten. How often you've called me on +the telephone? Eighty-nine How many times you've sent me flowers? +Twelve. How many letters you've written me? Eleven! Oh, I realize +they're typewritten, but a photograph enlargement would show they were +typed in your office. Every typewriter has its own individuality, you +know. Your clerks and office boy have heard me call you Sammy. Why, +every time you've moved with me beside you someone has seen you. That's +enough, isn't it? But now, on top of all that, you go and hand me +exactly what I need on a gold plate." +</p> +<p> +He gazed at her stupidly. +</p> +<p> +"Why, if now you don't give me that check I shall simply go up to the +Biltmore and register as Mrs. Samuel Tutt. I shall take a room and stay +there until you offer me a proper inducement to move on." She giggled +delightedly. "It's marvelous—absolutely safe," she quoted. "They can't +touch me. You'll come across inside of two hours. If you don't a word to +the reporters will start things in the right direction." +</p> +<p> +"Don't!" he groaned. "I must have been crazy. That was simply +blackmail!" +</p> +<p> +"That's exactly what it was!" she agreed. "There aren't any letters +except these typewritten ones, or photographs, or any evidence at all, +but you're going to give me five thousand dollars just the same. Just so +that your wife won't know what a silly old fool you've been. Where's +your check book, Sam?" +</p> +<p> +Tutt pulled out the bottom drawer of his desk and slowly removed his +personal check book. With his fountain pen in his hand he paused and +looked at her. +</p> +<p> +"Rather than give you another cent I'd stand the gaff," he remarked +defiantly. +</p> +<p> +"I know it," she answered. "I looked you up before I came here the first +time. You are good for exactly five thousand dollars." +</p> +<p> +Tutt filled out the check to cash and sent Willie across the street to +the bank to have it certified. The sun was just sinking over the Jersey +shore beyond the Statue of Liberty and the surface of the harbor +undulated like iridescent watered silk. The clouds were torn into +golden-purple rents, and the air was so clear that one could look down +the Narrows far out to the open sea. Standing there by the window Mrs. +Allison looked as innocently beautiful as the day Tutt had first beheld +her. After all, he thought, perhaps the experience had been worth the +money. +</p> +<p> +Something of the same thought may have occurred to the lady, for as she +took the check and carefully examined the certification she remarked +with a distinct access of cordiality: "Really, Sammy, you're quite a +nice little man. I rather like you." +</p> +<p> +Tutt stood after she had gone watching the sunset until the west was +only a mass of leaden shadows Then, strangely relieved, he took his hat +and started out of the office. Somewhat to his surprise he found Miss +Wiggin still at her desk. +</p> +<p> +"By the way," she remarked casually as he passed her, "what shall I +charge that check to? The one you just drew to cash for five thousand +dollars?" +</p> +<p> +"Charge it to life insurance," he said shortly. +</p> +<p> +He felt almost gay as he threaded his way through the crowds along +Broadway. Somehow a tremendous load had been lifted from his shoulders +He would no longer be obliged to lead a sneaking, surreptitious +existence. He felt like shouting with joy now that he could look the +world frankly in the face. The genuine agony he had endured during the +past three weeks loomed like a sickness behind him. He had been a +fool—and there was no fool like an old one. Just let him get back to +his old Abigail and there'd be no more wandering-boy business for him! +Abigail might not have the figure or the complexion that Georgie had, +but she was a darn sight more reliable. Henceforth she could have him +from five p.m. to nine a.m. without reserve. As for kicking over the +traces, sowing wild oats and that sort of thing, there was nothing in it +for him. Give him Friend Wife. +</p> +<p> +He stopped at the florist's and, having paid a bill of thirty-six +dollars for Georgie's flowers, purchased a double bunch of violets and +carried them home with him. Abigail was watching for him out of the +window. Something warm rushed to his heart at the sight of her. Through +the lace curtains she looked quite trim. +</p> +<p> +"Hello, old girl!" he cried, as she opened the door. "Waiting for me, +eh? Here's a bunch of posies for you." +</p> +<p> +And he kissed her on the cheek. +</p> +<p> +"That's more than I ever did to Georgie," he said to himself. +</p> +<p> +"Why, Samuel!" laughed Abigail with a faded blush. "What's ever got into +you?" +</p> +<p> +"Dunno!" he retorted gaily. "The spring, I guess. What do you say to a +little dinner at a restaurant and then going to the play?" +</p> +<p> +She bridled—being one of the generation who did such things—with +pleasure. +</p> +<p> +"Seems to me you're getting rather extravagant." she objected. "Still—" +</p> +<p> +"Oh, come along!" he bullied her. "One of my clients collected five +thousand dollars this afternoon." +</p> +<p> +Tutt summoned a taxi and they drove to the brightest, most glittering of +Broadway hostelries. Abigail had never been in such a chic place before. +It half terrified and shocked her, all those women in dresses that +hardly came up to their armpits. Some of them were handsome though. That +slim one at the table by the pillar, for instance. She was really quite +lovely with that mass of yellow-golden hair, that startlingly white +skin, and those misty China-blue eyes. And the gentleman with her, the +tall man with the pink cheeks, was very handsome, too. +</p> +<p> +"Look, Samuel," she said, touching his hand. "See that good-looking +couple over there." +</p> +<p> +But Samuel was looking at them already—intently. And just then the +beautiful woman turned and, catching sight of the Tutts, smiled +cordially if somewhat roguishly and raised her glass, as did her +companion. Mechanically Tutt elevated his. The three drank to one +another. +</p> +<p> +"Do you know those people, Samuel?" inquired Mrs. Tutt somewhat stiffly. +"Who are they?" +</p> +<p> +"Oh, those over there?" he repeated absently. "I don't really know what +the lady's name is, she's been down to our office a few times. But the +man is Winthrop Oaklander—and the funny part of it is, I always thought +he was a clergyman." +</p> +<p> +Later in the evening he turned to her between the acts and remarked +inconsequently: "Say, Abbie, do I look as if I'd just had my hair cut?" +</p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<a name="ANDREW"><!-- ANDREW --></a> +<h2> +The Dog Andrew +</h2> +<p> </p> +<blockquote><p> +"Every dog is entitled to one bite."—UNREPORTED +OPINION OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION OF THE NEW +YORK SUPREME COURT. +</p></blockquote> +<p> +"Now see here!" shouted Mr. Appleboy, coming out of the boathouse, where +he was cleaning his morning's catch of perch, as his neighbor Mr. +Tunnygate crashed through the hedge and cut across Appleboy's parched +lawn to the beach. "See here, Tunnygate, I won't have you trespassing on +my place! I've told you so at least a dozen times! Look at the hole +you've made in that hedge, now! Why can't you stay in the path?" +</p> +<p> +His ordinarily good-natured countenance was suffused with anger and +perspiration. His irritation with Mr. Tunnygate had reached the point of +explosion. Tunnygate was a thankless friend and he was a great cross to +Mr. Appleboy. Aforetime the two had been intimate in the fraternal, +taciturn intimacy characteristic of fat men, an attraction perhaps akin +to that exerted for one another by celestial bodies of great mass, for +it is a fact that stout people do gravitate toward one another—and hang +or float in placid juxtaposition, perhaps merely as a physical result of +their avoirdupois. So Appleboy and Tunnygate had swum into each other's +spheres of influence, either blown by the dallying winds of chance or +drawn by some mysterious animal magnetism, and, being both addicted to +the delights of the soporific sport sanctified by Izaak Walton, had +raised unto themselves portable temples upon the shores of Long Island +Sound in that part of the geographical limits of the Greater City known +as Throggs Neck. +</p> +<p> +Every morn during the heat of the summer months Appleboy would rouse +Tunnygate or conversely Tunnygate would rouse Appleboy, and each in his +own wobbly skiff would row out to the spot which seemed most propitious +to the piscatorial art. There, under two green umbrellas, like two fat +rajahs in their shaking howdahs upon the backs of two white elephants, +the friends would sit in solemn equanimity awaiting the evasive cunner, +the vagrant perch or cod or the occasional flirtatious eel. They rarely +spoke and when they did the edifice of their conversation—their Tower +of Babel, so to speak—was monosyllabic. Thus: +</p> +<p> +"Huh! Ain't had a bite!" +</p> +<p> +"Huh!" +</p> +<p> +"Huh!" +</p> +<p> +Silence for forty minutes. Then: "Huh! Had a bite?" +</p> +<p> +"Nope!" +</p> +<p> +"Huh!" +</p> +<p> +That was generally the sum total of their interchange Yet it satisfied +them, for their souls were in harmony. To them it was pregnant of +unutterable meanings, of philosophic mysteries more subtle than those of +the esoterics, of flowers and poetry, of bird-song and twilight, of all +the nuances of softly whispered avowals, of the elusive harmonies of +love's half-fainting ecstasy. +</p> +<p> +"Huh!" +</p> +<p> +"Huh!" +</p> +<p> +And then into this Eden—only not by virtue of the excision of any +vertebra such as was originally necessary in the case of Adam—burst +woman. There was silence no longer. The air was rent with clamor; for +both Appleboy and Tunnygate, within a month of one another, took unto +themselves wives. Wives after their own image! +</p> +<p> +For a while things went well enough; it takes ladies a few weeks to find +out each other's weak points. But then the new Mrs. Tunnygate +unexpectedly yet undeniably began to exhibit the serpent's tooth, the +adder's tongue or the cloven hoof—as the reader's literary traditions +may lead him to prefer. For no obvious reason at all she conceived a +violent hatred of Mrs. Appleboy, a hatred that waxed all the more +virulent on account of its object's innocently obstinate refusal to +comprehend or recognize it. Indeed Mrs. Tunnygate found it so difficult +to rouse Mrs. Appleboy into a state of belligerency sufficiently +interesting that she soon transferred her energies to the more worthy +task of making Appleboy's life a burden to him. +</p> +<p> +To this end she devoted herself with a truly Machiavellian ingenuity, +devising all sorts of insults irritations and annoyances, and adding to +the venom of her tongue the inventive cunning of a Malayan witch doctor. +The Appleboys' flower-pots mysteriously fell off the piazza, their +thole-pins disappeared, their milk bottles vanished, Mr. Appleboy's fish +lines acquired a habit of derangement equaled only by barbed-wire +entanglements, and his clams went bad! But these things might have been +borne had it not been for the crowning achievement of her malevolence, +the invasion of the Appleboys' cherished lawn, upon which they lavished +all that anxious tenderness which otherwise they might have devoted to a +child. +</p> +<p> +It was only about twenty feet by twenty, and it was bordered by a hedge +of moth-eaten privet, but anyone who has ever attempted to induce a +blade of grass to grow upon a sand dune will fully appreciate the +deviltry of Mrs. Tunnygate's malignant mind. Already there was a horrid +rent where Tunnygate had floundered through at her suggestion in order +to save going round the pathetic grass plot which the Appleboys had +struggled to create where Nature had obviously intended a floral vacuum. +Undoubtedly it had been the sight of Mrs. Appleboy with her small +watering pot patiently encouraging the recalcitrant blades that had +suggested the malicious thought to Mrs. Tunnygate that maybe the +Appleboys didn't own that far up the beach. They didn't—that was the +mockery of it. Like many others they had built their porch on their +boundary line, and, as Mrs. Tunnygate pointed out, they were claiming to +own something that wasn't theirs. So Tunnygate, in daily obedience to +his spouse, forced his way through the hedge to the beach, and daily the +wrath of the Appleboys grew until they were driven almost to +desperation. +</p> +<p> +Now when the two former friends sat fishing in their skiffs they either +contemptuously ignored one another or, if they "Huh-Huhed!" at all the +"Huhs!" resembled the angry growls of infuriated beasts. The worst of it +was that the Appleboys couldn't properly do anything about it. Tunnygate +had, as Mrs. Tunnygate sneeringly pointed out, a perfect legal right to +push his way through the hedge and tramp across the lawn, and she didn't +propose to allow the Appleboys to gain any rights by proscription, +either. Not much! +</p> +<p> +Therefore, when Mr. Appleboy addressed to Mr. Tunnygate the remarks with +which this story opens, the latter insolently replied in words, form or +substance that Mr. Appleboy could go to hell. Moreover, as he went by +Mr. Appleboy he took pains to kick over a clod of transplanted sea +grass, nurtured by Mrs. Appleboy as the darling of her bosom, and +designed to give an air of verisimilitude to an otherwise bare and +unconvincing surface of sand. Mr. Appleboy almost cried with vexation. +</p> +<p> +"Oh!" he ejaculated, struggling for words to express the full content of +his feeling. "Gosh, but you're—mean!" +</p> +<p> +He hit it! Curiously enough, that was exactly the word! Tunnygate was +mean—and his meanness was second only to that of the fat hippopotama +his wife. +</p> +<p> +Then, without knowing why, for he had no formulated ideas as to the +future, and probably only intended to try to scare Tunnygate with vague +threats, Appleboy added: "I warn you not to go through that hedge again! +Understand—I warn you! And if you do I won't be responsible for the +consequences!" +</p> +<p> +He really didn't mean a thing by the words, and Tunnygate knew it. +</p> +<p> +"Huh!" retorted the latter contemptuously. "You!" +</p> +<p> +Mr. Appleboy went inside the shack and banged the door. Mrs. Appleboy +was peeling potatoes in the kitchen-living room. +</p> +<p> +"I can't stand it!" he cried weakly. "He's driving me wild!" +</p> +<p> +"Poor lamb!" soothed Mrs. Appleboy, peeling an interminable rind. "Ain't +that just a sweetie? Look! It's most as long as your arm!" +</p> +<p> +She held it up dangling between her thumb and fore-finger. Then, with a +groan she dropped it at his feet. "I know it's a real burden to you, +deary!" she sighed. +</p> +<p> +Suddenly they both bent forward with startled eyes, hypnotized by the +peel upon the floor. +</p> +<p> +Unmistakably it spelt "dog"! They looked at one another significantly. +</p> +<p> +"It is a symbol!" breathed Mrs. Appleboy in an awed whisper. +</p> +<p> +"Whatever it is, it's some grand idea!" exclaimed her husband. "Do you +know anybody who's got one? I mean a—a—" +</p> +<p> +"I know just what you mean," she agreed. "I wonder we never thought of +it before! But there wouldn't be any use in getting any dog!" +</p> +<p> +"Oh, no!" he concurred. "We want a real—dog!" +</p> +<p> +"One you know about!" she commented. +</p> +<p> +"The fact is," said he, rubbing his forehead, "if they know about 'em +they do something to 'em. It ain't so easy to get the right kind." +</p> +<p> +"Oh, we'll get one!" she encouraged him. "Now Aunt Eliza up to Livornia +used to have one. It made a lot of trouble and they ordered her—the +selectmen did—to do away with it. But she only pretended she had—she +didn't really—and I think she's got him yet." +</p> +<p> +"Gee!" said Mr. Appleboy tensely. "What sort was it?" +</p> +<p> +"A bull!" she replied. "With a big white face." +</p> +<p> +"That's the kind!" he agreed excitedly. "What was its name?" +</p> +<p> +"Andrew," she answered. +</p> +<p> +"That's a queer name for a dog!" he commented "Still, I don't care what +his name is, so long as he's the right kind of dog! Why don't you write +to Aunt Eliza to-night?" +</p> +<p> +"Of course Andrew may be dead," she hazarded. "Dogs do die." +</p> +<p> +"Oh, I guess Andrew isn't dead!" he said hopefully "That tough kind of +dog lasts a long time. What will you say to Aunt Eliza?" +</p> +<p> +Mrs. Appleboy went to the dresser and took a pad and pencil from one of +the shelves. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, something like this," she answered, poising the pencil over the +pad in her lap: +</p> +<p> +"Dear Aunt Eliza: I hope you are quite well. It is sort of lonely living +down here on the beach and there are a good many rough characters, so we +are looking for a dog for companionship and protection Almost any kind +of healthy dog would do and you may be sure he would have a good home. +Hoping to see you soon. Your affectionate niece, Bashemath." +</p> +<p> +"I hope she'll send us Andrew," said Appleboy fervently. +</p> +<p> +"I guess she will!" nodded Bashemath. +</p> +<hr> +<p> +"What on earth is that sign?" wrathfully demanded Mrs. Tunnygate one +morning about a week later as she looked across the Appleboys' lawn from +her kitchen window. "Can you read it, Herman?" +</p> +<p> +Herman stopped trying to adjust his collar and went out on the piazza. +</p> +<p> +"Something about 'dog'," he declared finally. +</p> +<p> +"Dog!" she exclaimed. "They haven't got a dog!" +</p> +<p> +"Well," he remarked, "that's what the sign says: 'Beware of the dog'! +And there's something above it. Oh! 'No crossing this property. +Trespassing forbidden.'" +</p> +<p> +"What impudence!" avowed Mrs. Tunnygate. "Did you ever know such +people! First they try and take land that don't belong to them, and then +they go and lie about having a dog. Where are they, anyway?" +</p> +<p> +"I haven't seen 'em this morning," he answered. "Maybe they've gone away +and put up the sign so we won't go over. Think that'll stop us!" +</p> +<p> +"In that case they've got another think comin'!" she retorted angrily. +"I've a good mind to have you go over and tear up the whole place!" +</p> +<p> +"'N pull up the hedge?" he concurred eagerly. "Good chance!" +</p> +<p> +Indeed, to Mr. Tunnygate it seemed the supreme opportunity both to +distinguish himself in the eyes of his blushing bride and to gratify +that perverse instinct inherited from our cave-dwelling ancestors to +destroy utterly—in order, perhaps, that they may never seek to avenge +themselves upon us—those whom we have wronged. Accordingly Mr. +Tunnygate girded himself with his suspenders, and with a gleam of +fiendish exultation in his eye stealthily descended from his porch and +crossed to the hole in the hedge. No one was in sight except two +barefooted searchers after clams a few hundred yards farther up the +beach and a man working in a field half a mile away. The bay shimmered +in the broiling August sun and from a distant grove came the rattle and +wheeze of locusts. Throggs Neck blazed in silence, and utterly silent +was the house of Appleboy. +</p> +<p> +With an air of bravado, but with a slightly accelerated heartbeat, +Tunnygate thrust himself through the hole in the hedge and looked +scornfully about the Appleboy lawn. A fierce rage worked through his +veins. A lawn! What effrontery! What business had these condescending +second-raters to presume to improve a perfectly good beach which was +satisfactory to other folks? He'd show 'em! He took a step in the +direction of the transplanted sea grass. Unexpectedly the door of the +Appleboy kitchen opened. +</p> +<p> +"I warned you!" enunciated Mr. Appleboy with unnatural calmness, which +with another background might have struck almost anybody as suspicious. +</p> +<p> +"Huh!" returned the startled Tunnygate, forced under the circumstances +to assume a nonchalance that he did not altogether feel. "You!" +</p> +<p> +"Well," repeated Mr. Appleboy. "Don't ever say I didn't!" +</p> +<p> +"Pshaw!" ejaculated Mr. Tunnygate disdainfully. +</p> +<p> +With premeditation and deliberation, and with undeniable malice +aforethought, he kicked the nearest bunch of sea grass several feet in +the air. His violence carried his leg high in the air and he partially +lost his equilibrium. Simultaneously a white streak shot from beneath +the porch and something like a red-hot poker thrust itself savagely into +an extremely tender part of his anatomy. +</p> +<p> +"Ouch! O—o—oh!" he yelled in agony. "Oh!" +</p> +<p> +"Come here, Andrew!" said Mr. Appleboy mildly. "Good doggy! Come here!" +</p> +<p> +But Andrew paid no attention. He had firmly affixed himself to the base +of Mr. Tunnygate's personality without any intention of being +immediately detached. And he had selected that place, taken aim, and +discharged himself with an air of confidence and skill begotten of +lifelong experience. +</p> +<p> +"Oh! O—o—oh!" screamed Tunnygate, turning wildly and clawing through +the hedge, dragging Andrew after him. "Oh! O—oh!" +</p> +<p> +Mrs. Tunnygate rushed to the door in time to see her spouse lumbering up +the beach with a white object gyrating in the air behind him. +</p> +<p> +"What's the matter?" she called out languidly. Then perceiving the +matter she hastily followed. The Appleboys were standing on their lawn +viewing the whole proceeding with ostentatious indifference. +</p> +<p> +Up the beach fled Tunnygate, his cries becoming fainter and fainter. The +two clam diggers watched him curiously, but made no attempt to go to his +assistance. The man in the field leaned luxuriously upon his hoe and +surrendered himself to unalloyed delight. Tunnygate was now but a white +flicker against the distant sand. His wails had a dying fall: +"O—o—oh!" +</p> +<p> +"Well, we warned him!" remarked Mr. Appleboy to Bashemath with a smile +in which, however, lurked a slight trace of apprehension. +</p> +<p> +"We certainly did!" she replied. Then after a moment she added a trifle +anxiously: "I wonder what will happen to Andrew!" +</p> +<p> +Tunnygate did not return. Neither did Andrew. Secluded in their kitchen +living-room the Appleboys heard a motor arrive and through a crack in +the door saw it carry Mrs. Tunnygate away bedecked as for some momentous +ceremonial. At four o'clock, while Appleboy was digging bait, he +observed another motor making its wriggly way along the dunes. It was +fitted longitudinally with seats, had a wire grating and was marked +"N.Y.P.D." Two policemen in uniform sat in front. Instinctively Appleboy +realized that the gods had called him. His heart sank among the clams. +Slowly he made his way back to the lawn where the wagon had stopped +outside the hedge. +</p> +<p> +"Hey there!" called out the driver. "Is your name Appleboy?" +</p> +<p> +Appleboy nodded. +</p> +<p> +"Put your coat on, then, and come along," directed the other. "I've got +a warrant for you." +</p> +<p> +"Warrant?" stammered Appleboy dizzily. +</p> +<p> +"What's that?" cried Bashemath, appearing at the door. "Warrant for +what?" +</p> +<p> +The officer slowly descended and handed Appleboy a paper. +</p> +<p> +"For assault," he replied. "I guess you know what for, all right!" +</p> +<p> +"We haven't assaulted anybody," protested Mrs. Appleboy heatedly. +"Andrew—" +</p> +<p> +"You can explain all that to the judge," retorted the cop. "Meantime put +on your duds and climb in. If you don't expect to spend the night at the +station you'd better bring along the deed of your house so you can give +bail." +</p> +<p> +"But who's the warrant for?" persisted Mrs. Appleboy. +</p> +<p> +"For Enoch Appleboy," retorted the cop wearily. "Can't you read?" +</p> +<p> +"But Enoch didn't do a thing!" she declared. "It was Andrew!" +</p> +<p> +"Who's Andrew?" inquired the officer of the law mistrustfully. +</p> +<p> +"Andrew's a dog," she explained. +</p> +<hr> +<p> +"Mr. Tutt," announced Tutt, leaning against his senior partner's door +jamb with a formal-looking paper in his hand, "I have landed a case +that will delight your legal soul." +</p> +<p> +"Indeed?" queried the elder lawyer. "I have never differentiated between +my legal soul and any other I may possess. However, I assume from your +remark that we have been retained in a matter presenting some peculiarly +absurd, archaic or otherwise interesting doctrine of law?" +</p> +<p> +"Not directly," responded Tutt. "Though you will doubtless find it +entertaining enough, but indirectly—atmospherically so to speak—it +touches upon doctrines of jurisprudence, of religion and of philosophy, +replete with historic fascination." +</p> +<p> +"Good!" exclaimed Mr. Tutt, laying down his stogy. "What kind of a case +is it?" +</p> +<p> +"It's a dog case!" said the junior partner, waving the paper. "The dog +bit somebody." +</p> +<p> +"Ah!" exclaimed Mr. Tutt, perceptibly brightening. "Doubtless we shall +find a precedent in Oliver Goldsmith's famous elegy: +</p> +<pre> + "And in that town a dog was found, + As many dogs there be, + Both mongrel, puppy, whelp, and hound, + And curs of low degree." +</pre> +<p> +"Only," explained Tutt, "in this case, though the man recovered of the +bite, the dog refused to die!" +</p> +<p> +"And so they want to prosecute the dog? It can't be done. An animal +hasn't been brought to the bar of justice for several centuries." +</p> +<p> +"No, no!" interrupted Tutt. "They don't—" +</p> +<p> +"There was a case," went on Mr. Tutt reminiscently "Let me see—at +Sauvigny, I think it was—about 1457, when they tried a sow and three +pigs for killing a child. The court assigned a lawyer to defend her, but +like many assigned counsel he couldn't think of anything to say in her +behalf. As regards the little pigs he did enter the plea that no animus +was shown, that they had merely followed the example of their mother, +and that at worst they were under age and irresponsible. However, the +court found them all guilty, and the sow was publicly hanged in the +market place." +</p> +<p> +"What did they do with the three little pigs?" inquired Tutt with some +interest. +</p> +<p> +"They were pardoned on account of their extreme youth," said Mr. Tutt, +"and turned loose again—with a warning." +</p> +<p> +"I'm glad of that!" sighed Tutt. "Is that a real case?" +</p> +<p> +"Absolutely," replied his partner. "I've read it in the Sauvigny +records." +</p> +<p> +"I'll be hanged!" exclaimed Tutt. "I never knew that animals were ever +held personally responsible." +</p> +<p> +"Why, of course they were!" said Mr. Tutt. "Why shouldn't they be? If +animals have souls why shouldn't they be responsible for their acts?" +</p> +<p> +"But they haven't any souls!" protested Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"Haven't they now?" remarked the elder lawyer. "I've seen many an old +horse that had a great deal more conscience than his master. And on +general principles wouldn't it be far more just and humane to have the +law deal with a vicious animal that had injured somebody than to leave +its punishment to an irresponsible and arbitrary owner who might be +guilty of extreme brutality?" +</p> +<p> +"If the punishment would do any good—yes!" agreed Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"Well, who knows?" meditated Mr. Tutt. "I wonder if it ever does any +good? But anybody would have to agree that responsibility for one's acts +should depend upon the degree of one's intelligence—and from that point +of view many of our friends are really much less responsible than +sheep." +</p> +<p> +"Which, as you so sagely point out, would, however be a poor reason for +letting their families punish them in case they did wrong. Just think +how such a privilege might be abused! If Uncle John didn't behave +himself as his nephews thought proper they could simply set upon him and +briskly beat him up." +</p> +<p> +"Yes, of course, the law even to-day recognizes the right to exercise +physical discipline within the family. Even homicide is excusable, under +</p> +<p> +"That's a fine relic of barbarism!" remarked Tutt. "But the child soon +passes through that dangerous zone and becomes entitled to be tried for +his offenses by a jury of his peers; the animal never does." +</p> +<p> +"Well, an animal couldn't be tried by a jury of his peers, anyhow," said +Mr. Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"I've seen juries that were more like nanny goats than men!" commentated +Tutt. "I'd like to see some of our clients tried by juries of geese or +woodchucks." +</p> +<p> +"The field of criminal responsibility is the No Man's Land of the law," +mused Mr. Tutt. "Roughly, mental capacity to understand the nature of +one's acts is the test, but it is applied arbitrarily in the case of +human beings and a mere point of time is taken beyond which, +irrespective of his actual intelligence, a man is held accountable for +whatever he does. Of course that is theoretically unsound. The more +intelligent a person is the more responsible he should be held to be and +the higher the quality of conduct demanded of him by his fellows. Yet +after twenty-one all are held equally responsible—unless they're +actually insane. It isn't equity! In theory no man or animal should be +subject to the power of discretionary punishment on the part of +another—even his own father or master. I've often wondered what earthly +right we have to make the animals work for us—to bind them to slavery +when we denounce slavery as a crime. It would horrify us to see a human +being put up and sold at auction. Yet we tear the families of animals +apart, subject them to lives of toil, and kill them whenever we see fit. +We say we do this because their intelligence is limited and they cannot +exercise any discrimination in their conduct, that they are always in +the zone of irresponsibility and so have no rights. But I've seen +animals that were shrewder than men, and men who were vastly less +intelligent than animals." +</p> +<p> +"Right-o!" assented Tutt. "Take Scraggs, for instance. He's no more +responsible than a chipmunk." +</p> +<p> +"Nevertheless, the law has always been consistent," said Mr. Tutt, "and +has never discriminated between animals any more than it has between men +on the ground of varying degrees of intelligence. They used to try 'em +all, big and little, wild and domesticated, mammals and invertebrates." +</p> +<p> +"Oh, come!" exclaimed Tutt. "I may not know much law, but—" +</p> +<p> +"Between 1120 and 1740 they prosecuted in France alone no less than +ninety-two animals. The last one was a cow." +</p> +<p> +"A cow hasn't much intelligence," observed Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"And they tried fleas," added Mr. Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"They have a lot!" commented his junior partner. "I knew a flea once, +who—" +</p> +<p> +"They had a regular form of procedure," continued Mr. Tutt, brushing the +flea aside, "which was adhered to with the utmost technical accuracy. +You could try an individual animal, either in person or by proxy, or you +could try a whole family, swarm or herd. If a town was infested by rats, +for example, they first assigned counsel—an advocate, he was +called—and then the defendants were summoned three times publicly to +appear. If they didn't show up on the third and last call they were +tried <i>in absentia</i>, and if convicted were ordered out of the country +before a certain date under penalty of being exorcised." +</p> +<p> +"What happened if they were exorcised?" asked Tutt curiously. +</p> +<p> +"It depended a good deal on the local power of Satan," answered the old +lawyer dryly. "Sometimes they became even more prolific and destructive +than they were before, and sometimes they promptly died. All the leeches +were prosecuted at Lausanne in 1451. A few selected representatives +were brought into court, tried, convicted and ordered to depart within +a fixed period. Maybe they didn't fully grasp their obligations or +perhaps were just acting contemptuously, but they didn't depart and so +were promptly exorcised. Immediately they began to die off and before +long there were none left in the country." +</p> +<p> +"I know some rats and mice I'd like to have exorcised," mused Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"At Autun in the fifteenth century the rats won their case," said Mr. +Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"Who got 'em off?" asked Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"M. Chassensée, the advocate appointed to defend them. They had been a +great nuisance and were ordered to appear in court. But none of them +turned up. M. Chassensée therefore argued that a default should not be +taken because <i>all</i> the rats had been summoned, and some were either so +young or so old and decrepit that they needed more time. The court +thereupon granted him an extension. However, they didn't arrive on the +day set, and this time their lawyer claimed that they were under duress +and restrained by bodily fear—of the townspeople's cats. That all these +cats, therefore should first be bound over to keep the peace! The court +admitted the reasonableness of this, but the townsfolk refused to be +responsible for their cats and the judge dismissed the case!" +</p> +<p> +"What did Chassensée get out of it?" inquired Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"There is no record of who paid him or what was his fee." +</p> +<p> +"He was a pretty slick lawyer," observed Tutt. "Did they ever try +birds?" +</p> +<p> +"Oh, yes!" answered Mr. Tutt. "They tried a cock at Basel in 1474—for +the crime of laying an egg." +</p> +<p> +"Why was that a crime?" asked Tutt. "I should call it a <i>tour de +force</i>." +</p> +<p> +"Be that as it may," said his partner, "from a cock's egg is hatched the +cockatrice, or basilisk, the glance of whose eye turns the beholder to +stone. Therefore they tried the cock, found him guilty and burned him +and his egg together at the stake. That is why cocks don't lay eggs +now." +</p> +<p> +"I'm glad to know that," said Tutt. "When did they give up trying +animals?" +</p> +<p> +"Nearly two hundred years ago," answered Mr. Tutt. "But for some time +after that they continued to try inanimate objects for causing injury to +people. I've heard they tried one of the first locomotives that ran over +a man and declared it forfeit to the crown as a deodand." +</p> +<p> +"I wonder if you couldn't get 'em to try Andrew," hazarded Tutt, "and +maybe declare him forfeited to somebody as a deodand." +</p> +<p> +"Deodand means 'given to God,'" explained Mr. Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"Well, I'd give Andrew to God—if God would take him," declared Tutt +devoutly. +</p> +<p> +"But who is Andrew?" asked Mr. Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"Andrew is a dog," said Tutt, "who bit one Tunnygate, and now the Grand +Jury have indicted not the dog, as it is clear from your historical +disquisition they should have done, but the dog's owner, Mr. Enoch +Appleboy." +</p> +<p> +"What for?" +</p> +<p> +"Assault in the second degree with a dangerous weapon." +</p> +<p> +"What was the weapon?" inquired Mr. Tutt simply. +</p> +<p> +"The dog." +</p> +<p> +"What are you talking about?" cried Mr. Tutt. "What nonsense!" +</p> +<p> +"Yes, it is nonsense!" agreed Tutt. "But they've done it all the same. +Read it for yourself!" And he handed Mr. Tutt the indictment. +</p> +<hr> +<p> +"The Grand Jury of the County of New York by this indictment accuse +Enoch Appleboy of the crime of assault in the second degree, committed +as follows: +</p> +<p> +"Said Enoch Appleboy, late of the Borough of Bronx, City and County +aforesaid, on the 21st day of July, in the year of our Lord one +thousand nine hundred and fifteen, at the Borough and County aforesaid, +with force and arms in and upon one Herman Tunnygate, in the peace of +the State and People then and there being, feloniously did willfully and +wrongfully make an assault in and upon the legs and body of him the said +Herman Tunnygate, by means of a certain dangerous weapon, to wit: one +dog, of the form, style and breed known as 'bull,' being of the name of +'Andrew,' then and there being within control of the said Enoch +Appleboy, which said dog, being of the name of 'Andrew,' the said Enoch +Appleboy did then and there feloniously, willfully and wrongfully +incite, provoke, and encourage, then and there being, to bite him, the +said Herman Tunnygate, by means whereof said dog 'Andrew' did then and +there grievously bite the said Herman Tunnygate in and upon the legs and +body of him, the said Herman Tunnygate, and the said Enoch Appleboy thus +then and there feloniously did willfully and wrongfully cut, tear, +lacerate and bruise, and did then and there by the means of the dog +'Andrew' aforesaid feloniously, willfully and wrongfully inflict +grievous bodily harm upon the said Herman Tunnygate, 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." +</p> +<p> +"That," asserted Mr. Tutt, wiping his spectacles, "is a document worthy +of preservation in the Congressional Library. Who drew it?" +</p> +<p> +"Don't know," answered Tutt, "but whoever he was he was a humorist!" +</p> +<p> +"It's no good. There isn't any allegation of <i>scienter</i> in it," affirmed +Mr. Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"What of it? It says he assaulted Tunnygate with a dangerous weapon. You +don't have to set forth that he knew it was a dangerous weapon if you +assert that he did it willfully. You don't have to allege in an +indictment charging an assault with a pistol that the defendant knew it +was loaded." +</p> +<p> +"But a dog is different!" reasoned Mr. Tutt. "A dog is not <i>per se</i> a +dangerous weapon. Saying so doesn't make it so, and that part of the +indictment is bad on its face—unless, to be sure, it means that he hit +him with a dead dog, which it is clear from the context that he didn't. +The other part—that he set the dog on him—lacks the allegation that +the dog was vicious and that Appleboy knew it; in other words an +allegation of <i>scienter</i>. It ought to read that said Enoch Appleboy +'well knowing that said dog Andrew was a dangerous and ferocious animal +and would, if incited, provoked and encouraged, bite the legs and body +of him the said Herman—did then and there feloniously, willfully and +wrongfully incite, provoke and encourage the said Andrew, and so +forth.'" +</p> +<p> +"I get you!" exclaimed Tutt enthusiastically. "Of course an allegation +of <i>scienter</i> is necessary! In other words you could demur to the +indictment for insufficiency?" +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt nodded. +</p> +<p> +"But in that case they'd merely go before the Grand Jury and find +another—a good one. It's much better to try and knock the case out on +the trial once and for all." +</p> +<p> +"Well, the Appleboys are waiting to see you," said Tutt. "They are in my +office. Bonnie Doon got the case for us off his local district leader, +who's a member of the same lodge of the Abyssinian Mysteries—Bonnie's +been Supreme Exalted Ruler of the Purple Mountain for over a year—and +he's pulled in quite a lot of good stuff, not all dog cases either! +Appleboy's an Abyssinian too." +</p> +<p> +"I'll see them," consented Mr. Tutt, "but I'm going to have you try the +case. I shall insist upon acting solely in an advisory capacity. Dog +trials aren't in my line. There are some things which are <i>infra +dig</i>—even for Ephraim Tutt." +</p> +<hr> +<p> +Mr. Appleboy sat stolidly at the bar of justice, pale but resolute. +Beside him sat Mrs. Appleboy, also pale but even more resolute. A jury +had been selected without much manifest attention by Tutt, who had +nevertheless managed to slip in an Abyssinian brother on the back row, +and an ex-dog fancier for Number Six. Also among those present were a +delicatessen man from East Houston Street, a dealer in rubber novelties, +a plumber and the editor of Baby's World. The foreman was almost as fat +as Mr. Appleboy, but Tutt regarded this as an even break on account of +the size of Tunnygate. As Tutt confidently whispered to Mrs. Appleboy, +it was as rotten a jury as he could get. +</p> +<p> +Mrs. Appleboy didn't understand why Tutt should want a rotten jury, but +she nevertheless imbibed some vicarious confidence from this statement +and squeezed Appleboy's hand encouragingly. For Appleboy, in spite of +his apparent calm, was a very much frightened man, and under the creases +of his floppy waistcoat his heart was beating like a tom-tom. The +penalty for assault in the second degree was ten years in state's +prison, and life with Bashemath, even in the vicinity of the Tunnygates, +seemed sweet. The thought of breaking stones under the summer sun—it +was a peculiarly hot summer—was awful. Ten years! He could never live +through it! And yet as his glance fell upon the Tunnygates, arrayed in +their best finery and sitting with an air of importance upon the front +bench of the court room, he told himself that he would do the whole +thing all over again—yes, he would! He had only stood up for his +rights, and Tunnygate's blood was upon his own head—or wherever it was. +So he squeezed Bashemath's hand tenderly in response. +</p> +<p> +Upon the bench Judge Witherspoon, assigned from somewhere upstate to +help keep down the ever-lengthening criminal calendar of the +Metropolitan District, finished the letter he was writing to his wife in +Genesee County, sealed it and settled back in his chair. An old war +horse of the country bar, he had in his time been mixed up in almost +every kind of litigation, but as he looked over the indictment he with +difficulty repressed a smile. Thirty years ago he'd had a dog case +himself; also of the form, style and breed known as bull. +</p> +<p> +"You may proceed, Mister District Attorney!" he announced, and little +Pepperill, the youngest of the D.A.'s staff, just out of the law school, +begoggled and with his hair plastered evenly down on either side of his +small round head, rose with serious mien, and with a high piping voice +opened the prosecution. +</p> +<p> +It was, he told them, a most unusual and hence most important case. The +defendant Appleboy had maliciously procured a savage dog of the most +vicious sort and loosed it upon the innocent complainant as he was on +his way to work, with the result that the latter had nearly been torn to +shreds. It was a horrible, dastardly, incredible, fiendish crime, he +would expect them to do their full duty in the premises, and they should +hear Mr. Tunnygate's story from his own lips. +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tunnygate limped with difficulty to the stand, and having been sworn +gingerly sat down—partially. Then turning his broadside to the gaping +jury he recounted his woes with indignant gasps. +</p> +<p> +"Have you the trousers which you wore upon that occasion?" inquired +Pepperill. +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tunnygate bowed solemnly and lifted from the floor a paper parcel +which he untied and from which he drew what remained of that now +historic garment. +</p> +<p> +"These are they," he announced dramatically. +</p> +<p> +"I offer them in evidence," exclaimed Pepperill, "and I ask the jury to +examine them with great care." +</p> +<p> +They did so. +</p> +<p> +Tutt waited until the trousers had been passed from hand to hand and +returned to their owner; then, rotund, chipper and birdlike as ever, +began his cross-examination much like a woodpecker attacking a stout +stump. The witness had been an old friend of Mr. Appleboy's, had he not? +Tunnygate admitted it, and Tutt pecked him again. Never had done him +any wrong, had he? Nothing in particular. Well, any wrong? Tunnygate +hesitated. Why, yes, Appleboy had tried to fence in the public beach +that belonged to everybody. Well, did that do the witness any harm? The +witness declared that it did; compelled him to go round when he had a +right to go across. Oh! Tutt put his head on one side and glanced at the +jury. How many feet? About twenty feet. Then Tutt pecked a little +harder. +</p> +<p> +"Didn't you tear a hole in the hedge and stamp down the grass when by +taking a few extra steps you could have reached the beach without +difficulty?" +</p> +<p> +"I—I simply tried to remove an illegal obstruction," declared Tunnygate +indignantly. +</p> +<p> +"Didn't Mr. Appleboy ask you to keep off?" +</p> +<p> +"Sure—yes!" +</p> +<p> +"Didn't you obstinately refuse to do so?" +</p> +<p> +Mr. Pepperill objected to "obstinately" and it was stricken out. +</p> +<p> +"I wasn't going to stay off where I had a right to go," asserted the +witness. +</p> +<p> +"And didn't you have warning that the dog was there?" +</p> +<p> +"Look here!" suddenly burst out Tunnygate. "You can't hector me into +anything. Appleboy never had a dog before. He got a dog just to sic him +on me! He put up a sign 'Beware of the dog,' but he knew that I'd think +it was just a bluff. It was a plant, that's what it was! And just as +soon as I got inside the hedge that dog went for me and nearly tore me +to bits. It was a rotten thing to do and you know it!" +</p> +<p> +He subsided, panting. +</p> +<p> +Tutt bowed complacently. +</p> +<p> +"I move that the witness' remarks be stricken out on the grounds first, +that they are unresponsive; second, that they are irrelevant, +incompetent and immaterial; third, that they contain expressions of +opinion and hearsay; and fourth, that they are abusive and generally +improper." +</p> +<p> +"Strike them out!" directed Judge Witherspoon. Then he turned to +Tunnygate. "The essence of your testimony is that the defendant set a +dog on you, is it not? You had quarreled with the defendant, with whom +you had formerly been on friendly terms. You entered on premises claimed +to be owned by him, though a sign warned you to beware of a dog. The dog +attacked and bit you? That's the case, isn't it?" +</p> +<p> +"Yes, Your Honor." +</p> +<p> +"Had you ever seen that dog before?" +</p> +<p> +"No, sir." +</p> +<p> +"Do you know where he got it?" +</p> +<p> +"My wife told me—" +</p> +<p> +"Never mind what your wife told you. Do you—" +</p> +<p> +"He don't know where the dog came from, judge!" suddenly called out Mrs. +Tunnygate in strident tones from where she was sitting. "But I know!" +she added venomously. "That woman of his got it from—" +</p> +<p> +Judge Witherspoon fixed her coldly with an impassive and judicial eye. +</p> +<p> +"Will you kindly be silent, madam? You will no doubt be given an +opportunity to testify as fully as you wish. That is all, sir, unless +Mr. Tutt has some more questions." +</p> +<p> +Tutt waved the witness from the stand contemptuously. +</p> +<p> +"Well, I'd like a chance to testify!" shrilled Mrs. Tunnygate, rising in +full panoply. +</p> +<p> +"This way, madam," said the clerk, motioning her round the back of the +jury box. And she swept ponderously into the offing like a full-rigged +bark and came to anchor in the witness chair, her chin rising and +falling upon her heaving bosom like the figurehead of a vessel upon a +heavy harbor swell. +</p> +<p> +Now it has never been satisfactorily explained just why the character of +an individual should be in any way deducible from such irrelevant +attributes as facial anatomy, bodily structure or the shape of the +cranium. Perhaps it is not, and in reality we discern disposition from +something far more subtle—the tone of the voice, the expression of the +eyes, the lines of the face or even from an aura unperceived by the +senses. However that may be, the wisdom of the Constitutional safeguard +guaranteeing that every person charged with crime shall be confronted by +the witnesses against him was instantly made apparent when Mrs. +Tunnygate took the stand, for without hearing a word from her firmly +compressed lips the jury simultaneously swept her with one comprehensive +glance and turned away. Students of women, experienced adventurers in +matrimony, these plumbers, bird merchants "delicatessens" and the rest +looked, perceived and comprehended that here was the very devil of a +woman—a virago, a shrew, a termagant, a natural-born trouble-maker; and +they shivered and thanked God that she was Tunnygate's and not theirs; +their unformulated sentiment best expressed in Pope's immortal couplet: +</p> +<pre> + Oh woman, woman! when to ill thy mind + Is bent, all hell contains no fouler fiend. +</pre> +<p> +She had said no word. Between the judge and jury nothing had passed, and +yet through the alpha rays of that mysterious medium of communication +by which all men as men are united where woman is concerned, the +thought was directly transmitted and unanimously acknowledged that here +for sure was a hell cat! +</p> +<p> +It was as naught to them that she testified to the outrageous illegality +of the Appleboys' territorial ambitions, the irascibility of the wife, +the violent threats of the husband; or that Mrs. Appleboy had been +observed to mail a suspicious letter shortly before the date of the +canine assault. They disregarded her. Yet when Tutt upon +cross-examination sought to attack her credibility by asking her various +pertinent questions they unhesitatingly accepted his implied accusations +as true, though under the rules of evidence he was bound by her denials. +</p> +<p> +Peck 1: "Did you not knock Mrs. Appleboy's flower pots off the piazza?" +he demanded significantly. +</p> +<p> +"Never! I never did!" she declared passionately +</p> +<p> +But they knew in their hearts that she had. +</p> +<p> +Peck 2: "Didn't you steal her milk bottles?" +</p> +<p> +"What a lie! It's absolutely false!" +</p> +<p> +Yet they knew that she did. +</p> +<p> +Peck 3: "Didn't you tangle up their fish lines and take their +thole-pins?" +</p> +<p> +"Well, I never! You ought to be ashamed to ask a lady such questions!" +</p> +<p> +They found her guilty. +</p> +<p> +"I move to dismiss, Your Honor," chirped Tutt blithely at the conclusion +of her testimony. +</p> +<p> +Judge Witherspoon shook his head. +</p> +<p> +"I want to hear the other side," he remarked. "The mere fact that the +defendant put up a sign warning the public against the dog may be taken +as some evidence that he had knowledge of the animal's vicious +propensities. I shall let the case go to the jury unless this evidence +is contradicted or explained. Reserve your motion." +</p> +<p> +"Very well, Your Honor," agreed Tutt, patting himself upon the abdomen. +"I will follow your suggestion and call the defendant. Mr. Appleboy, +take the stand." +</p> +<p> +Mr. Appleboy heavily rose and the heart of every fat man upon the jury, +and particularly that of the Abyssinian brother upon the back row, went +out to him. For just as they had known without being told that the new +Mrs. Tunnygate was a vixen, they realized that Appleboy was a kind, +good-natured man—a little soft, perhaps, like his clams, but no more +dangerous. Moreover, it was plain that he had suffered and was, indeed, +still suffering, and they had pity for him. Appleboy's voice shook and +so did the rest of his person as he recounted his ancient friendship for +Tunnygate and their piscatorial association, their common matrimonial +experiences, the sudden change in the temperature of the society of +Throggs Neck, the malicious destruction of their property and the +unexplained aggressions of Tunnygate upon the lawn. And the jury, +believing, understood. +</p> +<p> +Then like the sword of Damocles the bessemer voice of Pepperill severed +the general atmosphere of amiability: "Where did you get that dog?" +</p> +<p> +Mr. Appleboy looked round helplessly, distress pictured in every +feature. +</p> +<p> +"My wife's aunt lent it to us." +</p> +<p> +"How did she come to lend it to you?" +</p> +<p> +"Bashemath wrote and asked for it." +</p> +<p> +"Oh! Did you know anything about the dog before you sent for it?" +</p> +<p> +"Of your own knowledge?" interjected Tutt sharply. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, no!" returned Appleboy. +</p> +<p> +"Didn't you know it was a vicious beast?" sharply challenged Pepperill. +</p> +<p> +"Of your own knowledge?" again warned Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"I'd never seen the dog." +</p> +<p> +"Didn't your wife tell you about it?" +</p> +<p> +Tutt sprang to his feet, wildly waving his arms: "I object; on the +ground that what passed between husband and wife upon this subject must +be regarded as confidential." +</p> +<p> +"I will so rule," said Judge Witherspoon, smiling. "Excluded." +</p> +<p> +Pepperill shrugged his shoulders. +</p> +<p> +"I would like to ask a question," interpolated the editor of Baby's +World. +</p> +<p> +"Do!" exclaimed Tutt eagerly. +</p> +<p> +The editor, who was a fat editor, rose in an embarrassed manner. +</p> +<p> +"Mr. Appleboy!" he began. +</p> +<p> +"Yes, sir!" responded Appleboy. +</p> +<p> +"I want to get this straight. You and your wife had a row with the +Tunnygates. He tried to tear up your front lawn. You warned him off. He +kept on doing it. You got a dog and put up a sign and when he +disregarded it you sicked the dog on him. Is that right?" +</p> +<p> +He was manifestly friendly, merely a bit cloudy in the cerebellum. The +Abyssinian brother pulled him sharply by the coat tails. +</p> +<p> +"Sit down," he whispered hoarsely. "You're gumming it all up." +</p> +<p> +"I didn't sic Andrew on him!" protested Appleboy. +</p> +<p> +"But I say, why shouldn't he have?" demanded the baby's editor. "That's +what anybody would do!" +</p> +<p> +Pepperill sprang frantically to his feet. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, I object! This juryman is showing bias. This is entirely improper." +</p> +<p> +"I am, am I?" sputtered the fat editor angrily. "I'll show you—" +</p> +<p> +"You want to be fair, don't you?" whined Pepperill. "I've proved that +the Appleboys had no right to hedge in the beach!" +</p> +<p> +"Oh, pooh!" sneered the Abyssinian, now also getting to his feet. +"Supposing they hadn't? Who cares a damn? This man Tunnygate deserved +all he's got!" +</p> +<p> +"Gentlemen! Gentlemen!" expostulated the judge firmly. "Take your seats +or I shall declare a mistrial. Go on, Mr. Tutt. Call your next witness." +</p> +<p> +"Mrs. Appleboy," called out Tutt, "will you kindly take the chair?" And +that good lady, looking as if all her adipose existence had been devoted +to the production of the sort of pies that mother used to make, placidly +made her way to the witness stand. +</p> +<p> +"Did you know that Andrew was a vicious dog?" inquired Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"No!" answered Mrs. Appleboy firmly. "I didn't." +</p> +<p> +O woman! +</p> +<p> +"That is all," declared Tutt with a triumphant smile. +</p> +<p> +"Then," snapped Pepperill, "why did you send for him?" +</p> +<p> +"I was lonely," answered Bashemath unblushingly. +</p> +<p> +"Do you mean to tell this jury that you didn't know that that dog was +one of the worst biters in Livornia?" +</p> +<p> +"I do!" she replied. "I only knew Aunt Eliza had a dog. I didn't know +anything about the dog personally." +</p> +<p> +"What did you say to your aunt in your letter?" +</p> +<p> +"I said I was lonely and wanted protection." +</p> +<p> +"Didn't you hope the dog would bite Mr. Tunnygate?" +</p> +<p> +"Why, no!" she declared. "I didn't want him to bite anybody." +</p> +<p> +At that the delicatessen man poked the plumber in the ribs and they both +grinned happily at one another. +</p> +<p> +Pepperill gave her a last disgusted look and sank back in his seat. +</p> +<p> +"That is all!" he ejaculated feebly. +</p> +<p> +"One question, if you please, madam," said Judge Witherspoon. "May I be +permitted to"—he coughed as a suppressed snicker ran round the +court—"that is—may I not—er—Oh, look here! How did you happen to +have the idea of getting a dog?" +</p> +<p> +Mrs. Appleboy turned the full moon of her homely countenance upon the +court. +</p> +<p> +"The potato peel came down that way!" she explained blandly. +</p> +<p> +"What!" exploded the dealer in rubber novelties. +</p> +<p> +"The potato peel—it spelled 'dog,'" she repeated artlessly. +</p> +<p> +"Lord!" deeply suspirated Pepperill. "What a case! Carry me out!" +</p> +<p> +"Well, Mr. Tutt," said the judge, "now I will hear what you may wish to +say upon the question of whether this issue should be submitted to the +jury. However, I shall rule that the indictment is sufficient." +</p> +<p> +Tutt elegantly rose. +</p> +<p> +"Having due respect to Your Honor's ruling as to the sufficiency of the +indictment I shall address myself simply to the question of <i>scienter</i>. +I might, of course, dwell upon the impropriety of charging the defendant +with criminal responsibility for the act of another free agent even if +that agent be an animal—but I will leave that, if necessary, for the +Court of Appeals. If anybody were to be indicted in this case I hold it +should have been the dog Andrew. Nay, I do not jest! But I can see by +Your Honor's expression that any argument upon that score would be +without avail." +</p> +<p> +"Entirely," remarked Witherspoon. "Kindly go on!" +</p> +<p> +"Well," continued Tutt, "the law of this matter needs no elucidation. It +has been settled since the time of Moses." +</p> +<p> +"Of whom?" inquired Witherspoon. "You don't need to go back farther +than Chief Justice Marshall so far as I am concerned." +</p> +<p> +Tutt bowed. +</p> +<p> +"It is an established doctrine of the common law both of England and +America that it is wholly proper for one to keep a domestic animal for +his use, pleasure or protection, until, as Dykeman, J., says in Muller +vs. McKesson, 10 Hun., 45, 'some vicious propensity is developed and +brought out to the knowledge of the owner.' Up to that time the man who +keeps a dog or other animal cannot be charged with liability for his +acts. This has always been the law. +</p> +<p> +"In the twenty-first chapter of Exodus at the twenty-eighth verse it is +written: 'If an ox gore a man or a woman, that they die; then the ox +shall be surely stoned, and his flesh shall not be eaten; but the owner +of the ox shall be quit. But if the ox were wont to push with his horn +in time past, and it hath been testified to his owner, and he hath not +kept him in, but that he hath killed a man or a woman; the ox shall be +stoned, and his owner also shall be put to death.' +</p> +<p> +"In the old English case of Smith vs. Pehal, 2 Strange, 1264, it was +said by the court: 'If a dog has once bit a man, and the owner having +notice thereof keeps the dog, and lets him go about or lie at his door, +an action will lie against him at the suit of a person who is bit, +though it happened by such person's treading on the dog's toes; for it +was owing to his not hanging the dog on the first notice. And the safety +of the king's subjects ought not afterwards to be endangered.' That is +sound law; but it is equally good law that 'if a person with full +knowledge of the evil propensities of an animal wantonly excites him or +voluntarily and unnecessarily puts himself in the way of such an animal +he would be adjudged to have brought the injury upon himself, and ought +not to be entitled to recover. In such a case it cannot be said in a +legal sense that the keeping of the animal, which is the gravamen of the +offense, produced the injury.' +</p> +<p> +"Now in the case at bar, first there is clearly no evidence that this +defendant knew or ever suspected that the dog Andrew was otherwise than +of a mild and gentle disposition. That is, there is no evidence whatever +of <i>scienter</i>. In fact, except in this single instance there is no +evidence that Andrew ever bit anybody. Thus, in the word of Holy Writ +the defendant Appleboy should be quit, and in the language of our own +courts he must be held harmless. Secondly, moreover, it appears that the +complainant deliberately put himself in the way of the dog Andrew, after +full warning. I move that the jury be directed to return a verdict of +not guilty." +</p> +<p> +"Motion granted," nodded Judge Witherspoon, burying his nose in his +handkerchief. "I hold that every dog is entitled to one bite." +</p> +<p> +"Gentlemen of the jury," chanted the clerk: "How say you? Do you find +the defendant guilty or not guilty?" +</p> +<p> +"Not guilty," returned the foreman eagerly, amid audible evidences of +satisfaction from the Abyssinian brother, the Baby's World editor and +the others. Mr. Appleboy clung to Tutt's hand, overcome by emotion. +</p> +<p> +"Adjourn court!" ordered the judge. Then he beckoned to Mr. Appleboy. +"Come up here!" he directed. +</p> +<p> +Timidly Mr. Appleboy approached the dais. +</p> +<p> +"Don't do it again!" remarked His Honor shortly. +</p> +<p> +"Eh? Beg pardon, Your Honor, I mean—" +</p> +<p> +"I said: 'Don't do it again!'" repeated the judge with a twinkle in his +eye. Then lowering his voice he whispered: "You see I come from +Livornia, and I've known Andrew for a long time." +</p> +<p> +As Tutt guided the Appleboys out into the corridor the party came face +to face with Mr. and Mrs. Tunnygate. +</p> +<p> +"Huh!" sneered Tunnygate. +</p> +<p> +"Huh!" retorted Appleboy. +</p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<a name="WILE"><!-- WILE --></a> +<h2> +Wile Versus Guile +</h2> +<p> </p> +<pre> + For 'tis the sport to have the engineer + Hoist with his own petar.—HAMLET. +</pre> +<p> +It was a mouse by virtue of which Ephraim Tutt had leaped into fame. It +is true that other characters famous in song and story—particularly in +"Mother Goose"—have similarly owed their celebrity in whole or part to +rodents, but there is, it is submitted, no other case of a mouse, as +mouse <i>per se</i>, reported in the annals of the law, except Tutt's mouse, +from Doomsday Book down to the present time. +</p> +<p> +Yet it is doubtful whether without his mouse Ephraim Tutt would ever +have been heard of at all, and same would equally have been true if when +pursued by the chef's gray cat the mouse aforesaid had jumped in another +direction. But as luck would have it, said mouse leaped foolishly into +an open casserole upon a stove in the kitchen of the Comers Hotel, and +Mr. Tutt became in his way a leader of the bar. +</p> +<p> +It is quite true that the tragic end of the mouse in question has +nothing to do with our present narrative except as a side light upon the +vagaries of the legal career, but it illustrates how an attorney if he +expects to succeed in his profession, must be ready for anything that +comes along—even if it be a mouse. +</p> +<p> +The two Tutts composing the firm of Tutt & Tutt were both, at the time +of the mouse case, comparatively young men. Tutt was a native of Bangor, +Maine, and numbered among his childhood friends one Newbegin, a +commercial wayfarer in the shingle and clapboard line; and as he hoped +at some future time to draw Newbegin's will or to incorporate for him +some business venture Tutt made a practise of entertaining his +prospective client at dinner upon his various visits to the metropolis, +first at one New York hostelry and then at another. +</p> +<p> +Chance led them one night to the Comers, and there amid the imitation +palms and imitation French waiters of the imitation French restaurant +Tutt invited his friend Newbegin to select what dish he chose from those +upon the bill of fare; and Newbegin chose kidney stew. It was at about +that moment that the adventure which has been referred to occurred in +the hotel kitchen. The gray cat was cheated of its prey, and in due +course the casserole containing the stew was borne into the dining room +and the dish was served. +</p> +<p> +Suddenly Mr. Newbegin contorted his mouth and exclaimed: +</p> +<p> +"Heck! A mouse!" +</p> +<p> +It was. The head waiter was summoned, the manager, the owner. Guests and +garçons crowded about Tutt and Mr. Newbegin to inspect what had so +unexpectedly been found. No one could deny that it was, mouse—cooked +mouse; and Newbegin had ordered kidney stew. Then Tutt had had his +inspiration. +</p> +<p> +"You shall pay well for this!" he cried, frowning at the distressed +proprietor, while Newbegin leaned piteously against a pâpier-maché +pillar. "This is an outrage! You shall be held liable in heavy damages +for my client's indigestion!" +</p> +<p> +And thus Tutt & Tutt got their first case out of Newbegin, for under the +influence of the eloquence of Mr. Tutt a jury was induced to give him a +verdict of one thousand dollars against the Comers Hotel, which the +Court of Appeals sustained in the following words, quoting verbatim from +the learned brief furnished by Tutt & Tutt, Ephraim Tutt of counsel: +</p> +<p> +"The only legal question in the case, or so it appears to us, is whether +there is such a sale of food to a guest on the part of the proprietor +as will sustain a warranty. If we are not in error, however, the law is +settled and has been since the reign of Henry the Sixth. In the Ninth +Year Book of that Monarch's reign there is a case in which it was held +that 'if I go to a tavern to eat, and the taverner gives and sells me +meat and it corrupted, whereby I am made very sick, action lies against +him without any express warranty, for there is a warranty in law'; and +in the time of Henry the Seventh the learned Justice Keilway said, 'No +man can justify selling corrupt victual, but an action on the case lies +against the seller, whether the victual was warranted to be good or +not.' Now, certainly, whether mouse meat be or be not deleterious to +health a guest at a hotel who orders a portion of kidney stew has the +right to expect, and the hotel keeper impliedly warrants, that such dish +will contain no ingredients beyond those ordinarily placed therein." +</p> +<hr> +<p> +"A thousand dollars!" exulted Tutt when the verdict was rendered. "Why, +anyone would eat mouse for a thousand dollars!" +</p> +<p> +The Comers Hotel became in due course a client of Tutt & Tutt, and the +mouse which made Mr. Tutt famous did not die in vain, for the case +became celebrated throughout the length and breadth of the land, to the +glory of the firm and a vast improvement in the culinary conditions +existing in hotels. +</p> +<p> +"Come in, Mr. Barrows! Come right in! I haven't seen you for—well, how +long is it?" exclaimed Mr. Tutt, extending a long welcoming arm toward a +human scarecrow upon the threshold. +</p> +<p> +"Five years," answered the visitor. "I only got out day before +yesterday. Fourteen months off for good behavior." +</p> +<p> +He coughed and put down carefully beside him a large dress-suit case +marked E.V.B., Pottsville, N.Y. +</p> +<p> +"Well, well!" sighed Mr. Tutt. "So it is. How time flies!" +</p> +<p> +"Not in Sing Sing!" replied Mr. Barrows ruefully. +</p> +<p> +"I suppose not. Still, it must feel good to be out!" +</p> +<p> +Mr. Barrows made no reply but dusted off his felt hat. He was but the +shadow of a man, an old man at that, as was attested by his long gray +beard, his faded blue eyes, and the thin white hair about his fine +domelike forehead. +</p> +<p> +"I forget what your trouble was about," said Mr. Tutt gently. "Won't you +have a stogy?" +</p> +<p> +Mr. Barrows shook his head. +</p> +<p> +"I ain't used to it," he answered. "Makes me cough." He gazed about him +vaguely. +</p> +<p> +"Something about bonds, wasn't it?" asked Mr. Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"Yes," replied Mr. Barrows; "Great Lakes and Canadian Southern." +</p> +<p> +"Of course! Of course!" +</p> +<p> +"A wonderful property," murmured Mr. Barrows regretfully. "The bonds +were perfectly good. There was a defect in the foreclosure proceedings +which made them a permanent underlying security of the reorganized +company—under The Northern Pacific R.R. Co. vs. Boyd; you know—but the +court refused to hold that way. They never will hold the way you want, +will they?" He looked innocently at Mr. Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"No," agreed the latter with conviction, "they never will!" +</p> +<p> +"Now those bonds were as good as gold," went on the old man; "and yet +they said I had to go to prison. You know all about it. You were my +lawyer." +</p> +<p> +"Yes," assented Mr. Tutt, "I remember all about it now." +</p> +<p> +Indeed it had all come back to him with the vividness of a landscape +seen during a lightning flash—the crowded court, old Doc Barrows upon +the witness stand, charged with getting money on the strength of +defaulted and outlawed bonds—picked up heaven knows where—pathetically +trying to persuade an unsympathetic court that for some reason they +were still worth their face value, though the mortgage securing the debt +which they represented had long since been foreclosed and the money +distributed. +</p> +<p> +"I'd paid for 'em—actual cash," he rambled on. "Not much, to be +sure—but real money. If I got 'em cheap that was my good luck, wasn't +it? It was because my brain was sharper than other folks'! I said they +had value and I say so now—only nobody will believe it or take the +trouble to find out. I learned a lot up there in Sing Sing too," he +continued, warming to his subject. "Do you know, sir, there are fortunes +lying all about us? Take gold, for instance! There's a fraction of a +grain in every ton of sea water. But the big people don't want it taken +out because it would depress the standard of exchange. I say it's a +conspiracy—and yet they jailed a man for it! There's great mineral +deposits all about just waiting for the right man to come along and +develop 'em." +</p> +<p> +His lifted eye rested upon the engraving of Abraham Lincoln over Mr. +Tutt's desk. "There was a man!" he exclaimed inconsequently; then +stopped and ran his transparent, heavily veined old hand over his +forehead. "Where was I? Let me see. Oh, yes—gold. All those great +properties could be bought at one time or another for a song. It needed +a pioneer! That's what I was—a pioneer to find the gold where other +people couldn't find it. That's not any crime; it's a service to +humanity! If only they'd have a little faith—instead of locking you up. +The judge never looked up the law about those Great Lakes bonds! If he +had he'd have found out I was right! I'd looked it up. I studied law +once myself." +</p> +<p> +"I know," said Mr. Tutt, almost moved to tears by the sight of the wreck +before him. "You practised up state, didn't you?" +</p> +<p> +"Yes," responded Doc Barrows eagerly. "And in Chicago too. I'm a member +of the Cook County bar. I'll tell you something! If the Supreme Court of +Illinois hadn't been wrong in its law I'd be the richest man in the +world—in the whole world!" He grabbed Mr. Tutt by the arm and stared +hard into his eyes. "Didn't I show you my papers? I own seven feet of +water front clean round Lake Michigan all through the city of Chicago I +got it for a song from the man who found out the flaw in the original +title deed of 1817; he was dying. 'I'll sell my secret to you,' he says, +'because I'm passing on. May it bring you luck!' I looked it all up and +it was just as he said. So I got up a corporation—The Chicago Water +Front and Terminal Company—and sold bonds to fight my claim in the +courts. But all the people who had deeds to my land conspired against +me and had me arrested! They sent me to the penitentiary. There's +justice for you!" +</p> +<p> +"That was too bad!" said Mr. Tutt in a soothing voice. "But after all +what good would all that money have done you?" +</p> +<p> +"I don't want money!" affirmed Doc plaintively. "I've never needed +money. I know enough secrets to make me rich a dozen times over. Not +money but justice is what I want—my legal rights. But I'm tired of +fighting against 'em. They've beaten me! Yes, they've beaten me! I'm +going to retire. That's why I came in to see you, Mr. Tutt. I never paid +you for your services as my attorney. I'm going away. You see my married +daughter lost her husband the other day and she wants me to come up and +live with her on the farm to keep her from being lonely. Of course it +won't be much like life in Wall Street—but I owe her some duty and I'm +getting on—I am, Mr. Tutt, I really am!" +</p> +<p> +He smiled. +</p> +<p> +"And I haven't seen Louisa for three years—my only daughter. I shall +enjoy being with her. She was such a dear little girl! I'll tell you +another secret"—his voice dropped to a whisper—"I've found out there's +a gold mine on her farm, only she doesn't know it. A rich vein runs +right through her cow pasture. We'll be rich! Wouldn't it be fine, Mr. +Tutt, to be rich? Then I'm going to pay you in real money for all you've +done for me—thousands! But until then I'm going to let you have +these—all my securities; my own, you know, every one of them." +</p> +<p> +He placed the suitcase in front of Mr. Tutt and opened the clasps with +his shaking old fingers. It bulged with bonds, and he dumped them forth +until they covered the top of the desk. +</p> +<p> +"These are my jewels!" he said. "There's millions represented here!" He +lifted one tenderly and held it to the light, fresh as it came from the +engraver's press—a thousand dollar first-mortgage bond of The Chicago +Water Front and Terminal Company. "Look at that! Good as gold—if the +courts only knew the law." +</p> +<p> +He took up a yellow package of valueless obligations upon the top of +which an old-fashioned locomotive from whose bell-shaped funnel the +smoke poured in picturesque black clouds, dragging behind it a chain of +funny little passenger coaches, drove furiously along beside a rushing +river through fields rich with corn and wheat amid a border of dollar +signs. +</p> +<p> +"The Great Lakes and Canadian Southern," he crooned lovingly. "The child +of my heart! The district attorney kept all the rest—as evidence, he +claimed, but some day you'll see he'll bring an action against the Lake +Shore or the New York Central based on these bonds. Yes, sir! They're +all right!" +</p> +<p> +He pawed them over, picking out favorites here and there and excitedly +extolling the merits of the imaginary properties they represented. There +were the repudiated bonds of Southern states and municipalities of +railroads upon whose tracks no wheel had ever turned; of factories never +built except in Doc Barrows' addled brain; of companies which had +defaulted and given stock for their worthless obligations; certificates +of oil, mining and land companies; deeds to tracts now covered with sky +scrapers in Pittsburgh, St. Louis and New York—each and every one of +them not worth the paper they were printed on except to some crook who +dealt in high finance. But they were exquisitely engraved, quite lovely +to look at, and Doc Barrows gloated upon them with scintillating eyes. +</p> +<p> +"Ain't they beauties?" he sighed. "Some day—yes sir!—some day they'll +be worth real money. I paid it for some of 'em. But they're yours—all +yours." +</p> +<p> +He gathered them up with care and returned them to the suitcase, then +fastened the clasps and patted the leather cover with his hand. +</p> +<p> +"They are yours, sir!" he exclaimed dramatically. +</p> +<p> +"As you say," agreed Mr. Tutt, "there's gold lying round everywhere if +we only had sense enough to look for it. But I think you're wise to +retire. After all, you have the satisfaction of knowing that your +enterprises were sound even if other people disagreed with you." +</p> +<p> +"If this was 1819 instead of 1919 I'd own Chicago," began Doc, a gleam +appearing in his eye. "But they don't want to upset the status +quo—that's why I haven't got a fair chance. But they needn't worry! I'd +be generous with 'em—give 'em easy terms—long leases and nominal +rents." +</p> +<p> +"But you'll like living with your daughter, I'm sure," said Mr. Tutt. +"It will make a new man of you in no time." +</p> +<p> +"Healthiest spot in northern New York," exclaimed Doc. "Within two miles +of a lake—fishing, shooting, outdoor recreation of all kinds, an ideal +site for a mammoth summer hotel." +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt rose and laid his arms round old Doc Barrows' shoulders. +</p> +<p> +"Thank you a thousand times," he said gratefully, "for the securities. +I'll be glad to keep them for you in my vault." His lips puckered in a +stealthy smile which he tried hard to conceal. +</p> +<p> +"Louisa may want to repaper the farmhouse some time," he added to +himself. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, they're all yours to keep!" insisted Doc. "I want you to have +them!" His voice trembled. +</p> +<p> +"Well, well!" answered Mr. Tutt. "Leave it that way; but if you ever +should want them they'll be here waiting for you." +</p> +<p> +"I'm no Indian giver!" replied Doc with dignity. "Give, give, give a +thing—never take it back again." +</p> +<p> +He laughed rather childishly. He was evidently embarrassed. +</p> +<p> +"Could—could you let me have the loan of seventy-five cents?" he asked +shyly. +</p> +<hr> +<p> +Down below, inside a doorway upon the other side of the street, Sergeant +Murtha of the Detective Bureau waited for Doc Barrows to come out and be +arrested again. Murtha had known Doc for fifteen years as a harmless old +nut who had rarely succeeded in cheating anybody, but who was regarded +as generally undesirable by the authorities and sent away every few +years in order to keep him out of mischief. There was no danger that the +public would accept Doc's version of the nature or value of his +securities, but there was always the chance that some of his worthless +bonds—those bastard offsprings of his cracked old brain—would find +their way into less honest but saner hands. So Doc rattled about from +penitentiary to prison and from prison to madhouse and out again, +constantly taking appeals and securing writs of habeas corpus, and +feeling mildly resentful, but not particularly so, that people should be +so interfering with his business. Now as from force of long habit he +peered out of the doorway before making his exit; he looked like one of +the John Sargent's prophets gone a little madder than usual—a Jeremiah +or a Habakkuk. +</p> +<p> +"Hello, Doc!" called Murtha in hearty, friendly tones. "Hie spy! Come on +out!" +</p> +<p> +"Oh, how d'ye do, captain!" responded Doc. "How are you? I was just +interviewing my solicitor." +</p> +<p> +"Sorry," said Murtha. "The inspector wants to see you." +</p> +<p> +Doc flinched. +</p> +<p> +"But they've just let me go!" he protested faintly. +</p> +<p> +"It's one of those old indictments—Chicago Water Front or something. +Anyhow—Here! Hold on to yourself!" +</p> +<p> +He threw his arms around the old man, who seemed on the point of +falling. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, captain! That's all over! I served time for that out in Illinois!" +For some strange reason all the insanity had gone out of his bearing. +</p> +<p> +"Not in this state," answered Murtha. New pity for this poor old wastrel +took hold upon him. "What were you going to do?" +</p> +<p> +"I was going to retire, captain," said Doc faintly. "My daughter's +husband—he owned a farm up in Cayuga County—well, he died and I was +planning to go up there and live with her." +</p> +<p> +"And sting all the boobs?" grinned Murtha not unsympathetically. "How +much money have you got?" +</p> +<p> +"Seventy-five cents." +</p> +<p> +"How much is the ticket?" +</p> +<p> +"About nine dollars," quavered Doc. "But I know a man down on Chatham +Square who might buy a block of stock in the Last Chance Gold Mining +Company; I could get the money that way." +</p> +<p> +"What's the Last Chance Gold Mining Company?" asked Murtha sharply. +</p> +<p> +"It's a company I'm going to organize. I'll tell you a secret, Murtha. +There's a vein of gold runs right through my daughter Louisa's cow +pasture—she doesn't know anything about it—" +</p> +<p> +"Oh, hell!" exclaimed Murtha. "Come along to the station. I'll let you +have the nine bones. And you can put me down for half a million of the +underwriting." +</p> +<hr> +<p> +That same evening Mr. Tutt was toasting his carpet slippers before the +sea-coal fire in his library, sipping a hot toddy and rereading for the +eleventh time the "Lives of the Chancellors" when Miranda, who had not +yet finished washing the few dishes incident to her master's meager +supper, pushed open the door and announced that a lady was calling. +</p> +<p> +"She said you'd know her sho' enough, Mis' Tutt," grinned Miranda, +swinging her dishrag, "'case you and she used to live tergidder when you +was a young man." +</p> +<p> +This scandalous announcement did not have the startling effect upon the +respectable Mr. Tutt which might naturally have been anticipated, since +he was quite used to Miranda's forms of expression. +</p> +<p> +"It must be Mrs. Effingham," he remarked, closing the career of Lord +Eldon and removing his feet from the fender. +</p> +<p> +"Dat's who it is!" answered Miranda. "She's downstairs waitin' to come +up." +</p> +<p> +"Well, let her come," directed Mr. Tutt, wondering what his old +boarding-house keeper could want of him, for he had not seen Mrs. +Effingham for more than fifteen years, at which time she was well +provided with husband, three children and a going business. Indeed, it +required some mental adjustment on his part to recognize the withered +little old lady in widow's weeds and rusty black with a gold star on her +sleeve who so timidly, a moment later, followed Miranda into the room. +</p> +<p> +"I'm afraid you don't recognize me," she said with a pitiful attempt at +faded coquetry. "I don't blame you, Mr. Tutt. You don't look a day older +yourself. But a great deal has happened to me!" +</p> +<p> +"I should have recognized you anywhere," he protested gallantly. "Do sit +down, Mrs. Effingham won't you? I am delighted to see you. How would you +like a glass of toddy? Just to show there's no ill-feeling!" +</p> +<p> +He forced a glass into her hand and filled it from the teakettle +standing on the hearth, while Miranda brought a sofa cushion and tucked +it behind the old lady's back. +</p> +<p> +Mrs. Effingham sighed, tasted the toddy and leaned back deliciously. She +was very wrinkled and her hair under the bonnet was startlingly white in +contrast with the crepe of her veil, but there were still traces of +beauty in her face. +</p> +<p> +"I've come to you, Mr. Tutt," she explained apologetically, "because I +always said that if I ever was in trouble you'd be the one to whom I +should go to help me out." +</p> +<p> +"What greater compliment could I receive?" +</p> +<p> +"Well, in those days I never thought that time would come," she went on. +"You remember my husband—Jim? Jim died two years ago. And little +Jimmy—our eldest—he was only fourteen when you boarded with us—he was +killed at the Front last July." She paused and felt for her +handkerchief, but could not find it. "I still keep the house; but do you +know how old I am, Mr. Tutt? I'm seventy-one! And the two older girls +got married long ago and I'm all alone except for Jessie, the +youngest—and I haven't told her anything about it." +</p> +<p> +"Yes?" said Mr. Tutt sympathetically. "What haven't you told her about?" +</p> +<p> +"My trouble. You see, Jessie's not a well girl—she really ought to live +out West somewhere, the doctor says—and Jim and I had saved up all +these years so that after we were gone she would have something to live +on. We saved twelve thousand dollars—and put it into Government bonds." +</p> +<p> +"You couldn't have anything safer, at any rate," remarked the lawyer. "I +think you did exceedingly well." +</p> +<p> +"Now comes the awful part of it all!" exclaimed Mrs. Effingham, clasping +her hands. "I'm afraid it's gone—gone forever. I should have consulted +you first before I did it, but it all seemed so fair and above-board +that I never thought." +</p> +<p> +"Have you got rid of your bonds?" +</p> +<p> +"Yes—no—that is, the bank has them. You see I borrowed ten thousand +dollars on them and gave it to Mr. Badger to invest in his oil company +for me." +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt groaned inwardly. Badger was the most celebrated of Wall +Street's near-financiers. +</p> +<p> +"Where on earth did you meet Badger?" he demanded. +</p> +<p> +"Why, he boarded with me—for a long time," she answered. "I've no +complaint to make of Mr. Badger. He's a very handsome polite gentleman. +And I don't feel altogether right about coming to you and saying +anything that might be taken against him—but lately I've heard so many +things—" +</p> +<p> +"Don't worry about Badger!" growled Mr. Tutt. "How did you come to +invest in his oil stock?" +</p> +<p> +"I was there when he got the telegram telling how they had found oil on +the property; it came one night at dinner. He was tickled to death. The +stock had been selling at three cents a share, and, of course, after the +oil was discovered he said it would go right up to ten dollars. But he +was real nice about it—he said anybody who had been living there in the +house could share his good fortune with him, come in on the ground +floor, and have it just the same for three cents. A week later there +came a photograph of the gusher and almost all of us decided to buy +stock." +</p> +<p> +At this point in the narrative Mr. Tutt kicked the coal hod violently +and uttered a smothered ejaculation. +</p> +<p> +"Of course I didn't have any ready money," explained Mrs. Effingham, +"but I had the bonds—they only paid two per cent and the oil stock was +going to pay twenty—and so I took them down to the bank and borrowed +ten thousand dollars on them. I had to sign a note and pay five per cent +interest. I was making the difference—fifteen hundred dollars every +year." +</p> +<p> +"What has it paid?" demanded Mr. Tutt ironically. +</p> +<p> +"Twenty per cent," replied Mrs. Effingham. "I get Mr. Badger's check +regularly every six months." +</p> +<p> +"How many times have you got it?" +</p> +<p> +"Twice." +</p> +<p> +"Well, why don't you like your investment?" inquired Mr. Tutt blandly. +"I'd like something that would pay me twenty per cent a year!" +</p> +<p> +"Because I'm afraid Mr. Badger isn't quite truthful, and one of the +ladies—that old Mrs. Channing; you remember her, don't you—the one +with the curls?—she tried to sell her stock and nobody would make a bid +on it at all—and when she spoke to Mr. Badger about it he became very +angry and swore right in front of her. Then somebody told me that Mr. +Badger had been arrested once for something—and—and—Oh, I wish I +hadn't given him the money, because if it's lost Jessie won't have +anything to live on after I'm dead—and she's too sick to work. What do +you think, Mr. Tutt? Do you suppose Mr. Badger would buy the stock +back?" +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt smiled grimly. +</p> +<p> +"Not if I know him! Have you got your stock with you?" +</p> +<p> +She nodded. Fumbling in her black bag she pulled forth a flaring +certificate—of the regulation kind, not even engraved—which evidenced +that Sarah Maria Ann Effingham was the legal owner of three hundred and +thirty thousand shares of the capital stock of the Great Geyser Texan +Petroleum and Llano Estacado Land Company. +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt took it gingerly between his thumb and forefinger. It was +signed ALFRED HAYNES BADGER, Pres., and he had an almost irresistible +temptation to twist it into a spill and light a stogy with it. But he +used a match instead, while Mrs. Effingham watched him apprehensively. +Then he handed the stock back to her and poured out another glass of +toddy. +</p> +<p> +"Ever been in Mr. Badger's office?" +</p> +<p> +"Oh, yes!" she answered. "It's a lovely office. You can see 'way down +the harbor—and over to New Jersey. It's real elegant." +</p> +<p> +"Would you mind going there again? That is, are you on friendly terms +with him?" +</p> +<p> +Already a strange, rather desperate plan was half formulated in his +mind. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, we're perfectly friendly," she smiled. "I generally go down there +to get my check." +</p> +<p> +"Whose check is it—his or the company's?" +</p> +<p> +"I really don't know," she answered simply. "What difference would it +make?" +</p> +<p> +"Oh, nothing—except that he might claim that he'd loaned you the +money." +</p> +<p> +"Loaned it? To me?" +</p> +<p> +"Why, yes. One hears of such things." +</p> +<p> +"But it is my money!" she cried, stiffening. +</p> +<p> +"You paid that for the stock." +</p> +<p> +She shook her head helplessly. +</p> +<p> +"I don't understand these things," she murmured. "If Jim had been alive +it wouldn't have happened. He was so careful." +</p> +<p> +"Husbands have some uses occasionally." +</p> +<p> +Suddenly she put her hands to her face. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, Mr. Tutt! Please get the money back from him. If you don't +something terrible will happen to Jessie!" +</p> +<p> +"I'll do my best," he said gently, laying his hand on her fragile +shoulder. "But I may not be able to do it—and anyhow I'll need your +help." +</p> +<p> +"What can I do?" +</p> +<p> +"I want you to go down to Mr. Badger's office to-morrow morning and tell +him that you are so much pleased with your investment that you would +like to turn all your securities over to him to sell and put the money +into the Great Geyser Texan Petroleum and Llano Estacado Land Company." +</p> +<p> +He rolled out the words with unction. +</p> +<p> +"But I don't!" +</p> +<p> +"Oh, yes, you do!" he assured her. "You want to do just what I tell +you, don't you?" +</p> +<p> +"Of course," she answered. "But I thought you didn't like Mr. Badger's +oil company." +</p> +<p> +"Whether I like it or not makes no difference. I want you to say just +what I tell you." +</p> +<p> +"Oh, very well, Mr. Tutt." +</p> +<p> +"Then you must tell him about the note, and that first it will have to +be paid off." +</p> +<p> +"Yes." +</p> +<p> +"And then you must hand him a letter which I will dictate to you now." +</p> +<p> +She flushed slightly, her eyes bright with excitement. +</p> +<p> +"You're sure it's perfectly honest, Mr. Tutt? I wouldn't want to do +anything unfair!" +</p> +<p> +"Would you be honest with a burglar?" +</p> +<p> +"But Mr. Badger isn't a burglar!" +</p> +<p> +"No—he's only about a thousand times worse. He's a robber of widows and +orphans. He isn't man enough to take a chance at housebreaking." +</p> +<p> +"I don't know what you mean," she sighed. "Where shall I write?" +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt cleared a space upon his desk, handed her a pad and dipped a +pen in the ink while she took off her gloves. +</p> +<p> +"Address the note to the bank," he directed. +</p> +<p> +She did so. +</p> +<p> +"Now say: 'Kindly deliver to Mr. Badger all the securities I have on +deposit with you, whenever he pays my note. Very truly yours, Sarah +Maria Ann Effingham.'" +</p> +<p> +"But I don't want him to have my securities!" she retorted. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, you won't mind! You'll be lucky to get Mr. Badger to take back your +oil stock on any terms. Leave the certificate with me," laughed Mr. +Tutt, rubbing his long thin hands together almost gleefully. "And now as +it is getting rather late perhaps you will do me the honor of letting me +escort you home." +</p> +<p> +It was midnight before Mr. Tutt went to bed. In the first place he had +felt himself so neglectful of Mrs. Effingham that after he had taken her +home he had sat there a long time talking over the old lady's affairs +and making the acquaintance of the phthisical Jessie, who turned out to +be a wistful little creature with great liquid eyes and a delicate +transparent skin that foretold only too clearly what was to be her +future. There was only one place for her, Mr. Tutt told +himself—Arizona; and by the grace of God she should go there, Badger or +no Badger! +</p> +<p> +As the old lawyer walked slowly home with his hands clasped behind his +back he pondered upon the seeming mockery and injustice of the law that +forced a lonely, half-demented old fellow with the fixed delusion that +he was a financier behind prison bars and left free the sharp slick +crook who had no bowels or mercies and would snatch away the widow's +mite and leave her and her consumptive daughter to die in the poorhouse. +Yet such was the case, and there they all were! Could you blame people +for being Bolsheviks? And yet old Doc Barrows was as far from a +Bolshevik as anyone could well be. +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt passed a restless night, dreaming, when he slept at all, of +mines from which poured myriads of pieces of yellow gold, of gushers +spouting columns of blood-red oil hundreds of feet into the air, and of +old-fashioned locomotives dragging picturesque trains of cars across +bright green prairies studded with cacti in the shape of dollar signs. +Old Doc Barrows was with him, and from time to time he would lean toward +him and whisper "Listen, Mr. Tutt, I'll tell you a secret! There's a +vein of gold runs right through my daughter's cow pasture!" +</p> +<p> +When Willie next morning at half past eight reached the office he found +the door already unlocked and Mr. Tutt busy at his desk, up to his +elbows in a great mass of bonds and stock certificates. +</p> +<p> +"Gee!" he exclaimed to Miss Sondheim, the stenographer, when she made +her appearance at a quarter past nine. "Just peek in the old man's door +if you want to feel rich! Say, he must ha' struck pay dirt! I wonder if +we'll all get a raise?" +</p> +<p> +But all the securities on Mr. Tutt's desk would not have justified even +the modest advance of five dollars in Miss Sondheim's salary, and their +employer was merely sorting out and making an inventory of Doc Barrows' +imaginary wealth. By the time Mrs. Effingham arrived by appointment at +ten o'clock he had them all arranged and labeled; and in a special +bundle neatly tied with a piece of red tape were what on their face were +securities worth upward of seventy thousand dollars. There were ten of +the beautiful bonds of the Great Lakes and Canadian Southern Railroad +Company with their miniature locomotives and fields of wheat, and ten +equally lovely bits of engraving belonging to the long-since defunct +Bluff Creek and Iowa Central, ten more superb lithographs issued by the +Mohawk and Housatonic in 1867 and paid off in 1882, and a variety of +gorgeous chromos of Indians and buffaloes, and of factories and +steamships spouting clouds of soft-coal smoke; and on the top of all was +a pile of the First Mortgage Gold Six Per Cent obligations of the +Chicago Water Front and Terminal Company—all of them fresh and crisp, +with that faintly acrid smell which though not agreeable to the nostrils +nevertheless delights the banker's soul. +</p> +<p> +"Ah! Good morning to you, Mrs. Effingham!" Mr. Tutt cried, waving her in +when that lady was announced. "You are not the only millionaire, you +see! In fact, I've stumbled into a few barrels of securities +myself—only I didn't pay anything for them." +</p> +<p> +"Gracious!" cried Mrs. Effingham, her eyes lighting with astonishment. +"Wherever did you get them? And such exquisite pictures! Look at that +lamb!" +</p> +<p> +"It ought to have been a wolf!" muttered Mr. Tutt. "Well, Mrs. +Effingham, I've decided to make you a present—just a few pounds of +Chicago Water Front and Canadian Southern—those over there in that +pile; and now if you say so we'll just go along to your bank." +</p> +<p> +"Give them to me!" she protested. "What on earth for? You're joking, Mr. +Tutt." +</p> +<p> +"Not a bit of it!" he retorted. "I don't make any pretensions as to the +value of my gift, but they're yours for whatever they're worth." +</p> +<p> +He wrapped them carefully in a piece of paper and returned the balance +to Doc Barrows' dress-suit case. +</p> +<p> +"Aren't you afraid to leave them that way?" she asked, surprised. +</p> +<p> +"Not at all! Not at all!" he laughed. "You see there are fortunes lying +all about us everywhere if we only know where to look. Now the first +thing to do is to get your bonds back from the bank." +</p> +<p> +Mr. Thomas McKeever, the popular loan clerk of the Mustardseed National, +was just getting ready for the annual visit of the state bank examiner +when Mr. Tutt, followed by Mrs. Effingham, entered the exquisitely +furnished boudoir where lady clients were induced by all modern +conveniences except manicures and shower baths to become depositors. Mr. +Tutt and Mr. McKeever belonged to the same Saturday evening poker game +at the Colophon Club, familiarly known as The Bible Class. +</p> +<p> +"Morning, Tom," said Mr. Tutt. "This is my client, Mrs. Effingham. You +hold her note, I believe, for ten thousand dollars secured by some +government bonds. She has a use for those bonds and I thought that you +might be willing to take my indorsement instead. You know I'm good for +the money." +</p> +<p> +"Why, I guess we can accommodate her, Mr. Tutt!" answered the +Chesterfieldian Mr. McKeever. "Certainly we can. Sit down, Mrs. +Effingham, while I send for your bonds. See the morning paper?" +</p> +<p> +Mrs. Effingham blushingly acknowledged that she had not seen the paper. +In fact, she was much too excited to see anything. +</p> +<p> +"Sign here!" said the loan clerk, placing the note before the lawyer. +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt indorsed it in his strange, humpbacked chirography. +</p> +<p> +"Here are your bonds," said Mr. McKeever, handing Mrs. Effingham a small +package in a manila envelope. She took them in a half-frightened way, as +if she thought she was doing something wrong. +</p> +<p> +"And now," said Mr. Tutt, "the lady would like a box in your +safe-deposit vaults; a small one—about five dollars a year—will do. +She has quite a bundle of securities with her, which I am looking into. +Most if not all of them are of little or no value, but I have told her +she might just as well leave them as security for what they are worth, +in addition to my indorsement. Really it's just a slick game of ours to +get the bank to look after them for nothing. Isn't it, Mrs. Effingham?" +</p> +<p> +"Ye-es!" stammered Mrs. Effingham, not understanding what he was talking +about. +</p> +<p> +"Well," answered Mr. McKeever, "we never refuse collateral. I'll put the +bonds with the note—" His eye caught the edges of the bundle. "Great +Scott, Tutt! What are you leaving all these bonds here for against that +note? There must be nearly a hundred thousand dol—" +</p> +<p> +"I thought you never refused collateral, Mr. McKeever!" challenged Mr. +Tutt sternly. +</p> +<p> +Twenty minutes later the exquisite blonde that acted as Mr. Badger's +financial accomplice learned from Mrs. Effingham's faltering lips that +the widow would like to see the great man in regard to further +investments. +</p> +<p> +"How does it look, Mabel?" inquired the financier from behind his +massive mahogany desk covered with a six by five sheet of plate glass. +"Is it a squeal or a fall?" +</p> +<p> +"Easy money," answered Mabel with confidence. "She wants to put a +mortgage on the farm." +</p> +<p> +"Keep her about fourteen minutes, tell her the story of my +philanthropies, and then shoot her in," directed Badger. +</p> +<p> +So Mrs. Effingham listened politely while Mabel showed her the +photographs of Mr. Badger's home for consumptives out in Tyrone, New +Mexico, and of his wife and children, taken on the porch of his summer +home at Seabright, New Jersey; and then, exactly fourteen minutes having +elapsed, she was shot in. +</p> +<p> +"Ah! Mrs. Effingham! Delighted! Do be seated!" Mr. Badger's smile was +like that of the boa constrictor about to swallow the rabbit. +</p> +<p> +"About my oil stock," hesitated Mrs. Effingham. +</p> +<p> +"Well, what about it?" demanded Badger sharply. "Are you dissatisfied +with your twenty per cent?" +</p> +<p> +"Oh, no!" stammered the old lady. "Not at all! I just thought if I could +only get the note paid off at the Mustardseed Bank I might ask you to +sell the collateral and invest the proceeds in your gusher." +</p> +<p> +"Oh!" Mr. Badger beamed with pleasure. "Do you really wish to have me +dispose of your securities for you?" +</p> +<p> +He did not regard it as necessary to inquire into the nature of the +collateral. If it was satisfactory to the Mustardseed National it must +of course exceed considerably the amount of the note. +</p> +<p> +"Yes," answered Mrs. Effingham timidly; and she handed him the letter +dictated by Mr. Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"Well," replied Mr. Badger thoughtfully, after reading it, "what you ask +is rather unusual—quite unusual, I may say, but I think I may be able +to attend to the matter for you. Leave it in my hands and think no more +about it. How have you been, my dear Mrs. Effingham? You're looking +extraordinarily well!" +</p> +<p> +Mr. McKeever had about concluded his arrangements for welcoming the +state bank examiner when the telephone on his desk buzzed, and on taking +up the receiver he heard the ingratiating voice of Alfred Haynes Badger. +</p> +<p> +"Is this the Loan Department of the Mustardseed National?" +</p> +<p> +"It is," he answered shortly. +</p> +<p> +"I understand you hold a note of a certain Mrs. Effingham for ten +thousand dollars. May I ask if it is secured?" +</p> +<p> +"Who is this?" snapped McKeever. +</p> +<p> +"One of her friends," replied Mr. Badger amicably. +</p> +<p> +"Well, we don't discuss our clients' affairs over the telephone. You had +better come in here if you have any inquiries to make." +</p> +<p> +"But I want to pay the note," expostulated Mr. Badger. +</p> +<p> +"Oh! Well, anybody can pay the note who wants to." +</p> +<p> +"And of course in that case you would turn over whatever collateral is +on deposit to secure the note?" +</p> +<p> +"If we were so directed." +</p> +<p> +"May I ask what collateral there is?" +</p> +<p> +"I don't know." +</p> +<p> +"There is some collateral, I suppose?" +</p> +<p> +"Yes." +</p> +<p> +"Well, I have an order from Mrs. Effingham directing the bank to turn +over whatever securities she has on deposit as collateral, on my payment +of the note." +</p> +<p> +"In that case you'll get 'em," said Mr. McKeever gruffly. "I'll get +them out and have 'em ready for you." +</p> +<hr> +<p> +"Here is my certified check for ten thousand; dollars," announced Alfred +Haynes Badger a few minutes later. "And here is the order from Mrs. +Effingham. Now will you kindly turn over to me all the securities?" +</p> +<p> +Mr. McKeever, knowing something of the reputation of Mr. Badger, first +called up the bank which had certified the latter's check, and having +ascertained that the certification was genuine he marked Mrs. +Effingham's note as paid and then took down from the top of his roll-top +desk the bundle of beautifully engraved securities given him by Mr. +Tutt. Badger watched him greedily. +</p> +<p> +"Thank you," he gurgled, stuffing them into his pocket. "Much obliged +for your courtesy. Perhaps you would like me to open an account here?" +</p> +<p> +"Oh, anybody can open an account who wants to," remarked Mr. McKeever +dryly, turning away from him to something else. +</p> +<p> +Mr. Badger fairly flew back to his office. The exquisite blonde had +hardly ever before seen him exhibit so much agitation. +</p> +<p> +"What have you pulled this time?" she inquired dreamily. "Father's +daguerreotype and the bracelet of mother's hair?" +</p> +<p> +"I've grabbed off the whole bag of tricks!" he cried. "Look at 'em! +We've not seen so much of the real stuff in six months. +</p> +<p> +"Ten—twenty—thirty—forty—fifty—By gad!—sixty—seventy!" +</p> +<p> +"What are they?" asked Mabel curiously. "Some bonds—what?" +</p> +<p> +"I should say so!" he retorted gaily. "Say, girlie, I'll give you the +swellest meal of your young life to-night! Chicago Water Front and +Terminal, Great Lakes and Canadian Southern, Mohawk and Housatonic, +Bluff Creek and Iowa Central. '<i>Oh, Mabel</i>!'" +</p> +<p> +It was at just about this period of the celebration that Mr. Tutt +entered the outer office and sent in his name; and as Mr. Badger was at +the height of his good humor he condescended to see him. +</p> +<p> +"I have called," said Mr. Tutt, "in regard to the bonds belonging to my +client, Mrs. Effingham. I see you have them on the desk there in front +of you. Unfortunately she has changed her mind. She has decided not to +have you dispose of her securities." +</p> +<p> +Mr. Badger's expression instantly became hostile and defiant. +</p> +<p> +"It's too late!" he replied. "I have paid off her note and I am going to +carry out the rest of the arrangement." +</p> +<p> +"Oh," said Mr. Tutt, "so you are going to sell all her securities and +put the proceeds into your bogus oil company—whether she wishes it or +not? If you do the district attorney will get after you." +</p> +<p> +"I stand on my rights," snarled Badger. "Anyhow I can sell enough of the +securities to pay myself back my ten thousand dollars." +</p> +<p> +"And then you'll steal the rest?" inquired Mr. Tutt. "Be careful, my +dear sir! Remember there is such a thing as equity, and such a place as +Sing Sing." +</p> +<p> +Badger gave a cynical laugh. +</p> +<p> +"You're too late, my friend! I've got a written order—<i>a written +order</i>—from your client, as you call her. She can't go back on it now. +I've got the bonds and I'm going to dispose of them." +</p> +<p> +"Very well," said Mr. Tutt tolerantly. "You can do as you see fit. +But"—and he produced ten genuine one-thousand-dollar bills and +exhibited them to Mr. Badger at a safe distance—"I now on behalf of +Mrs. Effingham make you a legal tender of the ten thousand dollars you +have just paid out to cancel her note, and I demand the return of the +securities. Incidentally I beg to inform you that they are not worth the +paper they are printed on." +</p> +<p> +"Indeed!" sneered Badger. "Well, my dear! old friend, you might have +saved yourself the trouble of coming round here. You and your client +can go straight to hell. <i>You</i> can keep the money; <i>I'll</i> keep the +bonds. See?" +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt sighed and shook his head hopelessly. +</p> +<p> +Then he put the bills back into his pocket and started slowly for the +door. +</p> +<p> +"You absolutely and finally decline to give up the securities?" he asked +plaintively. +</p> +<p> +"Absolutely and finally?" mocked Mr. Badger with a sweeping bow. +</p> +<p> +"Dear! Dear!" almost moaned Mr. Tutt. "I'd heard of you a great many +times but I never realized before what an unscrupulous man you were! +Anyhow, I'm glad to have had a look at you. By the way, if you take the +trouble to dig through all that junk you'll find the certificate of +stock in the Great Jehoshaphat Oil Company you used to flim flam Mrs. +Effingham with out of her ten thousand dollars. Maybe you can use it on +someone else! Anyhow, she's about two thousand dollars to the good. It +isn't every widow who can get twenty per cent and then get her money +back in full." +</p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<a name="TRAMP"><!-- TRAMP --></a> +<h2> +The Hepplewhite Tramp +</h2> +<p> </p> +<blockquote><p> +"No freeman shall be taken, or imprisoned, or disseized +or outlawed, or exiled, or in any way harmed—nor will +we go upon or send upon him—save by the lawful judgment +of his peers or by the law of the land."—MAGNA CHARTA, Sec. 39. +</p></blockquote> +<blockquote><p> +"'Somebody has been lying in my bed—and here she +is,' cried the Little, Small, Wee Bear, in his little, small, +wee voice."—THE THREE BEARS. +</p></blockquote> +<p> +One of the nicest men in New York was Mr. John De Puyster Hepplewhite. +The chief reason for his niceness was his entire satisfaction with +himself and the padded world in which he dwelt, where he was as +protected from all shocking, rough or otherwise unpleasant things as a +shrinking débutante from the coarse universe of fact. Being thus +shielded from every annoyance and irritation by a host of sycophants he +lived serenely in an atmosphere of unruffled calm, gazing down benignly +and with a certain condescension from the rarefied altitude of his +Fifth Avenue windows, pleased with the prospect of life as it appeared +to him to be and only slightly conscious of the vileness of his fellow +man. +</p> +<p> +Certainly he was not conscious at all of the existence of the celebrated +law firm of Tutt & Tutt. Such vulgar persons were not of his sphere. His +own lawyers were gray-headed, dignified, rather smart attorneys who +moved only in the best social circles and practised their profession +with an air of elegance. When Mr. Hepplewhite needed advice he sent for +them and they came, chatted a while in subdued easy accents, and went +away—like cheerful undertakers. Nobody ever spoke in loud tones near +Mr. Hepplewhite because Mr. Hepplewhite did not like anything loud—not +even clothes. He was, as we have said, quite one of the nicest men in +New York. +</p> +<p> +At the moment when Mrs. Witherspoon made her appearance he was sitting +in his library reading a copy of "Sainte-Beuve" and waiting for Bibby, +the butler, to announce tea. It was eight minutes to five and there was +still eight minutes to wait; so Mr. Hepplewhite went on reading +"Sainte-Beuve." +</p> +<p> +Then "Mrs. Witherspoon!" intoned Bibby, and Mr. Hepplewhite rose +quickly, adjusted his eye-glass and came punctiliously forward. +</p> +<p> +"My dear Mrs. Witherspoon!" he exclaimed crisply. "I am really +delighted to see you. It was quite charming of you to give me this +week-end." +</p> +<p> +"Adorable of you to ask me Mr. Hepplewhite!" returned the lady. "I've +been looking forward to this visit for weeks. What a sweet room? Is that +a Corot?" +</p> +<p> +"Yes—yes!" murmured her host modestly. "Rather nice, I think, eh? I'll +show you my few belongings after tea. Now will you go upstairs first or +have tea first?" +</p> +<p> +"Just as you say," beamed Mrs. Witherspoon. "Perhaps I had better run up +and take off my veil." +</p> +<p> +"Whichever you prefer," he replied chivalrously. "Do exactly as you +like. Tea will be ready in a couple of minutes." +</p> +<p> +"Then I think I'll run up." +</p> +<p> +"Very well. Bibby, show Mrs. Witherspoon—" +</p> +<p> +"Very good, sir. This way, please, madam. Stockin', fetch Mrs. +Witherspoon's bag from the hall." +</p> +<p> +Mr. Hepplewhite stood rubbing his delicate hands in front of the fire, +telling himself what a really great pleasure it was to have Mrs. +Witherspoon staying with him over the week-end. He was having a dinner +party for her that evening—of forty-eight. All that it had been +necessary for him to do to have the party was to tell Mr. Sadducee, his +secretary, that he wished to have it and direct him to send the +invitations from List Number One and then to tell Bibby the same thing +and to order the chef to serve Dinner Number Four—only to have +Johannisberger Cabinet instead of Niersteiner. +</p> +<p> +All these things were highly important to Mr. Hepplewhite, for upon the +absolute smoothness with which tea and dinner were served and the +accuracy with which his valet selected socks to match his tie his entire +happiness, to say nothing of his peace of mind, depended. His daily life +consisted of a series of subdued and nicely adjusted social events. They +were forecast for months ahead. Nothing was ever done on the spur of the +moment at Mr. Hepplewhite's. He could tell to within a couple of seconds +just exactly what was going to occur during the balance of the day, the +remainder of Mrs. Witherspoon's stay and the rest of the month. It would +have upset him very much not to know exactly what was going to happen, +for he was a meticulously careful host and being a creature of habit the +unexpected was apt to agitate him extremely. +</p> +<p> +So now as he stood rubbing his hands it was in the absolute certainty +that in just a few more seconds one of the footmen would appear between +the tapestry portières bearing aloft a silver tray with the tea things, +and then Bibby would come in with the paper, and presently Mrs. +Witherspoon would come down and she would make tea for him and they +would talk about tea, and Aiken, and whether the Abner Fullertons were +going to get a domestic or foreign divorce, and how his bridge was these +days. It would be very nice, and he rubbed his hands very gently and +waited for the Dresden clock to strike five in the subdued and decorous +way that it had. But he did not hear it strike. +</p> +<p> +Instead a shriek rang out from the hall above, followed by yells and +feet pounding down the stairs. Mr. Hepplewhite turned cold and something +hard rose up in his throat. His sight dimmed. And then Bibby burst in, +pale and with protruding eyes. +</p> +<p> +"There was a man in the guest room!" he gasped. "Stockin's got him. What +shall we do?" +</p> +<p> +At that moment Mrs. Witherspoon followed. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, Mr. Hepplewhite! Oh, Mr. Hepplewhite!" she gasped, staggering +toward him. +</p> +<p> +Mr. Hepplewhite would have taken her in his arms and attempted to +comfort her only it was not done in Mr. Hepplewhite's set unless under +extreme provocation. So he pressed an armchair upon her; or, rather, +pressed her into an armchair; and leaned against the bookcase feeling +very faint. He was extremely agitated. +</p> +<p> +"S-send for the police! S-s-send for B-burk!" he stuttered. Burk was a +husky watchman who also acted as a personal guard for Mr. Hepplewhite. +</p> +<p> +An alarm began to beat a deafening staccato in the hall outside the +library. Bibby rushed gurgling from the room. Several tall men in knee +breeches and silk stockings dashed excitedly up and down stairs using +expressions such as had never before been heard by Mr. Hepplewhite, and +the clanging gong of a police wagon was audible as it clattered up the +Avenue. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, Mr. Hepplewhite," whispered Mrs. Witherspoon, unconsciously seeking +his hand. "I never was so frightened in my life!" +</p> +<p> +Then the gong stopped and the police poured into the house and up the +stairs. There were muffled noises and suppressed ejaculations of "Aw, +come on there, now! I've got him, Mike! No funny business now, you! Come +along quiet!" +</p> +<p> +The whole house seemed blue with policemen, and Mr. Hepplewhite became +aware of a very fat man in a blue cap marked Captain, who removed the +cap deferentially and otherwise indicated that he was making obeisance. +Behind the fat man stood three other equally fat men, who held between +them with grim firmness, by arm, neck and shoulder, a much smaller—in +fact, quite a small—man shabby, unkempt, and with a desperate look upon +his unshaven face. +</p> +<p> +"We've got him, all right, Mr. Hepplewhite!" exulted the captain, +obviously grateful that God had vouchsafed to deliver the criminal into +his and not into other hands. "Shall I take him to the house—or do you +want to examine him?" +</p> +<p> +"I?" ejaculated Mr. Hepplewhite. "Mercy, no! Take him away as quickly as +possible!" +</p> +<p> +"As you say, sir," wheezed the captain. "Come along, boys! Take him over +to court and arraign him!" +</p> +<p> +"Yes, do!" urged Mrs. Witherspoon. "And arraign him as hard as you can; +for he really frightened me nearly to death, the terrible man!" +</p> +<p> +"Leave him to me, ma'am!" adjured the captain "Will you have your butler +act as complainant sir?" he asked. +</p> +<p> +"Why—yes—Bibby will do whatever is proper," agreed Mr. Hepplewhite. +"It will not be necessary for me to go to court, will it?" +</p> +<p> +"Oh, no!" answered the captain. "Mr. Bibby will do all right. I suppose +we had better make the charge burglary, sir?" +</p> +<p> +"I suppose so," replied Mr. Hepplewhite vaguely. +</p> +<p> +"Get on, boys," ordered the captain. "Good evening, sir. Good evening, +ma'am. Step lively, you!" +</p> +<p> +The blue cloud faded away, bearing with it both Bibby and the burglar. +Then the third footman brought the belated tea. +</p> +<p> +"What a frightful thing to have happen!" grieved Mrs. Witherspoon as she +poured out the tea for Mr. Hepplewhite. "You don't take cream, do you?" +</p> +<p> +"No, thanks," he answered. "I find too much cream hard to digest. I have +to be rather careful, you know. By the way, you haven't told me where +the burglar was or what he was doing when you went into the room." +</p> +<p> +"He was in the bed," said Mrs. Witherspoon. +</p> +<hr> +<p> +"In the 'Decay of Lying,' Mr. Tutt," said Tutt thoughtfully, as he +dropped in for a moment's chat after lunch, "Oscar Wilde says, 'There is +no essential incongruity between crime and culture.'" +</p> +<p> +The senior partner removed his horn-rimmed spectacles and carefully +polished the lenses with a bit of chamois, which he produced from his +watch pocket, meanwhile resting the muscles of his forehead by elevating +his eyebrows until he somewhat resembled an inquiring but good-natured +owl. +</p> +<p> +"That's plain enough," he replied. "The most highly cultivated people +are often the most unscrupulous. I go Oscar one better and declare that +there is a distinct relationship between crime and progress!" +</p> +<p> +"You don't say, now!" ejaculated Tutt. "How do you make that out?" +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt readjusted his spectacles and slowly selected a stogy from the +bundle in the dusty old cigar box. +</p> +<p> +"Crime," he announced, "is the violation of the will of the majority as +expressed in the statutes. The law is wholly arbitrary and depends upon +public opinion. Acts which are crimes in one century or country become +virtues in another, and vice versa. Moreover, there is no difference, +except one of degree, between infractions of etiquette and of law, each +of which expresses the feelings and ideas of society at a given moment. +Violations of good taste, manners, morals, illegalities, wrongs, +crimes—they are all fundamentally the same thing, the insistence on +one's own will in defiance of society as a whole. The man who keeps his +hat on in a drawing-room is essentially a criminal because he prefers +his own way of doing things to that adopted by his fellows." +</p> +<p> +"That's all right," answered Tutt. "But how about progress?" +</p> +<p> +"Why, that is simple," replied his partner. "The man who refuses to bow +to habit, tradition, law—who thinks for himself and acts for himself, +who evolves new theories, who has the courage of his convictions and +stakes his life and liberty upon them—that man is either a statesman, a +prophet or a criminal. And in the end he is either hailed as a hero and +a liberator or is burned, cast into prison or crucified." +</p> +<p> +Tutt looked interested. +</p> +<p> +"Well, now," he returned, helping himself from the box, "I never thought +of it, but, of course, it's true. Your proposition is that progress +depends on development and development depends on new ideas. If the new +idea is contrary to those of society it is probably criminal. If its +inventor puts it across, gets away with it, and persuades society that +he is right he is a leader in the march of progress. If he fails he goes +to jail. Hence the relationship between crime and progress. Why not say +that crime is progress?" +</p> +<p> +"If successful it is," answered Mr. Tutt. "But the moment it is +successful it ceases to be crime." +</p> +<p> +"I get you," nodded Tutt. "Here to-day it is a crime to kill one's +grandmother; but I recall reading that among certain savage tribes to do +so is regarded as a highly virtuous act. Now if I convince society that +to kill one's grandmother is a good thing it ceases to be a crime. +Society has progressed. I am a public benefactor." +</p> +<p> +"And if you don't persuade society you go to the chair," remarked Mr. +Tutt laconically. +</p> +<p> +"To use another illustration," exclaimed Tutt, warming to the subject, +"the private ownership of property at the present time is recognized and +protected by the law, but if we had a Bolshevik government it might be a +crime to refuse to share one's property with others." +</p> +<p> +"In that case if you took your share of another's property by force, +instead of being a thief you would be a Progressive," smiled his +partner. +</p> +<p> +Tutt robbed his forehead. +</p> +<p> +"Looking at it that way, you know," said he, "makes it seem as if +criminals were rather to be admired." +</p> +<p> +"Well, some of them are, and a great multitude of them certainly were," +answered Mr. Tutt. "All the early Christian martyrs were criminals in +the sense that they were law-breakers." +</p> +<p> +"And Martin Luther," suggested Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"And Garibaldi," added Mr. Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"And George Washington—maybe?" hazarded the junior partner. +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt shrugged his high shoulders. +</p> +<p> +"You press the analogy a long way, but—in a sense every successful +revolutionist was in the beginning a criminal—as every rebel is and +perforce must be," he replied. +</p> +<p> +"So," said Tutt, "if you're a big enough criminal you cease to be a +criminal at all. If you're going to be a crook, don't be a piker—it's +too risky. Grab everything in sight. Exterminate a whole nation, if +possible. Don't be a common garden highwayman or pirate; be a Napoleon +or a Willy Hohenzollern." +</p> +<p> +"You have the idea," replied Mr. Tutt. "Crime is unsuccessful defiance +of the existing order of things. Once rebellion rises to the dignity of +revolution murder becomes execution and the murderers become +belligerents. Therefore, as all real progress involves a change in or +defiance of existing law, those who advocate progress are essentially +criminally minded, and if they attempt to secure progress by openly +refusing to obey the law they are actual criminals. Then if they +prevail, and from being in the minority come into power, they are taken +out of jail, banquets are given in their honor, and they are called +patriots and heroes. Hence the close connection between crime and +progress." +</p> +<p> +Tutt scratched his chin doubtfully. +</p> +<p> +"That sounds pretty good," he admitted, "but"—and he shook his +head—"there's something the matter with it. It doesn't work except in +the case of crimes involving personal rights and liberties. I see your +point that all progressives are criminals in the sense that they are +'agin the law' as it is, but—I also see the hole in your argument, +which is that the fact that all progressives are criminals doesn't make +all criminals progressive. Your proposition is only a half truth." +</p> +<p> +"You're quite wrong about my theory being a half truth," retorted Mr. +Tutt. "It is fundamentally sound. The fellow who steals a razor or a few +dollars is regarded as a mean thief, but if he loots a trust company or +takes a million he's a financier. The criminal law, I maintain, is +administered for the purpose of protecting the strong from the weak, the +successful from the unsuccessful the rich from the poor. And, sir"—Mr. +Tutt here shook his fist at an imaginary jury—"the man who wears a red +necktie in violation of the taste of his community or eats peas with his +knife is just as much a criminal as a man who spits on the floor when +there's a law against it. Don't you agree with me?" +</p> +<p> +"I do not!" replied Tutt. "But that makes no difference. Nevertheless +what you say about the criminal law being devised to protect the rich +from the poor interests me very much—very much indeed But I think +there's a flaw in that argument too, isn't there? Your proposition is +true only to the extent that the criminal law is invoked to protect +property rights—and not life and liberty. Naturally the laws that +protect property are chiefly of benefit to those who have it—the rich." +</p> +<p> +"However that may be," declared Mr. Tutt fiercely, "I claim that the +criminal laws are administered, interpreted and construed in favor of +the rich as against the liberties of the poor, for the simple reason +that the administrators of the criminal law desire to curry favor with +the powers that be." +</p> +<p> +"The moral of which all is," retorted the other, "that the law ought to +be very careful about locking up people." +</p> +<p> +"At any rate those who have violated laws upon which there can be a +legitimate difference of opinion," agreed Mr. Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"That's where we come in," said Tutt. "We make the difference—even if +there never was any before." +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt chuckled. +</p> +<p> +"We perform a dual service to society," he declared. "We prevent the law +from making mistakes and so keep it from falling into disrepute, and we +show up its weak points and thus enable it to be improved." +</p> +<p> +"And incidentally we keep many a future statesman and prophet from going +to prison," said Tutt. "The name of the last one was Solomon +Rabinovitch—and he was charged with stealing a second-hand razor from a +colored person described in the papers as one Morris Cohen." +</p> +<p> +How long this specious philosophic discussion would have continued is +problematical had it not been interrupted by the entry of a young +gentleman dressed with a somewhat ostentatious elegance, whose wizened +face bore an expression at once of vast good nature and of a deep and +subtle wisdom. +</p> +<p> +It was clear that he held an intimate relationship to Tutt & Tutt from +the familiar way in which he returned their cordial, if casual, +salutations. +</p> +<p> +"Well, here we are again," remarked Mr. Doon pleasantly, seating himself +upon the corner of Mr. Tutt's desk and spinning his bowler hat upon the +forefinger of his left hand. "The hospitals are empty. The Tombs is as +dry as a bone. Everybody's good and every day'll be Sunday by and by." +</p> +<p> +"How about that man who stole a razor?" asked Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"Discharged on the ground that the fact that he had a full beard created +a reasonable doubt," replied Doon. "Honestly there's nothing doing in my +line—unless you want a tramp case." +</p> +<p> +"A tramp case!" exclaimed Tutt & Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"I suppose you'd call it that," he answered blandly. "I don't think he +was a burglar. Anyhow he's in the Tombs now, shouting for a lawyer. I +listened to him and made a note of the case." +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt pushed over the box of stogies and leaned back attentively. +</p> +<p> +"You know the Hepplewhite house up on Fifth Avenue—that great stone +one with the driveway?" +</p> +<p> +The Tutts nodded. +</p> +<p> +"Well, it appears that the prisoner—our prospective client—was +snooping round looking for something to eat and found that the butler +had left the front door slightly ajar. Filled with a natural curiosity +to observe how the other half lived, he thrust his way cautiously in and +found himself in the main hall—hung with tapestry and lined with stands +of armor. No one was to be seen. Can't you imagine him standing there in +his rags—the Weary Willy of the comic supplements—gazing about him at +the <i>objets d'art</i>, the old masters, the onyx tables, the +statuary—wondering where the pantry was and whether the housekeeper +would be more likely to feed him or kick him out?" +</p> +<p> +"Weren't any of the domestics about?" inquired Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"Not one. They were all taking an afternoon off, except the third +assistant second man who was reading 'The Pilgrim's Progress' in the +servants' hall. To resume, our friend was not only very hungry, but very +tired. He had walked all the way from Yonkers, and he needed everything +from a Turkish bath to a manicuring. He had not been shaved for weeks. +His feet sank almost out of sight in the thick nap of the carpets. It +was quiet, warm, peaceful in there. A sense of relaxation stole over +him. He hated to go away, he says, and he meditated no wrong. But he +wanted to see what it was like upstairs. +</p> +<p> +"So up he went. It was like the palace of 'The Sleeping Beauty.' +Everywhere his eyes were soothed by the sight of hothouse plants, marble +floors, priceless rugs, luxurious divans—" +</p> +<p> +"Stop!" cried Tutt. "You are making me sleepy!" +</p> +<p> +"Well, that's what it did to him. He wandered along the upper hall, +peeking into the different rooms, until finally he came to a beautiful +chamber finished entirely in pink silk. It had a pink rug—of silk; the +furniture was upholstered in pink silk, the walls were lined with pink +silk and in the middle of the room was a great big bed with a pink silk +coverlid and a canopy of the same. It seemed to him that that bed must +have been predestined for him. Without a thought for the morrow he +jumped into it, pulled the coverlid over his head and went fast asleep. +</p> +<p> +"Meanwhile, at tea time Mrs. De Lancy Witherspoon arrived for the +week-end. Bibby, the butler, followed by Stocking, the second man, +bearing the hand luggage, escorted the guest to the Bouguereau Room, as +the pink-silk chamber is called." +</p> +<p> +Mr. Bonnie Doon, carried away by his own powers of description, waved +his hand dramatically at the old leather couch against the side wall, +in which Weary Willy was supposed to be reclining. +</p> +<p> +"Can't you see 'em?" he declaimed. "The haughty Bibby with nose in air, +preceding the great dame of fashion, enters the pink room and comes to +attention, 'This way, madam!' he declaims, and Mrs. Witherspoon sweeps +across the threshold." Bonnie Doon, picking up an imaginary skirt, +waddled round Mr. Tutt and approached the couch. Suddenly he started +back. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, la, la!" he half shrieked, dancing about. "There is a man in the +bed!" +</p> +<p> +Both Tutts stared hard at the couch as if fully expecting to see the +form of Weary Willy thereon. Bonnie Doon had a way of making things +appear very vivid. +</p> +<p> +"And sure enough," he concluded, "there underneath the coverlid in the +middle of the bed was a huddled heap with a stubby beard projecting like +Excalibur from a pink silk lake!" +</p> +<p> +"Excuse me," interrupted Tutt. "But may I ask what this is all about?" +</p> +<p> +"Why, your new case, to be sure," grinned Bonnie, who, had he been +employed by any other firm, might have run the risk of being regarded as +an ambulance chaser. "To make a long and tragic story short, they sent +for the watchman, whistled for a policeman, telephoned for the hurry-up +wagon, and haled the sleeper away to prison—where he is now, waiting +to be tried." +</p> +<p> +"Tried!" ejaculated Mr. Tutt. "What for?" +</p> +<p> +"For crime, to be sure," answered Mr. Doon. +</p> +<p> +"What crime?" +</p> +<p> +"I don't know. They'll find one, of course." +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt swiftly lowered his legs from the desk and brought his fist +down upon it with a bang. +</p> +<p> +"Outrageous! What was I just telling you, Tutt!" he cried, a flush +coming into his wrinkled face. "This poor man is a victim of the +overzealousness which the officers of the law exhibit in protecting the +privileges and property of the rich. If John De Puyster Hepplewhite fell +asleep in somebody's vestibule the policeman on post would send him home +in a cab; but if a hungry tramp does the same thing he runs him in. If +John De Puyster Hepplewhite should be arrested for some crime they would +let him out on bail; while the tramp is imprisoned for weeks awaiting +trial, though under the law he is presumed to be innocent. Is he +presumed to be innocent? Not much! He is presumed to be guilty, +otherwise he would not be there. But what is he presumed to be guilty +of? That's what I want to know! Just because this poor man—hungry, +thirsty and weary—happened to select a bed belonging to John De Puyster +Hepplewhite to lie on he is thrown into prison, indicted by a grand +jury, and tried for felony! Ye gods! 'Sweet land of liberty!'" +</p> +<p> +"Well, he hasn't been tried yet," replied Bonnie Doon. "If you feel that +way about it why don't you defend him?" +</p> +<p> +"I will!" shouted Mr. Tutt, springing to his feet. "I'll defend him and +acquit him!" +</p> +<p> +He seized his tall hat, placed it upon his head and strode rapidly +through the door. +</p> +<p> +"He will too!" remarked Bonnie, winking at Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"He thinks that tramp is either a statesman or a prophet!" mused Tutt, +his mind reverting to his partner's earlier remarks. +</p> +<p> +"He won't think so after he's seen him," replied Mr. Doon. +</p> +<p> +It sometimes happens that those who seek to establish great principles +and redress social evils involve others in an involuntary martyrdom far +from their desires. Mr. Tutt would have gone to the electric chair +rather than see the Hepplewhite Tramp, as he was popularly called by the +newspapers convicted of a crime, but the very fact that he had become +his legal champion interjected a new element into the situation, +particularly as O'Brien, Mr. Tutt's arch enemy in the district +attorney's office, had been placed in charge of the case. +</p> +<p> +It would have been one thing to let Hans Schmidt—that was the tramp's +name—go, if after remaining in the Tombs until he had been forgotten by +the press he could have been unobtrusively hustled over the Bridge of +Sighs to freedom. Then there would have been no comeback. But with +Ephraim Tutt breathing fire and slaughter, accusing the police and +district attorney of being trucklers to the rich and great, and +oppressors of the poor—law breakers, in fact—O'Brien found himself in +the position of one having an elephant by the tail and unable to let go. +</p> +<p> +In fact, it looked as if the case of the Hepplewhite Tramp might become +a political issue. That there was something of a comic side to it made +it all the worse. +</p> +<p> +"Holy cats, boys!" snorted District Attorney Peckham to the circle of +disgruntled police officers and assistants gathered about him on the +occasion described by the reporters as his making a personal +investigation of the case, "Why in the name of common sense didn't you +simply boot the fellow into the street?" +</p> +<p> +"I wish we had, counselor!" assented the captain of the Hepplewhite +precinct mournfully. "But we thought he was a burglar. I guess he was, +at that—and it was Mr. Hepplewhite's house." +</p> +<p> +"I've heard that until I'm sick of it!" retorted Peckham. +</p> +<p> +"One thing is sure—if we turn him out now Tutt will sue us all for +false arrest and put the whole administration on the bum," snarled +O'Brien. +</p> +<p> +"But I didn't know the tramp would get Mr. Tutt to defend him," +expostulated the captain. "Anyhow, ain't it a crime to go to sleep in +another man's bed?" +</p> +<p> +"If it ain't it ought to be!" declared his plain-clothes man +sententiously. "Can't you indict him for burglary?" +</p> +<p> +"You can indict all day; the thing is to convict!" snapped Peckham. +"It's up to you, O'Brien, to square this business so that the law is +vindicated—somehow It must be a crime to go into a house on Fifth +Avenue and use it as a hotel. Why, you can't cross the street faster +than a walk these days without committing a crime. Everything's a +crime." +</p> +<p> +"Sure thing," agreed the captain. "I never yet had any trouble finding a +crime to charge a man with, once I got the nippers on him." +</p> +<p> +"That's so," interjected the plain-clothes man. "Did you ever know it +was a crime to mismanage a steam boiler? Well, it is." +</p> +<p> +"Quite right," agreed Mr. Magnus, the indictment clerk. "The great +difficulty for the perfectly honest man nowadays is to avoid some act or +omission which the legislature has seen fit to make a crime without his +knowledge. Refilling a Sarsaparilla bottle, for instance, or getting up +a masquerade ball or going fishing or playing on Sunday or loitering +about a building to overhear what people are talking about inside—" +</p> +<p> +"That's no crime," protested the captain scornfully. +</p> +<p> +"Yes, it is too!" retorted Mr. Magnus, otherwise known to his fellows as +Caput, because of his supposed cerebral inflation. "Just like it is a +crime to have any kind of a show or procession on Sunday except a +funeral, in which case it's a crime to make a disbursing noise at it." +</p> +<p> +"What's a disbursing noise?" demanded O'Brien. +</p> +<p> +"I don't know," admitted Magnus. "But that's the law anyway. You can't +make a disbursing noise at a funeral on Sunday." +</p> +<p> +"Oh, hell!" ejaculated the captain. "Come to think of it, it's a crime +to spit. What man is safe?" +</p> +<p> +"It occurs to me," continued Mr. Magnus thoughtfully, "that it is a +crime under the law to build a house on another man's land; now I should +say that there was a close analogy between doing that and sleeping in +his bed." +</p> +<p> +"Hear! Hear!" commented O'Brien. "Caput Magnus, otherwise known as Big +Head, there is no doubt but that your fertile brain can easily devise a +way out of our present difficulty." +</p> +<p> +"Well, I've no time to waste on tramp cases," remarked District +Attorney Peckham. "I've something more important to attend to. Indict +this fellow and send him up quick. Charge him with everything in sight +and trust in the Lord. That's the only thing to be done. Don't bother me +about it, that's all!" +</p> +<p> +Meantime Mr. Hepplewhite became more and more agitated. Entirely against +his will and, so far as he could see, without any fault of his own, he +suddenly found himself the center of a violent and acrimonious +controversy respecting the fundamental and sacred rights of freemen +which threatened to disrupt society and extinguish the supremacy of the +dominant local political organization. +</p> +<p> +On the one hand he was acclaimed by the conservative pulpit and press as +a public-spirited citizen who had done exactly the right +thing—disinterestedly enforced the law regardless of his own +convenience and safety as a matter of principle and for the sake of the +community—a moral hero; on the other, though he was president of +several charitable organizations and at least one orphan asylum he was +execrated as a heartless brute, an oppressor of the poor, an octopus, a +soulless capitalist who fattened on the innocent and helpless and +who—Mr. Hepplewhite was a bachelor—probably if the truth could be +known lived a life of horrid depravity and crime. +</p> +<p> +Indeed there was a man named Tutt, of whom Mr. Hepplewhite had never +before heard, who publicly declared that he, Tutt, would show him, +Hepplewhite, up for what he was and make him pay with his body and his +blood, to say nothing of his money, for what he had done and caused to +be done. And so Mr. Hepplewhite became even more agitated, until he +dreamed of this Tutt as an enormous bird like the fabled roc, with a +malignant face and a huge hooked beak that some day would nip him in the +abdomen and fly, croaking, away with him. Mrs. Witherspoon had returned +to Aiken, and after the first flood of commiserations from his friends +on Lists Numbers One, Two, Three and Four he felt neglected, lonely and +rather fearful. +</p> +<p> +And then one morning something happened that upset his equanimity +entirely. He had just started out for a walk in the park when a flashy +person who looked like an actor walked impudently up to him and handed +him a piece of paper in which was wrapped a silver half dollar. In a +word Mr. Hepplewhite was subpoenaed and the nervous excitement attendant +upon that operation nearly caused his collapse. For he was thereby +commanded to appear before the Court of General Sessions of the Peace +upon the following Monday at ten a. m. as a witness in a criminal action +prosecuted by the People of the State of New York against Hans Schmidt. +Moreover, the paper was a dirty-brown color and bore the awful name of +Tutt. He returned immediately to the house and telephoned for Mr. +Edgerton, his lawyer, who at once jumped into a taxi on the corner of +Wall and Broad Streets and hurried uptown. +</p> +<p> +"Edgerton," said Hepplewhite faintly as the lawyer entered his library, +"this whole unfortunate affair has almost made me sick. I had nothing to +do with the arrest of this man Schmidt. The police did everything. And +now I'm ordered to appear as a witness! Why, I hardly looked at the man. +I shouldn't know him if I saw him. Do I have to go to court?" +</p> +<p> +Mr. Edgerton smiled genially in a manner which he thought would +encourage Mr. Hepplewhite. +</p> +<p> +"I suppose you'll have to go to court. You can't help that, you know, if +you've been subpoenaed. But you can't testify to anything that I can +see. It's just a formality." +</p> +<p> +"Formality!" groaned his client. "Well, I supposed the arrest was just a +formality." +</p> +<p> +Mr. Edgerton smiled again rather unconvincingly. +</p> +<p> +"Well, you see, you can't always tell what will happen when you once +start something," he began. +</p> +<p> +"But I didn't start anything," answered Mr. Hepplewhite. "I had nothing +to say about it." +</p> +<p> +At that moment Bibby appeared in the doorway. +</p> +<p> +"Excuse me, sir," he said. "There is a young man outside who asked me to +tell you that he has a paper he wishes to serve on you—and would you +mind saving him the trouble of waiting for you to go out?" +</p> +<p> +"Another!" gagged Mr. Hepplewhite. +</p> +<p> +"Yes, sir! Thank you, sir," stammered Bibby. +</p> +<p> +Mr. Hepplewhite looked inquiringly at Mr. Edgerton and rose feebly. +</p> +<p> +"He'll get you sooner or later," declared the lawyer. "A man as well +known as you can't avoid process." +</p> +<p> +Mr. Hepplewhite bit his lips and went out into the hall. +</p> +<p> +Presently he returned carrying a legal-looking bunch of papers. +</p> +<p> +"Well, what is it this time?" asked Edgerton jocosely. +</p> +<p> +"It's a suit for false imprisonment for one hundred thousand dollars!" +choked Mr. Hepplewhite. +</p> +<p> +Mr. Edgerton looked shocked. +</p> +<p> +"Well, now you've got to convict him!" he declared. +</p> +<p> +"Convict him?" retorted Mr. Hepplewhite. "I don't want to convict him. +I'd gladly give a hundred thousand dollars to get out of the—the—darn +thing!" +</p> +<p> +Which was as near profanity as he had ever permitted himself to go. +</p> +<hr> +<p> +Upon the following Monday Mr. Hepplewhite proceeded to court—flanked by +his distinguished counsel in frock coats and tall hats—simply because +he had been served with a dirty-brown subpoena by Tutt & Tutt; and his +distress was not lessened by the crowd of reporters who joined him at +the entrance of the Criminal Courts Building; or by the flashlight bomb +that was exploded in the corridor in order that the evening papers might +reproduce his picture on the front page. He had never been so much in +the public eye before, and he felt slightly defiled. For some curious +reason he had the feeling that he and not Schmidt was the actual +defendant charged with being guilty of something; nor was this +impression dispelled even by listening to the indictment by which the +Grand Jury charged Schmidt in eleven counts with burglary in the first, +second and third degrees and with the crime of entering his, +Hepplewhite's, house under circumstances not amounting to a burglary but +with intent to commit a felony, as follows: +</p> +<p> +"Therefore, to wit, on the eleventh day of January in the year of our +Lord one thousand nine hundred and nineteen in the night-time of the +said day at the ward, city and county aforesaid the dwelling house of +one John De Puyster Hepplewhite there situate, feloniously and +burglariously did break into and enter there being then and there a +human being in said dwelling house, with intent to commit some crime +therein, to wit, the goods, chattels, and personal property of the said +John De Puyster Hepplewhite, then and there being found, then and there +feloniously and burglariously to steal, take and carry away one silver +tea service of the value of five hundred dollars and one pair of opera +glasses of the value of five dollars each with force and arms——" +</p> +<p> +"But that silver tea service cost fifteen thousand dollars and weighs +eight hundred pounds!" whispered Mr. Hepplewhite. +</p> +<p> +"Order in the court!" shouted Captain Phelan, pounding upon the oak rail +of the bar, and Mr. Hepplewhite subsided. +</p> +<p> +Yet as he sat there between his lawyers listening to all the +extraordinary things that the Grand Jury evidently had believed Schmidt +intended to do, the suspicion began gradually to steal over him that +something was not entirely right somewhere. Why, it was ridiculous to +charge the man with trying to carry off a silver service weighing nearly +half a ton when he simply had gone to bed and fallen asleep. Still, +perhaps that was the law. +</p> +<p> +However, when the assistant district attorney opened the People's case +to the jury Mr. Hepplewhite began to feel much more at ease. Indeed +O'Brien made it very plain that the defendant had been guilty of a very +grievous—he pronounced it "gree-vious"—offense in forcing his way into +another man's private house. It might or might not be burglary—that +would depend upon the testimony—but in any event it was a criminal, +illegal entry and he should ask for a conviction. A man's house was his +castle and—to quote from that most famous of orators and +statesmen—Edmund Burke—"the wind might enter, the rain might enter, +but the King of England might not enter!" Thus Schmidt could not enter +the house of Hepplewhite without making himself amenable to the law. +</p> +<p> +Hepplewhite was filled with admiration for Mr. O'Brien, and his drooping +spirits reared their wilted heads as the prosecutor called Bibby to the +stand and elicited from him the salient features of the case. The jury +was vastly interested in the butler personally, as well as his account +rendered in the choicest cockney of how he had discovered Schmidt in his +master's bed. O'Brien bowed to Mr. Tutt and told him that he might +cross-examine. +</p> +<p> +And then it was that Mr. Hepplewhite discovered why he had been haunted +by that mysterious feeling of guilt; for by some occult and subtle +method of suggestion on the part of Mr. Tutt, the case, instead of +being a trial of Schmidt, resolved itself into an attack upon Mr. +Hepplewhite and his retainers and upon the corrupt minions of the law +who had violated every principle of justice, decency and morality in +order to accomplish the unscrupulous purposes of a merciless +aristocrat—meaning him. With biting sarcasm, Mr. Tutt forced from the +writhing Bibby the admission that the prisoner was sound asleep in the +pink silk fastnesses of the Bouguereau Room when he was discovered that +he made no attempt to escape, that he did not assault anybody and that +he had appeared comatose from exhaustion; that there was no sign of a +break anywhere, and that the pair of opera glasses "worth five dollars +<i>apiece</i>"—Tutt invited the court's attention to this ingenuous +phraseology of Mr. Caput Magnus, as a literary curiosity—were a figment +of the imagination. +</p> +<p> +In a word Mr. Tutt rolled Bibby up and threw him away, while his master +shuddered at the open disclosure of his trusted major-domo's vulgarity, +mendacity and general lack of sportsmanship. Somehow all at once the +case began to break up and go all to pot. The jury got laughing at +Bibby, the footmen and the cops as Mr. Tutt painted for their +edification the scene following the arrival of Mrs. Witherspoon, when +Schmidt was discovered asleep, as Mr. Tutt put it, like Goldilocks in +the Little, Small, Wee Bear's bed. +</p> +<p> +Stocking was the next witness, and he fared no better than had Bibby. +O'Brien, catching the judge's eye, made a wry face and imperceptibly +lowered his left lid—on the side away from the jury, thus officially +indicating that, of course, the case was a lemon but that there was +nothing that could be done except to try it out to the bitter end. +</p> +<p> +Then he rose and called out unexpectedly: "Mr. John De Puyster +Hepplewhite—take the stand!" +</p> +<p> +It was entirely unexpected. No one had suggested that he would be called +for the prosecution. Possibly O'Brien was actuated by a slight touch of +malice; possibly he wanted to be able, if the case was lost, to accuse +Hepplewhite of losing it on his own testimony. But at any rate he +certainly had no anticipation of what the ultimate consequence of his +act would be. +</p> +<p> +Mr. Hepplewhite suddenly felt as though his entire intestinal mechanism +had been removed. But he had no time to take counsel of his fears. +Everybody in the courtroom turned with one accord and looked at him. He +rose, feeling as one who dreams; that he is naked in the midst of a +multitude. He shrank back hesitating, but hostile hands reached out and +pushed him forward. Cringing, he slunk to the witness chair, and for the +first time faced the sardonic eyes of the terrible Tutt, his adversary +who looked scornfully from Hepplewhite to the jury and then from the +jury back to Hepplewhite as if to say: "Look at him! Call you this a +man?" +</p> +<p> +"You are the Mr. Hepplewhite who has been referred to in the testimony +as the owner of the house in which the defendant was found?" inquired +O'Brien. +</p> +<p> +"Yes—yes," answered Mr. Hepplewhite deprecatingly. +</p> +<p> +"The first witness—Bibby—is in your employ?" +</p> +<p> +"Yes—yes." +</p> +<p> +"Did you have a silver tea set of the value of—er—at least five +hundred dollars in the house?" +</p> +<p> +"It was worth fifteen thousand," corrected Mr. Hepplewhite. +</p> +<p> +"Oh! Now, have you been served by the defendant's attorneys with a +summons and complaint in an action for false arrest in which damages are +claimed in the sum of one hundred thousand dollars?" +</p> +<p> +"I object!" shouted Mr. Tutt. "It is wholly irrelevant." +</p> +<p> +"I think it shows the importance of the result of this trial to the +witness," argued O'Brien perfunctorily. "It shows this case isn't any +joke—even if some people seem to think it is." +</p> +<p> +"Objection sustained," ruled the court. "The question is irrelevant. The +jury is supposed to know that every case is important to those +concerned—to the defendant as well as to those who charge him with +crime." +</p> +<p> +O'Brien bowed. +</p> +<p> +"That's all. You may examine, Mr. Tutt." +</p> +<p> +The old lawyer slowly unfolded his tall frame and gazed quizzically down +upon the shivering Hepplewhite. +</p> +<p> +"You have been sued by my client for one hundred thousand dollars, +haven't you?" he demanded. +</p> +<p> +"Object!" shot out O'Brien. +</p> +<p> +"Overruled," snapped the court. "It is a proper question for +cross-examination. It may show motive." +</p> +<p> +Mr. Hepplewhite sat helplessly until the shooting was over. +</p> +<p> +"Answer the question!" suddenly shouted Mr. Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"But I thought—" he began. +</p> +<p> +"Don't think!" retorted the court sarcastically. "The time to think has +gone by. Answer!" +</p> +<p> +"I don't know what the question is," stammered Mr. Hepplewhite, +thoroughly frightened. +</p> +<p> +"Lord! Lord!" groaned O'Brien in plain hearing of the jury. +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt sighed sympathetically in mock resignation. +</p> +<p> +"My dear sir," he began in icy tones, "when you had my client arrested +and charged with being a burglar, had you made any personal inquiry as +to the facts?" +</p> +<p> +"I didn't have him arrested!" protested the witness. +</p> +<p> +"You deny that you ordered Bibby to charge the defendant with burglary?" +roared Mr. Tutt. "Take care! You know there is such a crime as perjury, +do you not?" +</p> +<p> +"No—I mean yes," stuttered Mr. Hepplewhite abjectly. "That is, I've +heard about perjury—but the police attended to everything for me." +</p> +<p> +"Aha!" cried Mr. Tutt, snorting angrily like the war horse depicted in +the Book of Job. "The police 'attended' to my client for you, did they? +What do you mean—for you? Did you pay them for their little attention?" +</p> +<p> +"I always send them something on Christmas," said Mr. Hepplewhite. "Just +like the postmen." +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt looked significantly at the jury, while a titter ran round the +court room. +</p> +<p> +"Well," he continued with patient irony, "what we wish to know is +whether these friends of yours whom you so kindly remember at Christmas +dragged the helpless man away from your house, threw him into jail and +charged him with burglary by your authority?" +</p> +<p> +"I didn't think anything about it," asserted Hepplewhite "Really I +didn't. I assumed that they knew what to do under such circumstances. I +didn't suppose they needed any authority from me." +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt eyed sideways the twelve jurymen. +</p> +<p> +"Trying to get out of it, are you? Attempting to avoid responsibility? +Are you thinking of what your position will be if the defendant is +acquitted—with an action against you for one hundred thousand dollars?" +</p> +<p> +Ashamed, terrified, humiliated, Mr. Hepplewhite almost burst into tears. +He had suffered a complete moral disintegration—did not know where to +turn for help or sympathy. The whole world seemed to have risen against +him. He opened his mouth to reply, but the words would not come. He +looked appealingly at the judge, but the judge coldly ignored him. The +whole room seemed crowded with a multitude of leering eyes. Why had God +made him a rich man? Why was he compelled to suffer those terrible +indignities? He was not responsible for what had been done—why then, +was he being treated so abominably? +</p> +<p> +"I don't want this man punished!" he suddenly broke out in fervent +expostulation. "I have nothing against him. I don't believe he intended +to do any wrong. And I hope the jury will acquit him!" +</p> +<p> +"Oho!" whistled Mr. Tutt exultantly, while O'Brien gazed at Hepplewhite +in stupefaction. <i>Was</i> this a man? +</p> +<p> +"So you admit that the charge against my client is without foundation?" +insisted Mr. Tutt. +</p> +<p> +Hepplewhite nodded weakly. +</p> +<p> +"I don't know rightly what the charge is—but I don't think he meant any +harm," he faltered. +</p> +<p> +"Then why did you have the police put him under arrest and hale him +away?" challenged Mr. Tutt ferociously. +</p> +<p> +"I supposed they had to—if he came into my house," said Mr. +Hepplewhite. Then he added shamefacedly: "I know it sounds silly—but +frankly I did not know that I had anything to say in the matter. If your +client has been injured by my fault or mistake I will gladly reimburse +him as handsomely as you wish." +</p> +<p> +O'Brien gasped. Then he made a funnel of his hands and whispered toward +the bench: "Take it away, for heaven's sake!" +</p> +<p> +"That is all!" remarked Mr. Tutt with deep sarcasm, making an elaborate +bow in the direction of Mr. Hepplewhite. "Thank you for your excellent +intentions!" +</p> +<p> +A snicker followed Mr. Hepplewhite as he dragged himself back to his +seat among the spectators. +</p> +<p> +He felt as though he had passed through a clothes wringer. Dimly he +heard Mr. Tutt addressing the court. +</p> +<p> +"And I move, Your Honor," the lawyer was paying, "that you take the +counts for burglary in the first, second and third degrees away from the +jury on the ground that there has been a complete failure of proof that +my client broke into the house of this man Hepplewhite either by night +or by day, or that he assaulted anybody or stole anything there, or ever +intended to." +</p> +<p> +"Motion granted," agreed the judge. "I quite agree with you, Mr. Tutt. +There is no evidence here of any breaking. In fact, the inferences are +all the other way." +</p> +<p> +"I further move that you take from the consideration of the jury the +remaining count of illegally entering the house with intent to commit a +crime and direct the jury to acquit the defendant for lack of evidence," +continued Mr. Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"But what was your client doing in the house?" inquired the judge. "He +had no particular business in it, had he?" +</p> +<p> +"That does not make his presence a crime, Your Honor," retorted the +lawyer. "A man is not guilty of a felony who falls asleep on my haycock. +Why should he be if he falls asleep in my bed?" +</p> +<p> +The judge smiled. +</p> +<p> +"We have no illegal entry statute with respect to fields or meadows, Mr. +Tutt," he remarked good-naturedly. "No, I shall be obliged to let the +jury decide whether this defendant went into that house for an honest +or dishonest purpose. It is clearly a proper question for them to pass +upon. Proceed with your case." +</p> +<p> +Now when, as in the case of the Hepplewhite Tramp, the chief witness for +the prosecution throws up his hands and offers to repay the defendant +for the wrong he has done him, naturally it is all over but the +shouting. +</p> +<p> +"There is no need for me to call the defendant," Mr. Tutt told the +court, "in view of the admissions made by the last witness. I am ready +to proceed with the summing up." +</p> +<p> +"As you deem wise," answered the judge. "Proceed then." +</p> +<p> +Through a blur of sight and sound Mr. Hepplewhite dimly heard Mr. Tutt +addressing the jury and saw them lean forward to catch his every word. +</p> +<p> +Beside him Mr. Edgerton was saying protestingly: "May I ask why you made +those fool statements on the witness stand?" +</p> +<p> +"Because I didn't want an innocent man convicted," returned Mr. +Hepplewhite tartly. +</p> +<p> +"Well, you'll get your wish!" sniffed his lawyer. "And you'll get soaked +for about twenty thousand dollars for false arrest!" +</p> +<p> +"I don't care," retorted the client. "And what's more I hope Mr. Tutt +gets a substantial fee out of it. He strikes me as a lawyer who knows +his business!" +</p> +<p> +The oldest and fattest court officers, men so old and fat that they +remembered the trial of Boss Tweed and the days when Delancey Nicoll was +the White Hope of the Brownstone Court House—declared Mr. Tutt's +summation was the greatest that ever they heard. For the shrewd old +lawyer had an artist's hand with which he played upon the keyboard of +the jury and knew just when to pull out the stops of the <i>vox humana</i> of +pathos and the grand diapason of indignation and defiance. So he began +by tickling their sense of humor with an ironic description of afternoon +tea at Mr. Hepplewhite's, with Bibby and Stocking as chief actors, until +all twelve shook with suppressed laughter and the judge was forced to +hide his face behind the <i>Law Journal</i>; ridiculed the idea of a criminal +who wanted to commit a crime calmly going to sleep in a pink silk bed in +broad daylight; and then brought tears to their eyes as he pictured the +wretched homeless tramp, sick, footsore and starving, who, drawn by the +need of food and warmth to this silk nest of luxury, was clubbed, +arrested and jailed simply because he had violated the supposed sanctity +of a rich man's home. +</p> +<p> +The jury watched him as intently as a dog watches a piece of meat held +over its nose. They smiled with him, they wept with him, they glared at +Mr. Hepplewhite and they gazed in a friendly way at Schmidt, whom Mr. +Tutt had bailed out just before the trial. The very stars in their +courses seemed warring for Tutt & Tutt. In the words of Phelan: "There +was nothing to it!" +</p> +<p> +"Thank God," concluded Mr. Tutt eloquently, "that in this land of +liberty in which we are privileged to dwell no man can be convicted of a +crime except by a jury of his peers—a right sacred under our +Constitution and inherited from Magna Charta, that foundation stone of +English liberty, in which the barons forced King John to declare that +'No freeman shall be taken, or imprisoned, or disseized, or outlawed, or +exiled, or in any way harmed ... save by the lawful judgment of his +peers or by the law of the land.' +</p> +<p> +"Had I the time I would demonstrate to you the arbitrary character of +our laws and the inequality with which they are administered. +</p> +<p> +"But in this case the chief witness has already admitted the innocence +of the defendant. There is nothing more to be said. The prosecution has +cried '<i>Peccavi!</i>' I leave my client in your hands." +</p> +<p> +He resumed his seat contentedly and wiped his forehead with his silk +handkerchief. The judge looked down at O'Brien with raised eyebrows. +</p> +<p> +"I will leave the case to the jury on Your Honor's charge," remarked +the latter carelessly. +</p> +<p> +"Gentlemen of the jury," began the judge, "the defendant is accused of +entering the house of Mr. Hepplewhite with the intent to commit a crime +therein—" +</p> +<p> +Mr. Hepplewhite sat, his head upon his breast, for what seemed to him +several hours. He had but one thought—to escape. His ordeal had been +far worse than he had anticipated. But he had made a discovery. He had +suddenly realized that one cannot avoid one's duties to one's fellows by +leaving one's affairs to others—not even to the police. He perceived +that he had lived with his head stuck in the sand. He had tried to +escape from his responsibilities as a citizen by hiding behind the thick +walls of his stone mansion on Fifth Avenue. He made up his mind that he +would do differently if he ever had the chance. Meanwhile, was not the +jury ever going to set the poor man free? +</p> +<p> +They had indeed remained out a surprisingly long time in order merely to +reach a verdict which was a mere formality. Ah! There they were! Mr. +Hepplewhite watched with palpitating heart while they straggled slowly +in. The clerk made the ordinary perfunctory inquiry as to what their +verdict was. Mr. Hepplewhite did not hear what the foreman said in +reply, but he saw both the Tutts and O'Brien start from their seats and +heard a loud murmur rise throughout the court room. +</p> +<p> +"What's that!" cried the clerk in astonished tones. "What did you say, +Mister Foreman?" +</p> +<p> +"I said that we find the defendant guilty," replied the foreman calmly. +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt stared incredulously at the twelve traitors who had betrayed +him. +</p> +<p> +"Never mind, Mr. Tutt," whispered Number Six confidentially. "You did +the best you could. Your argument was fine—grand—but nobody could ever +make us believe that your client went into that house for any purpose +except to steal whatever he could lay his hands on. Besides, it wasn't +Mr. Hepplewhite's fault. He means well. And anyhow a nut like that has +got to be protected against himself." +</p> +<p> +He might have enlightened Mr. Tutt further upon the psychology of the +situation had not the judge at that moment ordered the prisoner +arraigned at the bar. +</p> +<p> +"Have you ever been convicted before?" asked His Honor sharply. +</p> +<p> +"Sure," replied the Hepplewhite Tramp carelessly. "I've done three or +four bits, I'm a burglar. But you can't give me more than a year for +illegal entry." +</p> +<p> +"That is quite true," admitted His Honor stiffly. "And it isn't half +enough!" He hesitated. "Perhaps under the circumstances you'll tell us +what you were doing in Mr. Hepplewhite's bed?" +</p> +<p> +"Oh, I don't mind," returned the defendant with the superior air of one +who has put something over. "When I heard the guy in the knee breeches +coming up the stairs I just dove for the slats and played I was asleep." +</p> +<p> +Leaving the courthouse Mr. Tutt encountered Bonnie Doon. +</p> +<p> +"Young man," he remarked severely, "you assured me that fellow was only +a harmless tramp!" +</p> +<p> +"Well," answered Bonnie, "that's what he said." +</p> +<p> +"He says now he's a burglar," retorted Mr. Tutt wrathfully. "I don't +believe he knows what he is. Did you ever hear of such an outrageous +verdict? With not a scrap of evidence to support it?" +</p> +<p> +Bonnie lit a cigarette doubtfully. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, I don't know," he muttered. "The jury seems to have sized him up +rather better than we did." +</p> +<p> +"Jury!" growled Mr. Tutt, rolling his eyes heavenward. "'Sweet land of +liberty!'" +</p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<a name="LALLAPALOOSA"><!-- LALLAPALOOSAMOCK --></a> +<h2> +Lallapaloosa Limited +</h2> +<p> </p> +<blockquote><p> +"Ethics: The doctrine of man's duty in respect to +himself and the rights of others."—CENTURY DICTIONARY. +</p></blockquote> +<blockquote><p> +"I don't say that all these people couldn't be squared; +but it is right to tell you that I shouldn't be sufficiently +degraded in my own estimation unless I was insulted +with a very considerable bribe."—POOH-BAH. +</p></blockquote> +<p> +"I've been all over those securities," Miss Wiggin informed Mr. Tutt as +he entered the office one morning, "and not a single one of them is +listed on the Stock Exchange." +</p> +<p> +"What securities are those?" asked her employer, hanging his tall hat on +the antiquated mahogany coat tree in the corner opposite the screen that +ambushed the washing apparatus. "I don't remember any securities," he +remarked as he applied a match to the off end of a particularly green +and vicious-looking stogy. +</p> +<p> +"Why, of course you do, Mr. Tutt!" insisted Miss Wiggin. "Don't you +remember those great piles of bonds and stocks that Doctor Barrows left +here with you to keep for him?" +</p> +<p> +"Oh, those!" Mr. Tutt smiled inscrutably. "Mr. Barrows is not a +physician," he corrected her, running his eye over the General Sessions +calendar. "He's only a 'doc'—that is to say, one who doctors. You know +you can doctor a lot of things besides the human anatomy. No, I guess +they're not listed on the Stock Exchange or anywhere else." +</p> +<p> +"Well, here's a schedule I made of them—Miss Sondheim typed it—and +their total face value is seventeen million eight hundred thousand +dollars. I tried to find out all I could, but none of the firms on Wall +Street had ever heard of any of them—excepting of one that was traded +in on the curb up to within a few weeks. There's Great Lakes and +Canadian Southern Railway Company," she went on, "Chicago Water Front +and Terminal Company, Great Geyser Texan Petroleum and Llano Estacado +Land Company—dozens and dozens of them, and not one has an office or, +so far as I can find out, any tangible existence—but the one I spoke +of." +</p> +<p> +"Which is this great exception?" queried Mr. Tutt absently as he +searched through the <i>Law Journal</i> for the case he was going to try that +afternoon. "You said one of them had been dealt in on the curb? You +astonish me!" +</p> +<p> +"It's got a funny name," she answered. "It almost sounds as if they +meant it for a joke—Horse's Neck Extension." +</p> +<p> +"I guess they meant it for a joke all right—on the public," chuckled +her employer. "How many shares are there?" +</p> +<p> +"A hundred thousand," she answered. +</p> +<p> +"Jumping Jehoshaphat!" ejaculated Mr. Tutt. "How on earth did old Doc +manage to get hold of them?" +</p> +<p> +"It sold for only ten cents a share!" replied Miss Wiggin. "That would +mean ten thousand dollars—" +</p> +<p> +"If Doc paid for it," supplemented Mr. Tutt. "Which he probably didn't. +What's it selling for now?" +</p> +<p> +"It isn't selling at all." +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt pressed the button that summoned Willie. +</p> +<p> +"When you haven't anything better to do," he said to her, "why don't you +go round and see what has become of—of—Horse's Neck Extension?" +</p> +<p> +"I will," assented Miss Wiggin. "It makes me feel rich just to talk +about such things. I just love it." +</p> +<p> +"Many a slick crook has taken advantage of just that kind of feeling," +mused Mr. Tutt. "There are two things that women—particularly trained +nurses—seem to like better than anything else in the world—babies and +stock certificates." +</p> +<p> +Then upon the arrival of the recalcitrant William he gathered up his +papers and took down his hat from the tree. +</p> +<p> +"I wish you'd let me get your hat ironed, Mr. Tutt," remarked Miss +Wiggin. "It would cost you only fifty cents." +</p> +<p> +"That's all you know about it, my dear," he answered. "More likely it +would cost me a hundred thousand dollars." +</p> +<hr> +<p> +Mr. Tobias Greenbaum, of Scherer, Hunn, Greenbaum & Beck, carefully +placed his cigar where it would not char his Italian Renaissance desk +and smoothed out the list which Mr. Elderberry, the secretary of The +Horse's Neck Extension Copper Mining Company, handed to him. The list +was typed on thin sheets; of foolscap and contained the names of +stockholders, but as it had lain rolled up in the bottom of Mr. +Elderberry's desk for five years without being disturbed it was inclined +to resist the gentle pressure of Mr. Greenbaum's fingers. +</p> +<p> +Mr. Greenbaum glanced sharply round the plate-glass lake that separated +him from the other directors of Horse's Neck, rather as if he had +detected his associates in a crime. +</p> +<p> +"Isaacs says," he announced in an arrogant, almost insulting tone, +though below the surface he was an entirely genial person, "that the new +vein in the Amphalula runs into the west drift of Horse's Neck almost to +where we quit work in Number Nine five years ago." +</p> +<p> +"If it does it will make it a bonanza property," emphatically declared +his partner, Mr. Scherer, a dolichocephalous person with very black hair +and thin bluish cheeks. "It's a pity we didn't buy it all in at ten +cents a share." +</p> +<p> +"We did!" retorted Greenbaum. "All that could be shaken out. We've got +all the stock that hasn't gravitated to the cemeteries." +</p> +<p> +"Even if the Amphalula vein doesn't run into it it will come near enough +to make Horse's Neck worth dollars per share. It's a +heads-I-win-tails-you-lose proposition," commented Mr. Hunn dryly. "Who +controls Amphalula?" +</p> +<p> +"We do," snapped Greenbaum. +</p> +<p> +"Then it's a cinch," returned Hunn mildly. "Shake out the sleepers, +reorganize, and sell or hold as seems most advisable later on." +</p> +<p> +Mr. Elderberry cleared his throat tentatively. +</p> +<p> +"If you gentlemen will pardon me—I have been considering this matter +for some little time," he hazarded. Mr. Elderberry was not only the +professional salaried secretary of Horse's Neck but was also treasurer +of the Amphalula, and general factotum, representative and interlocking +director for Scherer, Hunn, Greenbaum & Beck in their various mining +enterprises, combining in his person almost as many offices as, Pooh-Bah +in "The Mikado." Though he could not have claimed to serve as "First +Lord of the Treasury, Lord Chief Justice, Commander-in-Chief, Lord High +Admiral, Master of the Buck Hounds, Groom of the Back Stairs, Archbishop +of Titipu and Lord Mayor, both acting and elect, all rolled into one," +he could with entire modesty have admitted the soft impeachment of being +simultaneously treasurer of Amphalula, vice-president of Hooligan Gulch +and Red Water, secretary of Horse's Neck, Holy Jo, Gargoyle Extension, +Cowhide Number Five, Consolidated Bimetallic, Nevada Mastodon, Leaping +Frog, Orelady Mine, Why Marry and Sol's Cliff Buttress, and president of +Blimp Consolidated. +</p> +<p> +All these various properties were either owned or controlled by Scherer, +Hunn, Greenbaum & Beck and had been acquired with the use of the same +original capital in various entirely legal ways, which at the present +moment are irrelevant. The firm was a strictly honorable business house, +from both their own point of view and that of the Street. Everything +they did was with and by the advice of counsel. Yet not one of these +active-minded gentlemen, including Mr. Greenbaum, the dolichocephalous +Scherer and the acephalous Hunn, had ever done a stroke of productive +work or contributed anything toward the common weal. In fact, distress +to somebody in some form, and usually to a large number of persons, +inevitably followed whatever deal they undertook, since their business +was speculating in mining properties and unloading the bad ones upon an +unsuspecting public which Scherer, Hunn, Greenbaum & Beck had permitted +to deceive itself. +</p> +<p> +Thus, when Greenbaum called upon Mr. Elderberry for advice, it savored +strongly of Koko's consulting Pooh-Bah and was sometimes almost as +confusing, for just as Pooh-Bah on these occasions was won't to reply, +"Certainly. In which of my capacities? As First Lord of the Treasury, +Lord Chamberlain, Attorney-General, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Privy +Purse or Private Secretary?" so the financial and corporate Elderberry +might equally well ask: "Exactly. But are you seeking my advice as +secretary of Horse's Neck, of Holy Jo, of Cowhide Number Five, or as +vice-president of Hooligan Gulch and Red Water, treasurer of Amphalula +or president of Blimp Consolidated?" +</p> +<p> +Just now it was, of course, obvious that he was addressing the company +in his capacity of secretary of Horse's Neck. +</p> +<p> +"It goes without saying, gentlemen, that this property is pretty nearly +down and out. You will recall that most of the insiders sold out on the +tail of the Goldfield Boom and waited for the market to sag until we +could buy in again. The mines are full of water, work was abandoned over +four years ago, and the property is practically defunct. The original +capitalization was ten million shares at one dollar a share. We own or +control at least four million shares, for which we paid ten to fifteen +cents, while we had sold our original holdings for one dollar sixty to +one dollar ninety-five a share. While Horse's Neck represents a handsome +profit—in my opinion"—he cleared his throat again as if deprecating +the vulgarity of his phrase—"it is good for another whirl." +</p> +<p> +"You say it's full of water?" inquired Hunn. +</p> +<p> +"It will cost about fifty thousand dollars to pump out the mines and a +hundred thousand to repair the machinery. Then there's quite an +indebtedness—about seventy-five thousand; and tax liens—another fifty. +Half a million dollars would put Horse's Neck on the map, and if the +Amphalula vein crosses the property it will be worth ten millions. If it +doesn't, the chance that it is going to will make a market for the +stock." +</p> +<p> +Mr. Elderberry swept with a bland inquiring eye the shore of the glassy +sea about which his associates were gathered. +</p> +<p> +"I've been over the ground," announced Greenbaum "and it's a good +gamble. We want Horse's Neck for ourselves—at any rate until we are +confident that it's a real lemon. Half a million will do it. I'll +personally put up a hundred thousand." +</p> +<p> +"How are you going to get rid of the fifty thousand other stockholders?" +asked Mr. Beck dubiously "We don't want them trailing along with us." +</p> +<p> +"I propose," answered Mr. Elderberry brightly, in his capacity as chief +conspirator for Scherer, Hunn, <i>et al.</i>, "that we organize a new +corporation to be called 'Lallapaloosa Limited' and capitalize it at a +million dollars—one million shares at a dollar a share. Then we will +execute a contract between Horse's Neck and Lallapaloosa by the terms of +which the old bankrupt corporation will sell to the new corporation all +its assets for one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars. We +underwrite the stock of Lallapaloosa at fifty cents a share, thus +supplying the new corporation with the funds with which to purchase the +properties of the old. In a word we shall get Horse's Neck for a hundred +and twenty-five thousand and have three hundred and seventy-five +thousand left out of what we subscribe to underwrite the stock to put +it on its feet." +</p> +<p> +"That's all right," debated Hunn. "But how about the other stockholders +in Horse's Neck that Beck referred to? Where do they come in?" +</p> +<p> +"I've thought of that," returned Elderberry. "Of course you can't just +squeeze 'em out entirely. That wouldn't be legal. They must be given the +chance to subscribe at par to the stock of the new corporation on the +basis of one share in the new for every ten they hold in the old; or, as +Horse's Neck is a Delaware corporation, to have their old stock +appraised under the laws of Delaware. In point of fact, they've all +written off their holdings in Horse's Neck as a total loss years ago and +you couldn't drag 'em into putting in any new money. They'll simply let +it go—forfeit their stock in Horse's Neck and be wiped out because they +were not willing to go in and reorganize the property with us." +</p> +<p> +"They would if they knew about Amphalula," remarked Beck. +</p> +<p> +"Well, they don't!" snapped Greenbaum, "and we're under no obligations +to tell 'em. They can infer what they like from the fact that Horse's +Neck has been selling for ten cents a share for the last three years." +</p> +<p> +"Is that right, Chippingham?" inquired Beck of the attorney who was in +attendance. "I mean—is it legal?" +</p> +<p> +"Perfectly legal," replied Mr. Chippingham conclusively. "A corporation +has a perfect right to dispose of its entire assets for a proper +consideration and if any minority stockholder feels aggrieved he can +take the matter to the Delaware courts and get his equity assessed. +Besides, everybody is treated alike—all the stockholders in Horse's +Neck can subscribe pro rata for Lallapaloosa." +</p> +<p> +"Only they won't," grinned Scherer. +</p> +<p> +"And so, as they are wiped out—the new corporation—that is us—in fact +gets their equity, just as much as if they had deeded it to us." +</p> +<p> +"That is, we get for nothing about one-half the value of the property," +agreed Elderberry. "Now, I've been over the list and I don't think +you'll hear a peep from any of them." +</p> +<pre> + "He's got 'em on the list—he's got 'em on the list; + And they'll none of 'em be missed—they'll none of 'em be missed!" +</pre> +<p> +hummed Mr. Beck. "It looks good to me! I'll take a hundred thousand." +</p> +<p> +"Mr. Chippingham has the papers drawn already," continued Elderberry. +"Of course you've got to give the old stockholders notice, but we can +rush the thing through and before anybody wakes up the thing will be +done. Then they can holler all they want." +</p> +<p> +"Well, I'll come in," announced Hunn complacently. +</p> +<p> +"So will I," echoed Scherer. "And the firm can underwrite the last +hundred thousand, and that will clean it up." +</p> +<p> +"Is it all right for us to underwrite the stock ourselves at half +price?" inquired Mr. Beck. "I mean—is it legal?" +</p> +<p> +"Sure!" reiterated Mr. Chippingham. "Somebody's got to underwrite it; +why not us?" +</p> +<p> +"Move we adjourn," said Mr. Greenbaum. "Elderberry—the usual." +</p> +<p> +Mr. Elderberry removed from his change pocket five glittering gold +pieces and slid one across the glass sheet to each director. +</p> +<p> +"Second motion. Carried! All up—seventh inning!" smiled Mr. Scherer; +and the directors, pocketing their gold pieces, arose. +</p> +<p> +If, as it has been defined, ethics consists of a "system of principles +and rules concerning moral obligations and regard for the rights of +others," it may be interesting to speculate as to whether or not these +gentlemen had any or not, and, if so, what it may have been. But in +considering this somewhat nice question it should be borne in mind that +Messrs. Scherer, Hunn, Greenbaum & Beck were bankers of standing, and +were advised by a firm of attorneys of the highest reputation. On its +face, and as it was about to be represented to the stockholders of +Horse's Neck, the proposition appeared fair enough. +</p> +<p> +The circular, shortly after sent out to all the names upon the list, +stated succinctly that financial and labor conditions had been such that +it had been found impossible to operate the mine profitably for several +years, that it had depreciated greatly in value owing to the water which +had accumulated in its lower levels, that it had exhausted its surplus, +that a heavy indebtedness had accumulated, that the corporation's +outstanding notes had been protested and that the property would be sold +under foreclosure unless money was immediately raised to pay them, the +interest due and taxes; that half a million dollars was needed to put +the property in operation and that there was no way to secure it, as +nobody was willing to loan money to a bankrupt mining concern. That +under these circumstances no practical method had been proposed except +to organize a new corporation capitalized at one million instead of ten, +to the stock of which each shareholder in Horse's Neck might subscribe +in proportion to his holdings, at par, and to which the assets of the +old corporation should be transferred practically for its debts. That +this, in a word, was the only way to save the situation and possibly +make a go of a bad business, and that it was a gamble in which the old +stockholders had a right, up to a certain date, to participate if they +saw fit. Those that did not would find their stock in Horse's Neck +entirely valueless as it would have no assets left which had not been +transferred to Lallapaloosa. Stockholders who were dissatisfied could +protest against the enabling resolution to be offered at the annual +meeting of the stockholders of Horse's Neck to be held the following +week at Wilmington, Delaware, and could avail themselves of the right to +have their equity assessed under the laws of Delaware, but as the +liabilities practically equaled the present value of the property that +equity would naturally be highly problematical. +</p> +<p> +Now, as a matter of morals or of law the only thing that made the +proposed reorganization unethical or inequitable was the single trifling +fact that those responsible for it were the only ones who knew of the +existence and proximity of the Amphalula vein. When a mining company, a +railroad, an oil well or any other enterprise is down and out it is only +fair that the majority stockholders, who are obliged to protect their +investment, should have the right to call upon the rest to come forward +and do their share or else drop out. A minority stockholder cannot +appeal to any canon of fair play whereby he should be entitled to sit +back and let the majority take all the risks and then claim his share of +the profits. +</p> +<p> +The imponderable element of injustice in the situation consisted in the +suppression of a fact which the directors concealed but concerning +which, however, they made no representation, false or otherwise. They +were going to risk half a million dollars of their own money and they +wanted the whole gamble for themselves. They sincerely felt that nobody +else was entitled to take that risk with them. Once they had floated +Horse's Neck they had come to look upon it as their own private affair. +The minority had no rights which they, the majority, were bound to +respect. The minority were nothing but a lot of piking gamblers, anyway, +who bought or sold for a rise or fall of a few cents. They knew nothing +of the property and cared less for its real value. They were merely +traders and if they lost they forgot it or tried to. On the other hand +Scherer, Hunn, Greenbaum & Beck were promoters, who contributed +something to the economic advancement of the nation. +</p> +<hr> +<p> +"Regarding my hat, which you suggested this morning should be pressed at +a cost of fifty cents," remarked Mr. Tutt to Miss Wiggin when he +returned to the office upon the adjournment of court in the afternoon +and replaced that ancient object in its accustomed +resting-place—"regarding that precious hat of mine"—he eyed it +affectionately—"I can only say that I would as soon send myself to a +dry-cleaning establishment as to permit its profanation by the iron of a +haberdasher." +</p> +<p> +Miss Wiggin laughed lightly. +</p> +<p> +"That doesn't explain your cryptic statement that it would probably cost +you a hundred thousand dollars," she replied. "Still—" +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt turned suddenly upon his heel and held her with an upraised +hand, the bony wrist of which was encircled, after an intervening space +of some five inches, by a frayed cuff confined with a black onyx button +the size of a quarter. +</p> +<p> +"Behold," he cried in the deep resonant voice that he used in addressing +juries at the climax of a peroration, "the integuments of my +personality—the ancient habiliments of an honorable profession—the +panoply of the legal warrior. Here, my corslet"—he touched his dingy +waistcoat with his left hand; "my greaves"—he brushed the baggy legs of +his pantaloons; "my halberd"—he raised his old mahogany cane with its +knot of yellow ivory; "my casque"—he indicated his ruffled stove-pipe +"Arrayed in these I am Mr. Ephraim Tutt, attorney and counselor at +law—the senior partner in Tutt & Tutt—a respected member of the bar +duly accredited and authorized to practise before the Supreme Court of +the State of New York, the Court of Appeals, the District Court of the +United States, the Circuit Court of Appeals, the Supreme Court of the +United States, the Court of Claims—" +</p> +<p> +"—the Police Court and the Coroner's Court," concluded Miss Wiggin, +making him a mock curtsy. +</p> +<p> +"Without these indicia of my profession and my individuality I should be +like David without his sling or Samson without his hair. I should be +merely Tutt, a criminal lawyer—one of a multitude—regarded perhaps as +a shyster. But in these robes of my high office I am a high priest of +the law; just as you, my dear girl, are one of its many devoted and +worthy priestesses. Can you imagine me going to court in a bowler hat or +arguing to the jury in a cutaway coat or bobtail business suit? Can you +picture Ephraim Tutt with his hair cut short or in an Ascot tie, any +more than you can envisage him in riding breeches or wearing lilacs? No! +There is but one Mr. Tutt, and these are his only garments. He who +steals my hat may steal trash, but without it I should be like a +disembodied spirit unable to return to my earthly dwelling-place. +</p> +<p> +"A paltry hundred thousand? +</p> +<p> +"Nay, without my hat—my helmet!—I should be valueless to myself and +everybody else; so estimate my worth and you can assay the value of my +hat. What am I worth in your opinion?" +</p> +<p> +And then Miss Wiggin, having glanced cautiously if quickly round, made a +most astonishing declaration. +</p> +<p> +"Just about a million times more than anybody else in the whole world, +you old dear!" she whispered and rising upon her toes she kissed his +wrinkled cheek. +</p> +<p> +"Dear me! You really mustn't do that!" gasped Mr. Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"Well," she retorted, "you can discharge me if you like. But first sit +down, light a cigar and let me tell you something." +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt did as he was bid, chuckling. +</p> +<p> +"Well," said Miss Wiggin, "there is such a thing as Horse's Neck +Extension after all!" +</p> +<p> +"Um—you don't say?" he answered, struggling to make his stogy draw. +</p> +<p> +"And it has an office with about a hundred other corporations of various +kinds—most of them with names that sound like the zoo—Yellow Wildcat, +Jumping Leapfrog, and that sort of thing. It seems Horse's Neck is +played out and they are going to reorganize it—" +</p> +<p> +"Who are?" demanded her employer, suddenly sitting erect. +</p> +<p> +"Scherer, Hunn, Greenbaum & Beck." +</p> +<p> +"The dickens they are!" he ejaculated. "That bunch of pirates? Not if I +know it!" +</p> +<p> +"Why not?" +</p> +<p> +"Reorganize! Reorganize? Reorganization is my middle name!" cried Mr. +Tutt. "So Scherer, Hunn, Greenbaum & Beck are going to reorganize +something, are they? Let 'em try! Not so long as I've got my hat!" +</p> +<p> +"This is all very enigmatical to me," replied Miss Wiggin. "But then, +I'm only a woman. Aren't they all right? Why shouldn't they reorganize a +mine if it's exhausted?" +</p> +<p> +"If it's exhausted why do they want to reorganize it?" he demanded, +climbing to his feet. "Let me tell you something, Minerva! All my life +I've been fighting against tyranny—the tyranny of the law, the tyranny +of power, the tyranny of money." +</p> +<p> +He drew fiercely on his stogy, which being desiccated flared like a +Roman candle. +</p> +<p> +"You don't need to tell me what this plan of reorganization is; because +they wouldn't propose one unless it was going to benefit them in some +way, and the only way it can be made to benefit them is at the expense +of the other stockholders. <i>Quod erat demonstrandum</i>." +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt seemed to have become distended somehow and to have spread over +the entire wall surface of his office like the genie which the +fisherman innocently permitted to escape from the bottle. +</p> +<p> +"There isn't one reorganization scheme in a hundred that isn't crooked +somewhere." +</p> +<p> +"According to that, if a business is unsuccessful it ought to be allowed +to go to pot for fear that somebody might make a profit in putting it on +its feet," she countered. "I think you're a violent, irascible, +prejudiced old man!" +</p> +<p> +"All the same," he retorted, "show me a reorganization scheme and I'll +show you a flimflam! What's this one? Bet you anything you like it's as +crooked as a ram's horn. I don't have to hear about it. Don't want to +read the plan. But I'll bust it—higher than Hades. See if I don't!" +</p> +<p> +He spat the remaining filaments of his stogy from the window and fished +out another. +</p> +<p> +"How do we come into it, anyhow?" he demanded. +</p> +<p> +"Doctor—I mean Mister Barrows," replied Miss Wiggin. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, yes. Of course. Well, you send for him to come down here and sign +the papers." +</p> +<p> +"What papers?" +</p> +<p> +"The complaint and order to show cause." +</p> +<p> +"But there isn't any." +</p> +<p> +"There will be, all right, by the time he gets here." +</p> +<p> +Miss Wiggin looked first puzzled and then pained. +</p> +<p> +"I don't understand," she said rather stiffly. "Do you mean that the +firm of Tutt & Tutt is going to engage in the enterprise of trying to +break up a plan of reorganization without knowing what it is? Won't you +lay us all open to the accusation of being strikers?" +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt's ordinarily brown complexion became slightly tinged with +purple. +</p> +<p> +"Let the court decide!" he cried hotly. "You say Scherer, Hunn, +Greenbaum & Beck are proposing to reorganize a mining company? You admit +we hold some of the stock? Well—as the natural-born and perennial +champion of the outraged minority—I'm going to attack it, and bust it, +and raise heck with it—on general principles. I'm going to throw that +damned old hat of mine into the ring, my child, and play hell with +everything." +</p> +<p> +And with a cluck Mr. Tutt leaned over, produced a dingy bottle wrapped +in a coat of many colors and poured himself out a glass of malt extract. +</p> +<hr> +<p> +When Mr. Greenbaum was summoned to the telephone and informed by Mr. +Elderberry in disgruntled tones that somebody had just served upon him +an order to show cause why the proposed reorganization of Horse's Neck +should not be set aside and enjoined, he not only became instantly +annoyed but highly excited. +</p> +<p> +"What!" he almost screamed. +</p> +<p> +"I'll read it to you, if you don't believe it!" said Mr. Elderberry. +</p> +<p> +"'United States District Court, Southern District of New York, Edward V. +Barrows, Complainant against Horse's Neck Extension Mining Company, +Defendant. +</p> +<p> +"'Upon the subpoena herein and the complaint duly verified the +nineteenth day of February, 1919, and the affidavit of Ephraim Tutt +and—'" +</p> +<p> +"Who in hell is Tutt?" shouted Greenbaum, interrupting. +</p> +<p> +"I don't know," retorted Elderberry; "or Barrows either." +</p> +<p> +"Well, skip all the legal rot and get to the point," directed Greenbaum. +</p> +<p> +"'Ordered—ordered, that the defendant, Horse's Neck Extension Mining +Company, show cause at a stated term to be held in and for—'" +</p> +<p> +"I said to cut the legal rot!" +</p> +<p> +"Um—um—'why an injunction order should not be issued herein pending +the trial of this action and enjoining the defendant from disposing of +its assets and for the appointment of a receiver of the assets of the +defendant corporation; and why the complainant should not have such +other, further and different relief as may be equitable.'" +</p> +<p> +There was a long pause during which Mr. Elderberry was under a +convincing delusion that he could actually hear the thoughts that were +rattling round in Mr. Greenbaum's brain. +</p> +<p> +"You there?" he inquired presently. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, yes, I'm here!" retorted Greenbaum. "This is the devil of a note! +Have you spoken to Chippingham?" +</p> +<p> +"Yes." +</p> +<p> +"What does he say?" +</p> +<p> +"He says it's awkward. They have got hold somewhere of one of our old +circulars of 1914 in which the property is described as worth about ten +million dollars—that was during the boom, you remember—and they claim +we are selling it to ourselves for less than one million and that on its +face it's a fraud on the minority stockholders who can't afford to buy +stock in the new corporation—as of course it would be if the mine was +really worth ten million or anything like it." +</p> +<p> +"Did we really ever get out any circular like that?" demanded Greenbaum +in a protesting voice. "I don't recall any." +</p> +<p> +"That was when we were making a market for the stock," Elderberry +reminded him. "We couldn't say enough. Honestly, to look at the thing +now is enough to make you sick!" +</p> +<p> +"Well, it's just a hold-up—that's what it is. Some crook like this +Tutt or this Barrows has found out about Amphalula and is bringing a +strike suit. You'll have to call a meeting right away. I'd like to +strangle all these shyster lawyers!" +</p> +<p> +And it never occurred to Mr. Greenbaum that the possible existence of +the Amphalula vein was what in fact made the order to show cause +justifiable—his actual ground of complaint being that anybody should, +as he assumed, have found out about it in defiance of his plans. +</p> +<hr> +<p> +"Yeronner," said Attendant Mike Horan as he helped Judge Pollak into his +black bombazine gown in his chambers in the old Post-Office Building on +the morning of the return day, "there's a great bunch out there in the +court room waitin' for ye, an' no mistake!" +</p> +<p> +"Indeed!" remarked His Honor. "And who are they? What is the case?" +</p> +<p> +"Hanged if I know," answered Mike, snipping a piece of fluff off his +judgeship's shoulder. "There's a white-bearded old guy, two or three +swell gents with tall hats, Counselor Tutt and an attorney named +Chippingham, besides that pretty Miss Wiggin; and they ain't speakin' +none to one another, neither." +</p> +<p> +"It must be that mining-reorganization case," answered the judge. "Well, +it's time to go in." +</p> +<p> +They walked down the dirty marble corridor and entered the court room, +while the clerk rapped on the railing. +</p> +<p> +"Hear ye! Hear ye! Hear ye! All persons having any business to do with +the District Court of the United States draw near, give your attention +and you will be heard," he intoned with unctuous authority. +</p> +<p> +The "bunch" rose and made obeisance. +</p> +<p> +"Good morning," said the judge pleasantly, sitting down with a side +switch of the bombazine. "Barrows against the—er—er—Horse's Neck +Mining Company. Do you represent the complainant, Mr. Tutt?" +</p> +<p> +"I do," answered Mr. Tutt with great dignity. "Your Honor, this is a +motion for an order to show cause why an injunction <i>pendente lite</i> +should not issue restraining the sale of the assets, of this corporation +to another in fraud of its minority stockholders—and for a receiver. My +client, an aged man living upon his farm in the northern part of the +state, is the owner of one hundred thousand shares in the Horse's Neck +Mining Company of the par value of one hundred thousand dollars. He has +owned these securities for many years. They represent his entire +capital. He is a bona fide stockholder—" +</p> +<p> +"May I be pardoned for interrupting?" sneered Chippingham, springing to +his feet. "I think the court should be informed at the outset that this +man, Barrows, is a notorious ex-convict." +</p> +<p> +Judge Pollak raised his eyebrows. +</p> +<p> +"This is an outrage!" thundered Mr. Tutt, his form rising ceilingward. +"My client—like all of us—has had his misfortunes, but they are +happily a thing of the past; he has the same rights as if he were an +archbishop, the president of a university or—a judge of this honorable +court." +</p> +<p> +"We are sitting in equity," remarked His Honor. "The question of <i>bona +fides</i> is a vital one. <i>Is</i> the complainant an ex-convict?" +</p> +<p> +"This is the complainant, sir," cried Mr. Tutt, indicating old Doc, now +for the first time in his life smartly arrayed in a new checked suit, +red tie, patent-leather shoes and suède gloves, and with his beard +neatly trimmed. "This is the unfortunate man whose honest savings of a +lifetime are being wrested from him by an unscrupulous group of +manipulators who—in my opinion—are more deserving of confinement +behind prison walls than he ever was." +</p> +<p> +The gentlemen with the tall hats bit their lips and showed signs of +poorly suppressed agitation. +</p> +<p> +"But <i>is</i> your client an ex-convict, Mr. Tutt?" repeated the judge +quietly. +</p> +<p> +"Yes, Your Honor, he is." +</p> +<p> +"When and how did he become possessed of his stock?" +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt turned to Doc with an air of ineffectually striving to master +his righteous indignation. +</p> +<p> +"Tell the court, Mr. Barrows," he cried, "in your own words." +</p> +<p> +Doc Barrows wonderingly rose. +</p> +<p> +"If you please, sir," he began, "it's quite a long story. You see, I was +the owner of all the stock of The Chicago Water Front and Terminal +Company—there was a flaw in the title deed which I can explain to you +privately if you wish—and when I was—er—visiting—up on the Hudson—I +met a man there who was the owner of a hundred thousand shares of +Horse's Neck, and we agreed to exchange." +</p> +<p> +The judge tried to hide a slight smile. +</p> +<p> +"I see," he replied pleasantly. "And what was the man's name?" +</p> +<p> +"Oscar Bloom, sir." +</p> +<p> +The gentlemen with the tall hats exchanged agitated glances. +</p> +<p> +"Do you know how he got his stock?" +</p> +<p> +"No, sir." +</p> +<p> +"That is all. Go on, Mr. Tutt." +</p> +<p> +Doc sat down while Mr. Tutt again unhooked his lank form. +</p> +<p> +"To resume where I was interrupted, Your Honor, the directors +controlling a majority of the stock of this corporation, the capital of +which is ten millions of dollars, have made a contract to sell all of +its properties to another corporation, organized by themselves and +capitalized for one million, for the sum of one hundred and twenty-five +thousand dollars! +</p> +<p> +"It is true that in their plan of reorganization they offer to permit +any stockholder in the old corporation to subscribe for stock in the new +at par—thus at first glance placing all upon what seems to be an +equality; but any stockholder who does not see fit to subscribe or +cannot afford to do so is wiped out, for there will be nothing left in +the way of assets in Horse's Neck after the transfer is completed. +</p> +<p> +"Now these gentlemen have underwritten the stock in the new Lallapaloosa +Company at fifty cents upon the dollar, and if this nefarious deal is +permitted to go through they will thus acquire a property worth ten +millions for five hundred thousand dollars, of which they will use only +one hundred and twenty-five thousand in payment of old indebtedness. In +effect, they confiscate the equity of all the minority stockholders in +Horse's Neck who cannot afford to subscribe for stock in Lallapaloosa." +He turned upon the uncomfortable tall hats with an arraigning eye. +</p> +<p> +"In the criminal courts, Your Honor, such a conspiracy would be +properly described as grand larceny; in Wall Street perchance it may be +viewed as high finance. But so long as there are courts of equity such a +wrong upon a helpless stockholder will not go unrebuked. Have I made +myself clear to Your Honor?" +</p> +<p> +Judge Pollak looked interested. He was a man famous for his protection +of helpless minorities and his court had been selected by Mr. Tutt on +this account. +</p> +<p> +"If the facts are as you state them, Mr. Tutt," he answered seriously, +"the plan on its face would seem to be inequitable. If the property is +worth ten million the consideration is palpably inadequate. Your +client's equity, worth on that basis at least one hundred thousand +dollars, would be entirely destroyed without any redress." +</p> +<p> +"Your Honor," burst out Mr. Chippingham, whose bald head had been +bobbing about in excited contiguity with the tall hats, "this is a most +misleading statement. The assets of Horse's Neck aren't worth a hundred +thousand dollars. And if any of the minority don't want to come into the +reorganization—and I assure Your Honor that we would welcome their +participation—they can have their equity appraised under the laws of +Delaware and the finding becomes a lien on the assets even after they +have been transferred." +</p> +<p> +"What relief does that give a man like Mr. Barrows?" shouted Mr. Tutt. +"He can't afford to go down to Wilmington with a carload of books and a +corps of experts to prove the value of Horse's Neck. It would cost him +more than his stock is worth!" +</p> +<p> +"That remedy is not exclusive, in any event," declared the judge. "If +this complainant is going to be defrauded I will enjoin this contract +<i>pendente lite</i> and appoint a receiver." +</p> +<p> +"Your Honor!" protested Chippingham in great agony. "It is not the fact +that this mine is worth ten million. It isn't worth at the most more +than one hundred thousand. It is, full of water, the machinery is rusted +and falling to pieces and the workings are practically exhausted. The +only way to rehabilitate this property is for everybody to come in and +put up enough money by subscribing to the stock of the new corporation +to pump it out, buy new engines and start producing again. Is it fair to +the majority, who are willing to go on, put up more money, and make an +attempt to save the property, to have this complainant—an ex-convict +who never paid a cent for his stock, dug up from heaven knows +where—enjoin their contract and throw the corporation into the hands of +a receiver? This is nothing but a strike suit. I repeat—a strike suit!" +</p> +<p> +He glowered breathless at his adversary. +</p> +<p> +"Oh! Oh!" groaned Mr. Tutt in horrified tones. +</p> +<p> +"Gentlemen! Gentlemen!" expostulated the court. "This will not do!" +</p> +<p> +"I beg pardon—of the court," stammered Mr. Chippingham. +</p> +<p> +"Your Honor," mourned Mr. Tutt, "I have practised here for thirty years +and this is the first time I have ever been insulted in open court. A +strike suit? I hold in my hand"—he waved it threateningly at the tall +hats—"a circular issued by these directors less than five years ago, in +which they give the itemized value of this property as ten million +dollars. Shortly after that circular was issued the stock sold in the +open market at one dollar and ninety cents a share. In two years it sank +to ten cents a share. Will a little water, a little rust, a little +trouble with labor reduce the value of a great property like this from +ten millions of dollars to one hundred thousand—one per cent of its +appraised value? Either"—he fixed Chippingham with an exultant and +terrifying glance—"they were lying then or they are lying now!" +</p> +<p> +"Let me look at that circular," directed Judge Pollak. He took it from +Mr. Tutt's eager hand, glanced through it and turned sharply upon the +quaking Chippingham. +</p> +<p> +"How long have you been attorney for Scherer, Hunn, Greenbaum & Beck?" +</p> +<p> +"Twelve years, Your Honor." +</p> +<p> +"Who is Wilson W. Elderberry?" +</p> +<p> +"He is the secretary of the Horse's Neck Extension, Your Honor." +</p> +<p> +"Is he in court?" +</p> +<p> +From a distant corner Mr. Elderberry bashfully rose. +</p> +<p> +"Come here!" ordered the court. And the Pooh-Bah of the +Scherer-Hunn-Greenbaum-Beck enterprises came cringing to the bar. +</p> +<p> +"Did you sign this circular in 1914?" demanded Judge Pollak. +</p> +<p> +"Yes, Your Honor." +</p> +<p> +"Were the statements contained in it true?" +</p> +<p> +Elderberry squirmed. +</p> +<p> +"Ye-es, Your Honor. That is—they were to the best of my knowledge and +belief. I was, of course, obliged to take what information was at +hand—and—er—and—" +</p> +<p> +"Did you sign the other circular, issued last month, to the effect that +the mine was practically valueless?" +</p> +<p> +"Yes, sir." Elderberry studiously examined the moldings on the cornice +of the judge's canopy. +</p> +<p> +"Um!" remarked the court significantly. +</p> +<p> +There was a flurry among the tall hats. Then Mr. Greenbaum sprang to his +feet. +</p> +<p> +"If you please, Your Honor," he announced, staccato, "we entirely +disavow Mr. Elderberry's circular of 1914. It was issued without our +knowledge or authority. It is no evidence that the mine was worth ten +millions or any other amount at that time." +</p> +<p> +"Oh! Oh!" choked Mr. Tutt, while Miss Wiggin giggled delightedly into +her brief case. +</p> +<p> +Judge Pollak bent upon Mr. Greenbaum a withering glance. +</p> +<p> +"Did your firm sell any of its holdings in Horse's Neck after the +issuance of that circular?" +</p> +<p> +Greenbaum hesitated. He would have liked to wring that judge's neck. +</p> +<p> +"Why—how do I know? We may have." +</p> +<p> +"<i>Did</i> you?" +</p> +<p> +"Say 'yes,' for God's sake," hissed Chippingham "or you'll land in the +pen!" +</p> +<p> +"I am informed that we did," answered Greenbaum defiantly. "That is, I +don't <i>say</i> we did. Very likely we did. Our books would show. But I +repeat—we disavow this circular and we deny any responsibility for this +man, Elderberry." +</p> +<p> +This man, Elderberry, who for twelve long years had writhed under the +biting lash of his employer's tongue, hating him with a hatred known +only to those in subordinate positions who are bribed to suffer the +"whips and scorns of time, the oppressor's wrong, the proud man's +contumely," quivered and saw red. He was going to be made the goat! +They expected him to take all the responsibility and give them a clean +slate! The nerve of it! To hell with them! Suddenly he began to cry, +shockingly, with deep stertorous suspirations. +</p> +<p> +"No—you won't!" he hiccuped. "You shan't lay the blame on me! I'll tell +the truth, I will! I won't stand for it! Your Honor, they want to +reorganize Horse's Neck because they think there's a vein in Amphalula +that crosses one of the old workings and that it'll make the property +worth millions and millions." +</p> +<p> +Utter silence descended upon the court room—silence broken only by the +slow ticktack of the self-winding clock on the rear wall and the whine +of the electric cars on Park Row. One of the tall hats crept quietly to +the door and vanished. The others sat like images. +</p> +<p> +Then the court said very quietly: "I will adjourn this matter for one +week. I need not point out that what has occurred has a very grave +interpretation. Adjourn court!" +</p> +<hr> +<p> +Old Doc Barrows, the two Tutts and Miss Wiggin were sitting in Mr. +Tutt's office an hour later when Willie announced that Mr. Tobias +Greenbaum was outside and would like an interview. +</p> +<p> +"Send him in!" directed Mr. Tutt, winking at Miss Wiggin. +</p> +<p> +Mr. Greenbaum entered, frowning and without salutation, while Doc +partially rose, moved by the acquired instinct of disciplinary +politeness, then changed his mind and sat down again. +</p> +<p> +"See here," snarled Greenbaum. "You sure have made a most awful hash of +this business. I don't want to argue about it. We could go ahead and +beat you, but Pollak is prejudiced and will probably give you your +injunction and appoint a receiver. If he does, that will knock the whole +property higher than a kite. Nobody would ever buy stock in it or even +finance it. Now how much do you want to call off your suit?" +</p> +<p> +"Have a stogy?" asked Mr. Tutt politely. +</p> +<p> +"Nope." +</p> +<p> +"We want exactly one hundred thousand dollars." +</p> +<p> +Greenbaum laughed derisively. +</p> +<p> +"A hundred thousand fiddlesticks! This old jailbird swindled another +crook, Bloom—" +</p> +<p> +"Oh, Bloom was a crook too, was he?" chuckled Mr. Tutt. "He worked for +your firm, didn't he?" +</p> +<p> +"That's nothing to do with it!" retorted Greenbaum angrily. "Your +swindling client traded some bum stock in a fake corporation for Bloom's +stock, which he received for bona fide services—" +</p> +<p> +"Like Elderberry's?" inquired Tutt innocently. +</p> +<p> +"Your man never paid a cent for his holdings. That alone would throw +him out of court. The mine isn't worth a cent without the Amphalula +vein. We're taking a big chance. You've got us down and we've got to +pay; but we'll pay only ten thousand dollars—that's final." +</p> +<p> +"I ain't any more of a swindler than you be!" said Doc with plaintive +indignation. +</p> +<p> +"What do you wish to do, Mr. Barrows?" asked Mr. Tutt, turning to him +deferentially. +</p> +<p> +"I leave it entirely to you, Mr. Tutt. It's your stock; I gave it all to +you months ago." +</p> +<p> +"Then," answered Mr. Tutt with fine scorn, "I shall tell this miserable +cheating rogue and rascal either to pay you a hundred thousand dollars +or go to hell." +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tobias Greenbaum clenched his fists and cast a black glance upon the +group. +</p> +<p> +"You can wreck this corporation if you choose, you bunch of dirty +blackmailers, but you'll get not a cent more than ten thousand. For the +last time, will you take it or not?" +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt rose and pointed toward the door. +</p> +<p> +"Kindly remove yourself before I call the police," he said coldly. "I +advise the firm of Scherer, Hunn, Greenbaum & Beck to retain criminal +counsel. Your ten thousand may come in handy for that purpose." +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tobias Greenbaum went. +</p> +<p> +"And now, Miss Wiggin, how about a cup of tea?" said Mr. Tutt. +</p> +<p> +The firm of Tutt & Tutt claimed to be the only law firm in the city of +New York which still maintained the historic English custom of having +tea at five o'clock. Whether the claim had any foundation or not the tea +was none the less an institution, undoubtedly generating a friendly, +sociable atmosphere throughout the office; and now Willie pulled aside +the screen in the corner and disclosed the gate-leg table over which +Miss Wiggin exercised her daily prerogative. Soon the room was filled +with the comfortable odor of Pekoe, of muffins toasted upon an electric +heater, of cigarettes and stogies. Yet there was, and had been ever +since their conversation about the hat, a certain restraint between Miss +Wiggin and Mr. Tutt, rising presumably out of her suggestion that his +course savored of blackmail, however justified it had afterward turned +out to be. +</p> +<p> +"My, isn't this nice!" murmured Doc, trying unsuccessfully to eat a +muffin, drink his tea and do justice to a stogy at the same time. "It's +so homy now, isn't it?" +</p> +<p> +"Doc," answered Mr. Tutt, "did you really want that ten thousand?" +</p> +<p> +"Me?" repeated Doc vaguely. "Why, I told you I gave that stock to you +long ago. It isn't mine any longer. Besides, I don't want any money. +I'm perfectly happy as I am." +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt laughed genially. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, well," he said, "it's no matter who owns it. Elderberry just +telephoned me that he had received a telegram from the Amphalula that +the vein had definitely run out. It's all over—including the shouting." +</p> +<p> +"Elderberry telephone you?" queried Miss Wiggin in astonishment. +</p> +<p> +"Yes, Elderberry. You see, he's done, he says, with Scherer, Hunn, +Greenbaum & Beck. Wants to turn state's evidence and put 'em all in +jail. I've said I'd help him." +</p> +<p> +"Then why didn't you take the ten thousand and call it quits while the +getting was good?" demanded his partner icily. +</p> +<p> +"Because I knew I'd never get the ten anyway," replied Mr. Tutt. +"Greenbaum would have learned about the vein on his return to the +office." +</p> +<p> +"Well, I must be getting along back to Pottsville!" mumbled Doc. "This +has been a very pleasant trip—very pleasant; and +quite—quite—exciting. I—" +</p> +<p> +"What I'd like to know, Mr. Tutt," interrupted Miss Wiggin, "is how you +justify your course in this matter. When you attempted to block this +proposed reorganization you knew nothing about the Elderberry circular +of 1914 valuing the property at ten million, or of the Amphalula vein. +On its face you were attempting to wreck a perfectly honest piece of +financiering, and unless it was a strike suit—which I hope and pray it +wasn't—" +</p> +<p> +"Strike suit!" protested Mr. Tutt with a slight twinkle in his eye. "How +can you suggest such a thing! Didn't the events demonstrate the wisdom +of my judgment?" +</p> +<p> +"But you didn't know what was going to happen when you began your suit!" +she argued firmly. "I hate to say it, but I should think that if +everything had not come out just as it has your motives might easily +have been misconstrued." +</p> +<p> +"It was a matter of principle with me, my dear," declared Mr. Tutt +solemnly. "Just to show there's no ill feeling, won't you give me +another cup of tea?" +</p> + +<p> </p> +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10440 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d88dc98 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #10440 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10440) diff --git a/old/10440-8.txt b/old/10440-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4cad2fe --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10440-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8344 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Tutt and Mr. Tutt, by Arthur Train + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + + + + +Title: Tutt and Mr. Tutt + +Author: Arthur Train + +Release Date: December 12, 2003 [eBook #10440] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: iso-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TUTT AND MR. TUTT*** + + +E-text prepared by Steven desJardins and Project Gutenberg Distributed +Proofreaders + + + +TUTT AND MR. TUTT + +By Arthur Train + +1919 + + + + + + +CONTENTS + + +THE HUMAN ELEMENT + +MOCK HEN AND MOCK TURTLE + +SAMUEL AND DELILAH + +THE DOG ANDREW + +WILE _Versus_ GUILE + +HEPPLEWHITE TRAMP + +LALLAPALOOSA LIMITED + + + + +The Human Element + + + + Although men flatter themselves with their great actions, + they are not so often the result of great design as of chance. + --LA ROCHEFOUCAULD. + +"He says he killed him, and that's all there is about it!" said Tutt to +Mr. Tutt. "What are you going to do with a fellow like that?" The junior +partner of the celebrated firm of Tutt & Tutt, attorneys and counselors +at law, thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his yellow checked +breeches and, balancing himself upon the heels of his patent-leather +boots, gazed in a distressed, respectfully inquiring manner at his +distinguished associate. + +"Yes," he repeated plaintively. "He don't make any bones about it at +all. 'Sure, I killed him!' says he. 'And I'd kill him again, the ----!' +I prefer not to quote his exact language. I've just come from the Tombs +and had quite a talk with Serafino in the counsel room, with a +gum-chewing keeper sitting in the corner watching me for fear I'd slip +his prisoner a saw file or a shotgun or a barrel of poison. I'm all in! +These murder cases drive me to drink, Mr. Tutt. I don't mind grand +larceny, forgery, assault or even manslaughter--but murder gets my goat! +And when you have a crazy Italian for a client who says he's glad he did +it and would like to do it again--please excuse me! It isn't law; it's +suicide!" + +He drew out a silk handkerchief ornamented with the colors of the +Allies, and wiped his forehead despairingly. + +"Oh," remarked Mr. Tutt with entire good nature. "He's glad he did it +and he's quite willing to be hanged!" + +"That's it in a nutshell!" replied Tutt. + +The senior partner of Tutt & Tutt ran his bony fingers through the lank +gray locks over his left eye and tilted ceilingward the stogy between +his thin lips. Then he leaned back in his antique swivel chair, locked +his hands behind his head, elevated his long legs luxuriously, and +crossed his feet upon the fourth volume of the American and English +Encyclopedia of Law, which lay open upon the desk at Champerty and +Maintenance. Even in this inelegant and relaxed posture he somehow +managed to maintain the air of picturesque dignity which always made his +tall, ungainly figure noticeable in any courtroom. Indubitably Mr. +Ephraim Tutt suggested a past generation, the suggestion being +accentuated by a slight pedantry of diction a trifle out of character +with the rushing age in which he saw fit to practise his time-honored +profession. "Cheer up, Tutt," said he, pushing a box of stogies toward +his partner with the toe of his congress boot. "Have a weed?" + +Since in the office of Tutt & Tutt such an invitation like those of +royalty, was equivalent to a command, Tutt acquiesced. + +"Thank you, Mr. Tutt," said Tutt, looking about vaguely for a match. + +"That conscienceless brat of a Willie steals 'em all," growled Mr. Tutt. +"Ring the bell." + +Tutt obeyed. He was a short, brisk little man with a pronounced +abdominal convexity, and he maintained toward his superior, though but a +few years his junior, a mingled attitude of awe, admiration and +affection such as a dickey bird might adopt toward a distinguished owl. + +This attitude was shared by the entire office force. Inside the ground +glass of the outer door Ephraim Tutt was king. To Tutt the opinion of +Mr. Tutt upon any subject whatsoever was law, even if the courts might +have held to the contrary. To Tutt he was the eternal fount of wisdom, +culture and morality. Yet until Mr. Tutt finally elucidated his views +Tutt did not hesitate to hold conditional if temporary opinions of his +own. Briefly their relations were symbolized by the circumstance that +while Tutt always addressed his senior partner as "Mr. Tutt," the latter +accosted him simply as "Tutt." In a word there was only one Mr. Tutt in +the firm of Tutt & Tutt. + +But so far as that went there was only one Tutt. On the theory that a +lily cannot be painted, the estate of one seemingly was as dignified as +that of the other. At any rate there never was and never had been any +confusion or ambiguity arising out of the matter since the day, twenty +years before, when Tutt had visited Mr. Tutt's law office in search of +employment. Mr. Tutt was just rising into fame as a police-court lawyer. +Tutt had only recently been admitted to the bar, having abandoned his +native city of Bangor, Maine, for the metropolis. + +"And may I ask why you should come to me?" Mr. Tutt had demanded +severely from behind the stogy, which even at that early date had been +as much a part of his facial anatomy as his long ruminative nose. "Why +the devil should you come to me? I am nobody, sir--nobody! In this great +city certainly there are thousands far more qualified than I to further +your professional and financial advancement." + +"Because," answered the inspired Tutt with modesty, "I feel that with +you I should be associated with a good name." + +That had settled the matter. They bore no relationship to one another, +but they were the only Tutts in the city and there seemed to be a +certain propriety in their hanging together. Neither had regretted it +for a moment, and as the years passed they became indispensable to each +other. They were the necessary component parts of a harmonious legal +whole. Mr. Tutt was the brains and the voice, while Tutt was the eyes +and legs of a combination that at intervals--rare ones, it must be +confessed--made the law tremble, sometimes in fear and more often with +joy. + +At first, speaking figuratively, Tutt merely carried Mr. Tutt's +bag--rode on his coat tails, as it were; but as time went on his +activity, ingenuity and industry made him indispensable and led to a +junior partnership. Tutt prepared the cases for Mr. Tutt to try. Both +were well versed in the law if they were not profound lawyers, but as +the origin of the firm was humble, their practise was of a miscellaneous +character. + +"Never turn down a case," was Tutt's motto. + +"Our duty as sworn officers of the judicial branch of the Government +renders it incumbent upon us to perform whatever services our clients' +exigencies demand," was Mr. Tutt's way of putting it. + +In the end it amounted to exactly the same thing. As a result, in +addition to their own clientele, other members of the bar who found +themselves encumbered with matters which for one reason or another they +preferred not to handle formed the habit of turning them over to Tutt & +Tutt. A never-ending stream of peculiar cases flowed through the office, +each leaving behind it some residuum of golden dust, however small. The +stately or, as an unkind observer might have put it, the ramshackly form +of the senior partner was a constant figure in all the courts, from that +of the coroner on the one hand to the appellate tribunals upon the +other. It was immaterial to him what the case was about--whether it +dealt with the "next eventual estate" or the damages for a dog bite--so +long as he was paid and Tutt prepared it. Hence Tutt & Tutt prospered. +And as the law, like any other profession requires jacks-of-all-trades, +the firm acquired a certain peculiar professional standing of its own, +and enjoyed the good will of the bar as a whole. + +They had the reputation of being sound lawyers if not overafflicted with +a sense of professional dignity, whose word was better than their bond, +yet who, faithful to their clients' interests knew no mercy and gave no +quarter. They took and pressed cases which other lawyers dared not touch +lest they should be defiled--and nobody seemed to think any the less of +them for so doing. They raised points that made the refinements of the +ancient schoolmen seem blunt in comparison. No respecters of persons, +they harried the rich and taunted the powerful, and would have as soon +jailed a bishop or a judge as a pickpocket if he deserved it. Between +them they knew more kinds of law than most of their professional +brethren, and as Mr. Tutt was a bookworm and a seeker after legal and +other lore their dusty old library was full of hidden treasures, which +on frequent occasions were unearthed to entertain the jury or delight +the bench. They were loyal friends, fearsome enemies, high chargers, and +maintained their unique position in spite of the fact that at one time +or another they had run close to the shadowy line which divides the +ethical from that which is not. Yet Mr. Tutt had brought disbarment +proceedings against many lawyers in his time and--what is more--had them +disbarred. + +"Leave old Tutt alone," was held sage advice, and when other lawyers +desired to entertain the judiciary they were apt to invite Mr. Tutt to +be of the party. And Tutt gloried in the glories of Mr. Tutt. + +"That's it!" repeated Tutt as he lit his stogy, which flared up like a +burning bush, the cub of a Willie having foraged successfully in the +outer office for a match. "He's willing to be hanged or damned or +anything else just for the sake of putting a bullet through the other +fellow!" + +"What was the name of the unfortunate deceased?" + +"Tomasso Crocedoro--a barber." + +"That is almost a defense in itself," mused Mr. Tutt. "Anyhow, if I've +got to defend Angelo for shooting Tomasso you might as well give me a +short scenario of the melodrama. By the way, are we retained or assigned +by the court?" + +"Assigned," chirped Tutt. + +"So that all we'll get out of it is about enough to keep me in stogies +for a couple of months!" + +"And--if he's convicted, as of course he will be--a good chance of +losing our reputation as successful trial counsel. Why not beg off?" + +"Let me hear the story first," answered Mr. Tutt. "Angelo sounds like a +good sport. I have a mild affection for him already." + +He reached into the lower compartment of his desk and lifted out a +tumbler and a bottle of malt extract, which he placed carefully at his +elbow. Then he leaned back again expectantly. + +"It is a simple and naive story," began Tutt, seating himself in the +chair reserved for paying clients--that is to say, one which did not +have the two front legs sawed off an inch or so in order to make +lingering uncomfortable. "A plain, unvarnished tale. Our client is one +who makes an honest living by blacking shoes near the entrance to the +Brooklyn Bridge. He is one of several hundred original Tonys who conduct +shoe-shining emporiums." + +"Emporia," corrected his partner, pouring out a tumbler of malt extract. + +"He formed an attachment for a certain young lady," went on Tutt, +undisturbed, "who had previously had some sort of love affair with +Crocedoro, as a result of which her social standing had become slightly +impaired. In a word Tomasso jilted her. Angelo saw, pitied and loved +her, took her for better or for worse, and married her." + +"For which," interjected Mr. Tutt, "he is entitled to everyone's +respect." + +"Quite so!" agreed Tutt. "Now Tomasso, though not willing to marry the +girl himself, seems to have resented the idea of having anyone else do +so, and accordingly seized every opportunity which presented itself to +twit Angelo about the matter." + +"Dog in the manger, so to speak," nodded Mr. Tutt. + +"He not only jeered at Angelo for marrying Rosalina but he began to +hang about his discarded mistress again and scoff at her choice of a +husband. But Rosalina gave him the cold shoulder, with the result that +he became more and more insulting to Angelo. Finally one day our client +made up his mind not to stand it any longer, secured a revolver, sought +out Tomasso in his barber shop and put a bullet through his head. Now +however much you may sympathize with Angelo as a man and a husband there +isn't the slightest doubt that he killed Tomasso with every kind of +deliberation and premeditation." + +"If the case is as you say," replied Mr. Tutt, replacing the bottle and +tumbler within the lower drawer and flicking a stogy ash from his +waistcoat, "the honorable justice who handed it to us is no friend of +ours." + +"He isn't," assented his partner. "It was Babson and he hates Italians. +Moreover, he stated in open court that he proposed to try the case +himself next Monday and that we must be ready without fail." + +"So Babson did that to us!" growled Mr. Tutt. "Just like him. He'll pack +the jury and charge our innocent Angelo into the middle of hades." + +"And O'Brien is the assistant district attorney in charge of the +prosecution," mildly added Tutt. "But what can we do? We're assigned, +we've got a guilty client, and we've got to defend him." + +"Have you set Bonnie Doon looking up witnesses?" asked Mr. Tutt. "I +thought I saw him outside during the forenoon." + +"Yes," replied Tutt. "But Bonnie says it's the toughest case he ever had +to handle in which to find any witnesses for the defense. There aren't +any. Besides, the girl bought the gun and gave it to Angelo the same +day." + +"How do you know that?" demanded Mr. Tutt, frowning. + +"Because she told me so herself," said Tutt. "She's outside if you want +to see her." + +"I might as well give her what you call 'the once over,'" replied the +senior partner. + +Tutt retired and presently returned half leading, half pushing a +shrinking young Italian woman, shabbily dressed but with the features of +one of Raphael's madonnas. She wore no hat and her hands and finger +nails were far from clean, but from the folds of her black shawl her +neck rose like a column of slightly discolored Carrara marble, upon +which her head with its coils of heavy hair was poised with the grace of +a sulky empress. + +"Come in, my child, and sit down," said Mr. Tutt kindly. "No, not in +that one; in that one." He indicated the chair previously occupied by +his junior. "You can leave us, Tutt. I want to talk to this young lady +alone." + +The girl sat sullenly with averted face, showing in her attitude her +instinctive feeling that all officers of the law, no matter upon which +side they were supposed to be, were one and all engaged in a mysterious +conspiracy of which she and her unfortunate Angelo were the victims. A +few words from the old lawyer and she began to feel more confidence, +however. No one, in fact, could help but realize at first glance Mr. +Tutt's warmth of heart. The lines of his sunken cheeks if left to +themselves automatically tended to draw together into a whimsical smile, +and it required a positive act of will upon his part to adopt the stern +and relentless look with which he was wont to glower down upon some +unfortunate witness in cross-examination. + +Inside Mr. Tutt was a benign and rather mellow old fellow, with a dry +sense of humor and a very keen knowledge of his fellow men. He made a +good deal of money, but not having any wife or child upon which to +lavish it he spent it all either on books or surreptitiously in quixotic +gifts to friends or strangers whom he either secretly admired or whom he +believed to be in need of money. There were vague traditions in the +office of presents of bizarre and quite impossible clothes made to +office boys and stenographers; of ex-convicts reoutfitted and sent +rejoicing to foreign parts; of tramps gorged to repletion and then +pumped dry of their adventures in Mr. Tutt's comfortable, dingy old +library; of a fur coat suddenly clapped upon the rounded shoulders of +old Scraggs, the antiquated scrivener in the accountant's cage in the +outer office, whose alcoholic career, his employer alleged, was marked +by a trail of empty rum kegs, each one flying the white flag of +surrender. + +And yet old Ephraim Tutt could on occasion be cold as chiseled steel, +and as hard. Any appeal from a child, a woman or an outcast always met +with his ready response; but for the rich, successful and those in power +he seemed to entertain a deep and enduring grudge. He would burn the +midnight oil with equal zest to block a crooked deal on the part of a +wealthy corporation or to devise a means to extricate some no less +crooked rascal from the clutches of the law, provided that the rascal +seemed the victim of hard luck, inheritance or environment. His +weather-beaten conscience was as elastic as his heart. Indeed when under +the expansive influence of a sufficient quantity of malt extract or +ancient brandy from the cellaret on his library desk he had sometimes +been heard to enunciate the theory that there was very little difference +between the people in jail and those who were not. + +He would work weeks without compensation to argue the case of some +guilty rogue before the Court of Appeals, in order, as he said, to +"settle the law," when his only real object was to get the miserable +fellow out of jail and send him back to his wife and children. He went +through life with a twinkling eye and a quizzical smile, and when he did +wrong he did it--if such a thing is possible--in a way to make people +better. He was a dangerous adversary and judges were afraid of him, not +because he ever tricked or deceived them but because of the audacity and +novelty of his arguments which left them speechless. He had the +assurance that usually comes with age and with a lifelong knowledge of +human nature, yet apparently he had always been possessed of it. + +Once a judge having assigned him to look out for the interests of a +lawyerless prisoner suggested that he take his new client into the +adjoining jury room and give him the best advice he could. Mr. Tutt was +gone so long that the judge became weary, and to find out what had +become of him sent an officer, who found the lawyer reading a newspaper +beside an open window, but no sign of the prisoner. In great excitement +the officer reported the situation to the judge, who ordered Mr. Tutt to +the bar. + +"What has become of the prisoner?" demanded His Honor. + +"I do not know," replied the lawyer calmly. "The window was open and I +suspect that he used it as a means of exit." + +"Are you not aware that you are a party to an escape--a crime?" hotly +challenged the judge. + +"I most respectfully deny the charge," returned Mr. Tutt. + +"I told you to take the prisoner into that room and give him the best +advice you could." + +"I did!" interjected the lawyer. + +"Ah!" exclaimed the judge. "You admit it! What advice did you give him?" + +"The law does not permit me to state that," answered Mr. Tutt in his +most dignified tones. "That is a privileged communication from the +inviolate obligation to preserve which only my client can release me--I +cannot betray a sacred trust. Yet I might quote Cervantes and remind +Your Honor that 'Fortune leaves always some door open to come at a +remedy!'" + +Now as he gazed at the tear-stained cheeks of the girl-wife whose +husband had committed murder in defense of her self-respect, he vowed +that so far as he was able he would fight to save him. The more +desperate the case the more desperate her need of him--the greater the +duty and the greater his honor if successful. + +"Believe that I am your friend, my dear!" he assured her. "You and I +must work together to set Angelo free." + +"It's no use," she returned less defiantly. "He done it. He won't deny +it." + +"But he is entitled to his defense," urged Mr. Tutt quietly. + +"He won't make no defense." + +"We must make one for him." + +"There ain't none. He just went and killed him." + +Mr. Tutt shrugged his shoulders. + +"There is always a defense," he answered with conviction. "Anyhow we +can't let him be convicted without making an effort. Will they be able +to prove where he got the pistol?" + +"He didn't get the pistol," retorted the girl with a glint in her black +eyes. "I got it. I'd ha' shot him myself if he hadn't. I said I was +goin' to, but he wouldn't let me." + +"Dear, dear!" sighed Mr. Tutt. "What a case! Both of you trying to see +which could get hanged first!" + + * * * * * + +The inevitable day of Angelo's trial came. Upon the bench the Honorable +Mr. Justice Babson glowered down upon the cowering defendant flanked by +his distinguished counsel, Tutt & Tutt, and upon the two hundred good +and true talesmen who, "all other business laid aside," had been dragged +from the comfort of their homes and the important affairs of their +various livelihoods to pass upon the merits of the issue duly joined +between The People of the State of New York and Angelo Serafino, +charged with murder. + +One by one as his name was called each took his seat in the witness +chair upon the _voir dire_ and perjured himself like a gentleman in +order to escape from service, shyly confessing to an ineradicable +prejudice against the entire Italian race and this defendant in +particular, and to an antipathy against capital punishment which, so +each unhesitatingly averred, would render him utterly incapable of +satisfactorily performing his functions if selected as a juryman. Hardly +one, however, but was routed by the Machiavellian Babson. Hardly one, +however ingenious his excuse--whether about to be married or immediately +become a father, whether engaged in a business deal involving millions +which required his instant and personal attention whether in the last +stages of illness or obligated to be present at the bedside of a dying +wife--but was browbeaten into helplessness and ordered back to take his +place amidst the waiting throng of recalcitrant citizens so disinclined +to do their part in elevating that system of trial by jury the failure +of which at other times they so loudly condemned. + +This trifling preliminary having been concluded, the few jurymen who had +managed to wriggle through the judicial sieve were allowed to withdraw, +the balance of the calendar was adjourned, those spectators who were +standing up were ordered to sit down and those already sitting down were +ordered to sit somewhere else, the prisoners in the rear of the room +were sent back to the Tombs to await their fate upon some later day, the +reporters gathered rapaciously about the table just behind the +defendant, a corpulent Ganymede in the person of an aged court officer +bore tremblingly an opaque glass of yellow drinking water to the bench, +O'Brien the prosecutor blew his nose with a fanfare of trumpets, Mr. +Tutt smiled an ingratiating smile which seemed to clasp the whole world +to his bosom--and the real battle commenced; a game in which every card +in the pack had been stacked against the prisoner by an unscrupulous +pair of officials whose only aim was to maintain their record of +convictions of "murder in the first" and who laid their plans with +ingenuity and carried them out with skill and enthusiasm to habitual +success. + +They were a grand little pair of convictors, were Babson and O'Brien, +and woe unto that man who was brought before them. It was even alleged +by the impious that when Babson was in doubt what to do or what O'Brien +wanted him to do the latter communicated the information to his +conspirator upon the bench by a system of preconcerted signals. But +indeed no such system was necessary, for the judge's part in the drama +was merely to sustain his colleague's objections and overrule those of +his opponent, after which he himself delivered the _coup de grace_ with +unerring insight and accuracy. When Babson got through charging a jury +the latter had always in fact been instructed in brutal and sneering +tones to convict the defendant or forever after to regard themselves as +disloyal citizens, oath violators and outcasts though the stenographic +record of his remarks would have led the reader thereof to suppose that +this same judge was a conscientious, tender-hearted merciful lover of +humanity, whose sensitive soul quivered at the mere thought of a prison +cell, and who meticulously sought to surround the defendant with every +protection the law could interpose against the imputation of guilt. + +He was, as Tutt put it, "a dangerous old cuss." O'Brien was even worse. +He was a bull-necked, bullet-headed, pugnosed young ruffian with beery +eyes, who had an insatiable ambition and a still greater conceit, but +who had devised a blundering, innocent, helpless way of conducting +himself before a jury that deceived them into believing that his +inexperience required their help and his disinterestedness their loyal +support. Both of them were apparently fair-minded, honest public +servants; both in reality were subtly disingenuous to a degree beyond +ordinary comprehension, for years of practise had made them sensitive to +every whimsy of emotion and taught them how to play upon the psychology +of the jury as the careless zephyr softly draws its melody from the +aeolian harp. In a word they were a precious pair of crooks, who for +their own petty selfish ends played fast and loose with liberty, life +and death. + +Both of them hated Mr. Tutt, who had more than once made them ridiculous +before the jury and shown them up before the Court of Appeals, and the +old lawyer recognized well the fact that these two legal wolves were in +revenge planning to tear him and his helpless client to pieces, having +first deliberately selected him as a victim and assigned him to +officiate at a ceremony which, however just so far as its consummation +might be concerned, was nothing less in its conduct than judicial +murder. Now they were laughing at him in their sleeves, for Mr. Tutt +enjoyed the reputation of never having defended a client who had been +convicted of murder, and that spotless reputation was about to be +annihilated forever. + +Though the defense had thirty peremptory challenges Mr. Tutt well knew +that Babson would sustain the prosecutor's objections for bias until the +jury box would contain the twelve automata personally selected by +O'Brien in advance from what Tutt called "the army of the gibbet." Yet +the old war horse outwardly maintained a calm and genial exterior, +betraying none of the apprehension which in fact existed beneath his +mask of professional composure. The court officer rapped sharply for +silence. + +"Are you quite ready to proceed with the case?" inquired the judge with +a courtesy in which was ill concealed a leer of triumph. + +"Yes, Your Honor," responded Mr. Tutt in velvet tones. + +"Call the first talesman!" + +The fight was on, the professional duel between traditional enemies, in +which the stake--a human life--was in truth the thing of least concern, +had begun. Yet no casual observer would have suspected the actual +significance of what was going on or the part that envy, malice, +uncharitableness, greed, selfishness and ambition were playing in it. He +would have seen merely a partially filled courtroom flooded with +sunshine from high windows, an attentive and dignified judge in a black +silk robe sitting upon a dais below which a white-haired clerk drew +little slips of paper from a wheel and summoned jurymen to a service +which outwardly bore no suggestion of a tragedy. + +He would have seen a somewhat unprepossessing assistant district +attorney lounging in front of the jury box, taking apparently no great +interest in the proceedings, and a worried-looking young Italian sitting +at the prisoner's table between a rubicund little man with a round red +face and a tall, grave, longish-haired lawyer with a frame not unlike +that of Abraham Lincoln, over whose wrinkled face played from time to +time the suggestion of a smile. Behind a balustrade were the reporters, +scribbling on rough sheets of yellow paper. Then came rows of benches, +upon the first of which, as near the jury box as possible, sat Rosalina +in a new bombazine dress and wearing a large imitation gold cross +furnished for the occasion out of the legal property room of Tutt & +Tutt. Occasionally she sobbed softly. The bulk of the spectators +consisted of rejected talesmen, witnesses, law clerks, professional +court loafers and women seeking emotional sensations which they had not +the courage or the means to satisfy otherwise. The courtroom was +comparatively quiet, the silence broken only by the droning voice of the +clerk and the lazy interplay of question and answer between talesman and +lawyer. + +Yet beneath the humdrum, casual, almost indifferent manner in which the +proceedings seemed to be conducted each side was watching every move +made by the other with the tension of a tiger ready to spring upon its +prey. Babson and O'Brien were engaged in forcing upon the defense a jury +composed entirely of case-hardened convictors, while Tutt & Tutt were +fighting desperately to secure one so heterogeneous in character that +they could hope for a disagreement. + +By recess thirty-seven talesmen had been examined without a foreman +having been selected, and Mr. Tutt had exhausted twenty-nine of his +thirty challenges, as against three for the prosecution. The court +reconvened and a new talesman was called, resembling in appearance a +professional hangman who for relaxation leaned toward the execution of +Italians. Mr. Tutt examined him for bias and every known form of +incompetency, but in vain--then challenged peremptorily. Thirty +challenges! He looked on Tutt with slightly raised eyebrows. + +"Patrick Henry Walsh--to the witness chair, please, Mr. Walsh!" called +the clerk, drawing another slip from the box. + +Mr. Walsh rose and came forward heavily, while Tutt & Tutt trembled. He +was the one man they were afraid of--an old-timer celebrated as a +bulwark of the prosecution, who could always be safely counted upon to +uphold the arms of the law, who regarded with reverence all officials +connected with the administration of justice, and from whose +composition all human emotions had been carefully excluded by the +Creator. He was a square-jawed, severe, heavily built person, with a +long relentless upper lip, cheeks ruddy from the open air; engaged in +the contracting business; and he had a brogue that would have charmed a +mavis off a tree. Mr. Tutt looked hopelessly at Tutt. + +Babson and O'Brien had won. + +Once more Mr. Tutt struggled against his fate. Was Mr. Walsh sure he had +no prejudices against Italians or foreigners generally? Quite. Did he +know anyone connected with the case? No. Had he any objection to the +infliction of capital punishment? None whatever. The defense had +exhausted all its challenges. Mr. Tutt turned to the prospective foreman +with an endearing smile. + +"Mr. Walsh," said he in caressing tones, "you are precisely the type of +man in whom I feel the utmost confidence in submitting the fate of my +client. I believe that you will make an ideal foreman I hardly need to +ask you whether you will accord the defendant the benefit of every +reasonable doubt, and if you have such a doubt will acquit him." + +Mr. Walsh gazed suspiciously at Mr. Tutt. + +"Sure," he responded dryly, "Oi'll give him the benefit o' the doubt, +but if Oi think he's guilty Oi'll convict him." + +Mr. Tutt shivered. + +"Of course! Of course! That would be your duty! You are entirely +satisfactory, Mr. Walsh!" + +"Mr. Walsh is more than satisfactory to the prosecution!" intoned +O'Brien. + +"Be sworn, Mr. Walsh," directed the clerk; and the filling of the jury +box in the memorable case of People versus Serafino was begun. + +"That chap doesn't like us," whispered Mr. Tutt to Tutt. "I laid it on a +bit too thick." + +In fact, Mr. Walsh had already entered upon friendly relations with Mr. +O'Brien, and as the latter helped him arrange a place for his hat and +coat the foreman cast a look tinged with malevolence at the defendant +and his counsel, as if to say "You can't fool me. I know the kind of +tricks you fellows are all up to." + +O'Brien could not repress a grin. The clerk drew forth another name. + +"Mr. Tompkins--will you take the chair?" + +Swiftly the jury was impaneled. O'Brien challenged everybody who did not +suit his fancy, while Tutt & Tutt sat helpless. + +Ten minutes and the clerk called the roll, beginning with Mr. Walsh, and +they were solemnly sworn a true verdict to find, and settled themselves +to the task. + +The mills of the gods had begun to grind, and Angelo was being dragged +to his fate as inexorably and as surely, with about as much chance of +escape, as a log that is being drawn slowly toward a buzz saw. + +"You may open the case, Mr. O'Brien," announced Judge Babson, leaning +back and wiping his glasses. + +Then surreptitiously he began to read his mail as his fellow conspirator +undertook to tell the jury what it was all about. One by one the +witnesses were called--the coroner's physician, the policeman who had +arrested Angelo outside the barber shop with the smoking pistol in his +hand, the assistant barber who had seen the shooting, the customer who +was being shaved. Each drove a spike into poor Angelo's legal coffin. +Mr. Tutt could not shake them. This evidence was plain. He had come into +the shop, accused Crocedoro of making his wife's life unbearable +and--shot him. + +Yet Mr. Tutt did not lose any of his equanimity. With the tips of his +long fingers held lightly together in front of him, and swaying slightly +backward and forward upon the balls of his feet, he smiled benignly down +upon the customer and the barber's assistant as if these witnesses were +merely unfortunate in not being able to disclose to the jury all the +facts. His manner indicated that a mysterious and untold tragedy lay +behind what they had heard, a tragedy pregnant with primordial vital +passions, involving the most sacred of human relationships, which when +known would rouse the spirit of chivalry of the entire panel. + +On cross-examination the barber testified that Angelo had said: "You +maka small of my wife long enough!" + +"Ah!" murmured Mr. Tutt, waving an arm in the direction of Rosalina. Did +the witness recognize the defendant's young wife? The jury showed +interest and examined the sobbing Rosalina with approval. Yes, the +witness recognized her. Did the witness know to what incident or +incidents the defendant had referred by his remark--what the deceased +Crocedoro had done to Rosalina--if anything? No, the witness did not. +Mr. Tutt looked significantly at the row of faces in the jury box. + +Then leaning forward he asked significantly: "Did you see Crocedoro +threaten the defendant with his razor?" + +"I object!" shouted O'Brien, springing to his feet. "The question is +improper. There is no suggestion that Crocedoro did anything. The +defendant can testify to that if he wants to!" + +"Oh, let him answer!" drawled the judge. + +"No--" began the witness. + +"Ah!" cried Mr. Tutt. "You did not see Crocedoro threaten the defendant +with his razor! That will do!" + +But forewarned by this trifling experience, Mr. O'Brien induced the +customer, the next witness, to swear that Crocedoro had not in fact made +any move whatever with his razor toward Angelo, who had deliberately +raised his pistol and shot him. + +Mr. Tutt rose to the cross-examination with the same urbanity as before. +Where was the witness standing? The witness said he wasn't standing. +Well, where was he sitting, then? In the chair. + +"Ah!" exclaimed Mr. Tutt triumphantly. "Then you had your back to the +shooting!" + +In a moment O'Brien had the witness practically rescued by the +explanation that he had seen the whole thing in the glass in front of +him. The firm of Tutt & Tutt uttered in chorus a groan of outraged +incredulity. Several jurymen were seen to wrinkle their foreheads in +meditation. Mr. Tutt had sown a tiny--infinitesimally tiny, to be +sure--seed of doubt, not as to the killing at all but as to the complete +veracity of the witness. + +And then O'Brien made his coup. + +"Rosalina Serafino--take the witness stand!" he ordered. + +He would get from her own lips the admission that she bought the pistol +and gave it to Angelo! + +But with an outburst of indignation that would have done credit to the +elder Booth Mr. Tutt was immediately on his feet protesting against the +outrage, the barbarity, the heartlessness, the illegality of making a +wife testify against her husband! His eyes flashed, his disordered locks +waved in picturesque synchronization with his impassioned gestures +Rosalina, her beautiful golden cross rising and falling hysterically +upon her bosom, took her seat in the witness chair like a frightened, +furtive creature of the woods, gazed for one brief instant upon the +twelve men in the jury box with those great black eyes of hers, and then +with burning cheeks buried her face in her handkerchief. + +"I protest against this piece of cruelty!" cried Mr. Tutt in a voice +vibrating with indignation. "This is worthy of the Inquisition. Will not +even the cross upon her breast protect her from being compelled to +reveal those secrets that are sacred to wife and motherhood? Can the law +thus indirectly tear the seal of confidence from the Confessional? Mr. +O'Brien, you go too far! There are some things that even you--brilliant +as you are--may not trifle with." + +A juryman nodded. The eleven others, being more intelligent, failed to +understand what he was talking about. + +"Mr. Tutt's objection is sound--if he wishes to press it," remarked the +judge satirically. "You may step down, madam. The law will not compel a +wife to testify against her husband. Have you any more witnesses, Mister +District Attorney?" + +"The People rest," said Mr. O'Brien. "The case is with the defense." + +Mr. Tutt rose with solemnity. + +"The court will, I suppose, grant me a moment or two to confer with my +client?" he inquired. Babson bowed and the jury saw the lawyer lean +across the defendant and engage his partner in what seemed to be a +weighty deliberation. + +"I killa him! I say so!" muttered Angelo feebly to Mr. Tutt. + +"Shut up, you fool!" hissed Tutt, grabbing him by the leg. "Keep still +or I'll wring your neck." + +"If I could reach that old crook up on the bench I would twist his +nose," remarked Mr. Tutt to Tutt with an air of consulting him about the +Year Books. "And as for that criminal O'Brien, I'll get him yet!" + +With great dignity Mr. Tutt then rose and again addressed the court: + +"We have decided under all the circumstances of this most extraordinary +case, Your Honor, not to put in any defense. I shall not call the +defendant--" + +"I killa him--" began Angelo, breaking loose from Tutt and struggling +to his feet. It was a horrible movement. But Tutt clapped his hand over +Angelo's mouth and forced him back into his seat. + +"The defense rests," said Mr. Tutt, ignoring the interruption. "So far +as we are concerned the case is closed." + +"Both sides rest!" snapped Babson. "How long do you want to sum up?" + +Mr. Tutt looked at the clock, which pointed to three. The regular hour +of adjournment was at four. Delay was everything in a case like this. A +juryman might die suddenly overnight or fall grievously ill; or some +legal accident might occur which would necessitate declaring a mistrial. +There is, always hope in a criminal case so long as the verdict has not +actually been returned and the jury polled and discharged. If possible +he must drag his summing up over until the following day. Something +might happen. + +"About two hours, Your Honor," he replied. + +The jury stirred impatiently. It was clear that they regarded a two-hour +speech from him under the circumstances as an imposition. But Babson +wished to preserve the fiction of impartiality. + +"Very well," said he. "You may sum up until four-thirty, and have half +an hour more to-morrow morning. See that the doors are closed, Captain +Phelan. We do not want any interruption while the summations are going +on." + +"All out that's goin' out! Everybody out that's got no business, with +the court!" bellowed Captain Phelan. + +Mr. Tutt with an ominous heightening of the pulse realized that the real +ordeal was at last at hand, for the closing of the case had wrought in +the old lawyer an instant metamorphosis. With the words "The defense +rests" every suggestion of the mountebank, the actor or the shyster had +vanished. The awful responsibility under which he labored; the +overwhelming and damning evidence against his client; the terrible +consequences of the least mistake that he might make; the fact that only +the sword of his ability, and his alone, stood between Angelo and a +hideous death by fire in the electric chair--sobered and chastened him. +Had he been a praying man in that moment he would have prayed--but he +was not. + +For his client was foredoomed--foredoomed not only by justice but also +by trickery and guile--and was being driven slowly but surely towards +the judicial shambles. For what had he succeeded in adducing in his +behalf? Nothing but the purely apocryphal speculation that the dead +barber might have threatened Angelo with his razor and that the +witnesses might possibly have drawn somewhat upon their imaginations in +giving the details of their testimony. A sorry defense! Indeed, no +defense at all. All the sorrier in that he had not even been able to get +before the jury the purely sentimental excuses for the homicide, for he +could only do this by calling Rosalina to the stand, which would have +enabled the prosecution to cross-examine her in regard to the purchase +of the pistol and the delivery of it to her husband--the strongest +evidence of premeditation. Yet he must find some argument, some plea, +some thread of reason upon which the jury might hang a disagreement or a +verdict in a lesser degree. + +With a shuffling of feet the last of the crowd pushed through the big +oak doors and they were closed and locked. An officer brought a corroded +tumbler of brackish water and placed it in front of Mr. Tutt. The judge +leaned forward with malicious courtesy. The jury settled themselves and +turned toward the lawyer attentively yet defiantly, hardening their +hearts already against his expected appeals to sentiment. O'Brien, +ostentatiously producing a cigarette, lounged out through the side door +leading to the jury room and prison cells. The clerk began copying his +records. The clock ticked loudly. + +And Mr. Tutt rose and began going through the empty formality of +attempting to discuss the evidence in such a way as to excuse or +palliate Angelo's crime. For Angelo's guilt of murder in the first +degree was so plain that it had never for one moment been in the +slightest doubt. Whatever might be said for his act from the point of +view of human emotion only made his motive and responsibility under the +statues all the clearer. There was not even the unwritten law to appeal +to. Yet there was fundamentally a genuine defense, a defense that could +not be urged even by innuendo: the defense that no accused ought to be +convicted upon any evidence whatever, no matter how conclusive in a +trial conducted with essential though wholly concealed unfairness. + +Such was the case of Angelo. No one could demonstrate it, no one could +with safety even hint at it; any charge that the court was anything but +impartial would prove a boomerang to the defense; and yet the facts +remained that the whole proceeding from start to finish had been +conducted unfairly and with illegality, that the jury had been duped and +deceived, and that the pretense that the guilty Angelo had been given an +impartial trial was a farce. Every word of the court had been an +accusation, a sneer, an acceptance of the defendant's guilt as a matter +of course, an abuse far more subversive of our theory of government than +the mere acquittal of a single criminal, for it struck at the very +foundations of that liberty which the fathers had sought the shores of +the unknown continent to gain. + +Unmistakably the proceedings had been conducted throughout upon the +theory that the defendant must prove his innocence and that presumably +he was a guilty man; and this as well as his own impression that the +evidence was conclusive the judge had subtly conveyed to the jury in his +tone of speaking, his ironical manner and his facial expression. Guilty +or not Angelo was being railroaded. That was the real defense--the +defense that could never be established even in any higher court, except +perhaps in the highest court of all, which is not of earth. + +And so Mr. Tutt, boiling with suppressed indignation weighed down with +the sense of his responsibility, fully realizing his inability to say +anything based on the evidence in behalf of his client, feeling twenty +years older than he had during the verbal duel of the actual +cross-examination, rose with a genial smile upon his puckered old face +and with a careless air almost of gaiety, which seemed to indicate the +utmost confidence and determination, and with a graceful compliment to +his arch enemy upon the bench and the yellow dog who had hunted with +him, assured the jury that the defendant had had the fairest of fair +trials and that he, Mr. Tutt, would now proceed to demonstrate to their +satisfaction his client's entire innocence; nay, would show them that he +was a man not only guiltless of any wrong-doing but worthy of their +hearty commendation. + +With jokes not too unseemly for the occasion he overcame their +preliminary distrust and put them in a good humor. He gave a historical +dissertation upon the law governing homicide, on the constitutional +rights of American citizens, on the laws of naturalization, marriage, +and the domestic relations; waxed eloquent over Italy and the Italian +character, mentioned Cavour, Garibaldi and Mazzini in a way to imply +that Angelo was their lineal descendant; and quoted from D'Annunzio back +to Horace, Cicero and Plautus. + +"Bunk! Nothing but bunk!" muttered Tutt, studying the twelve faces +before him. "And they all know it!" + +But Mr. Tutt was nothing if not interesting. These prosaic citizens of +New York County, these saloon and hotel keepers, these contractors, +insurance agents and salesmen were learning something of history, of +philosophy, of art and beauty. They liked it. They felt they were +hearing something worth while, as indeed they were, and they forgot all +about Angelo and the unfortunate Crocedoro in their admiration for Mr. +Tutt, who had lifted them out of the dingy sordid courtroom into the +sunlight of the Golden Age. And as he led them through Greek and Roman +literature, through the early English poets, through Shakespeare and the +King James version, down to John Galsworthy and Rupert Brooke, he +brought something that was noble, fine and sweet into their grubby +materialistic lives; and at the same time the hand of the clock crept +steadily on until he and it reached Château-Thierry and half past four +together. + +"Bang!" went Babson's gavel just as Mr. Tutt was leading Mr. Walsh, Mr. +Tompkins and the others through the winding paths of the Argonne forests +with tin helmets on their heads in the struggle for liberty. + +"You may conclude your address in the morning, Mr. Tutt," said the judge +with supreme unction. "Adjourn court!" + +Gray depression weighed down Mr. Tutt's soul as he trudged homeward. He +had made a good speech, but it had had absolutely nothing to do with the +case, which the jury would perceive as soon as they thought it over. It +was a confession of defeat. Angelo would be convicted of murder in the +first degree and electrocuted, Rosalina would be a widow, and somehow he +would be in a measure responsible for it. The tragedy of human life +appalled him. He felt very old, as old as the dead-and-gone authors from +whom he had quoted with such remarkable facility. He belonged with them; +he was too old to practise his profession. + +"Law, Mis' Tutt," expostulated Miranda, his ancient negro handmaiden, as +he pushed away the chop and mashed potato, and even his glass of claret, +untasted, in his old-fashioned dining room on West Twenty-third Street, +"you ain't got no appetite at all! You's sick, Mis' Tutt." + +"No, no, Miranda!" he replied weakly. "I'm just getting old." + +"You's mighty spry for an old man yit," she protested. "You kin make dem +lawyer men hop mighty high when you tries. Heh, heh! I reckon dey ain't +got nuffin' on my Mistah Tutt!" + +Upstairs in his library Mr. Tutt strode up and down before the empty +grate, smoking stogy after stogy, trying to collect his thoughts and +devise something to say upon the morrow, but all his ideas had flown. +There wasn't anything to say. Yet he swore Angelo should not be offered +up as a victim upon the altar of unscrupulous ambition. The hours passed +and the old banjo clock above the mantel wheezed eleven, twelve; then +one, two. Still he paced up and down, up and down in a sort of trance. +The air of the library, blue with the smoke of countless stogies, +stifled and suffocated him. Moreover he discovered that he was hungry. +He descended to the pantry and salvaged a piece of pie, then unchained +the front door and stepped forth into the soft October night. + +A full moon hung over the deserted streets of the sleeping city. In +divers places, widely scattered, the twelve good and true men were +snoring snugly in bed. To-morrow they would send Angelo to his death +without a quiver. He shuddered, striding on, he knew not whither, into +the night. His brain no longer worked. He had become a peripatetic +automaton self-dedicated to nocturnal perambulation. + +With his pockets bulging with stogies and one glowing like a headlight +in advance of him he wandered in a sort of coma up Tenth Avenue, crossed +to the Riverside Drive, mounted Morningside Heights, descended again +through the rustling alleys of Central Park, and found himself at Fifth +Avenue and Fifty-ninth Street just as the dawn was paling the electric +lamps to a sickly yellow and the trees were casting strange unwonted +shadows in the wrong direction. He was utterly exhausted. He looked +eagerly for some place to sit down, but the doors of the hotels were +dark and tightly closed and it was too cold to remain without moving in +the open air. + +Down Fifth Avenue he trudged, intending to go home and snatch a few +hours' sleep before court should open, but each block seemed miles in +length. Presently he approached the cathedral, whose twin spires were +tinted with reddish gold. The sky had become a bright blue. Suddenly all +the street lamps went out. He told himself that he had never realized +before the beauty of those two towers reaching up toward eternity, +typifying man's aspiration for the spiritual. He remembered having heard +that a cathedral was never closed, and looking toward the door he +perceived that it was open. With utmost difficulty he climbed the steps +and entered its dark shadows. A faint light emanated from the tops of +the stained-glass windows. Down below a candle burned on either side of +the altar while a flickering gleam shone from the red cup in the +sanctuary lamp. Worn out, drugged for lack of sleep, faint for want of +food, old Mr. Tutt sank down upon one of the rear seats by the door, and +resting his head upon his arms on the back of the bench in front of him +fell fast asleep. + +He dreamed of a legal heaven, of a great wooden throne upon which sat +Babson in a black robe and below him twelve red-faced angels in a double +row with harps in their hands, chanting: "Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!" An +organ was playing somewhere, and there was a great noise of footsteps. +Then a bell twinkled and he raised his head and saw that the chancel was +full of lights and white-robed priests. It was broad daylight. Horrified +he looked at his watch, to find that it was ten minutes after ten. His +joints creaked as he pulled himself to his feet and his eyes were half +closed as he staggered down the steps and hailed a taxi. + +"Criminal Courts Building--side door. And drive like hell!" he muttered +to the driver. + +He reached it just as Judge Babson and his attendant were coming into +the courtroom and the crowd were making obeisance. Everybody else was in +his proper place. + +"You may proceed, Mr. Tutt," said the judge after the roll of the jury +had been called. + +But Mr. Tutt was in a daze, in no condition to think or speak. There was +a curious rustling in his ears and his sight was somewhat blurred. The +atmosphere of the courtroom seemed to him cold and hostile; the jury sat +with averted faces. He rose feebly and cleared his throat. + +"Gentlemen of the jury," he began, "I--I think I covered everything I +had to say yesterday afternoon. I can only beseech you to realize the +full extent of your great responsibility and remind you that if you +entertain a reasonable doubt upon the evidence you are sworn to give the +benefit of it to the defendant." + +He sank back in his chair and covered his eyes with his hands, while a +murmur ran along the benches of the courtroom. The old man had +collapsed--tough luck--the defendant was cooked! Swiftly O'Brien leaped +to his feet. There had been no defense. The case was as plain as a +pike-staff. There was only one thing for the jury to do--return a +verdict of murder in the first. It would not be pleasant, but that made +no difference! He read them the statute, applied it to the facts, and +shook his fist in their faces. They must convict--and convict of only +one thing--and nothing else--murder in the first degree. They gazed at +him like silly sheep, nodding their heads, doing everything but bleat. + +Then Babson cleared his decks and rising in dignity expounded the law to +the sheep in a rich mellow voice, in which he impressed upon them the +necessity of preserving the integrity of the jury system and the +sanctity of human life. He pronounced an obituary of great beauty upon +the deceased barber--who could not, as he pointed out, speak for +himself, owing to the fact that he was in his grave. He venomously +excoriated the defendant who had deliberately planned to kill an +unarmed man peacefully conducting himself in his place of business, and +expressed the utmost confidence that he could rely upon the jury, whose +character he well knew, to perform their full duty no matter how +disagreeable that duty might be. The sheep nodded. + +"You may retire, gentlemen." + +Babson looked down at Mr. Tutt with a significant gleam in his eye. He +had driven in the knife to the hilt and twisted it round and round. +Angelo had almost as much chance as the proverbial celluloid cat. Mr. +Tutt felt actually sick. He did not look at the jury as they went out. +They would not be long--and he could hardly face the thought of their +return. Never in his long experience had he found himself in such a +desperate situation. Heretofore there had always been some argument, +some construction of the facts upon which he could make an appeal, +however fallacious or illogical. + +He leaned back and closed his eyes. The judge was chatting with O'Brien, +the court officers were betting with the reporters as to the length of +time in which it would take the twelve to agree upon a verdict of murder +in the first. The funeral rites were all concluded except for the final +commitment of the corpse to mother earth. + +And then without warning Angelo suddenly rose and addressed the court in +a defiant shriek. + +"I killa that man!" he cried wildly. "He maka small of my wife! He no +good! He bad egg! I killa him once--I killa him again!" + +"So!" exclaimed Babson with biting sarcasm. "You want to make a +confession? You hope for mercy, do you? Well, Mr. Tutt, what do you wish +to do under the circumstances? Shall I recall the jury and reopen the +case by consent?" + +Mr. Tutt rose trembling to his feet. + +"The case is closed, Your Honor," he replied. "I will consent to a +mistrial and offer a plea of guilty of manslaughter. I cannot agree to +reopen the case. I cannot let the defendant go upon the stand." + +The spectators and reporters were pressing forward to the bar, anxious +lest they should lose a single word of the colloquy. Angelo remained +standing, looking eagerly at O'Brien, who returned his gaze with a grin +like that of a hyena. + +"I killa him!" Angelo repeated. "You killa me if you want." + +"Sit down!" thundered the judge. "Enough of this! The law does not +permit me to accept a plea to murder in the first degree, and my +conscience and my sense of duty to the public will permit me to accept +no other. I will go to my chambers to await the verdict of the jury. +Take the prisoner downstairs to the prison pen." + +He swept from the bench in his silken robes. Angelo was led away. The +crowd in the courtroom slowly dispersed. Mr. Tutt, escorted by Tutt, +went out in the corridor to smoke. + +"Ye got a raw deal, counselor," remarked Captain Phelan, amiably +accepting a stogy. "Nothing but an act of Providence c'd save that +Eyetalian from the chair. An' him guilty at that!" + +An hour passed; then another. At half after four a rumor flew along the +corridors that the jury in the Serafino case had reached a verdict and +were coming in. A messenger scurried to the judge's chambers. Phelan +descended the iron stairs to bring up the prisoner, while Tutt to +prevent a scene invented an excuse by which he lured Rosalina to the +first floor of the building. The crowd suddenly reassembled out of +nowhere and poured into the courtroom. The reporters gathered +expectantly round their table. The judge entered, his robes, gathered in +one hand. + +"Bring in the jury," he said sharply. "Arraign the prisoner at the bar." + +Mr. Tutt took his place beside his client at the railing, while the +jury, carrying their coats and hats, filed slowly in. Their faces were +set and relentless. They looked neither to the right nor to the left. +O'Brien sauntered over and seated himself nonchalantly with his back to +the court, studying their faces. Yes, he told himself, they were a +regular set of hangmen--he couldn't have picked a tougher bunch if he'd +had his choice of the whole panel. + +The clerk called the roll, and Messrs. Walsh, Tompkins, _et al._, stated +that they were all present. + +"Gentlemen of the jury, have you agreed upon a verdict?" inquired the +clerk. + +"We have!" replied Mr. Walsh sternly. + +"How say you? Do you find the defendant guilty or not guilty?" + +Mr. Tutt gripped the balustrade in front of him with one hand and put +his other arm round Angelo. He felt that now in truth murder was being +done. + +"We find the defendant not guilty," said Mr. Walsh defiantly. + +There was a momentary silence of incredulity. Then Babson and O'Brien +shouted simultaneously: "What!" + +"We find the defendant not guilty," repeated Mr. Walsh stubbornly. + +"I demand that the jury be polled!" cried the crestfallen O'Brien, his +face crimson. + +And then the twelve reiterated severally that that was their verdict and +that they hearkened unto it as it stood recorded and that they were +entirely satisfied with it. + +"You are discharged!" said Babson in icy tones. "Strike the names of +these men from the list of jurors--as incompetent. Haven't you any other +charge on which you can try this defendant?" + +"No, Your Honor," answered O'Brien grimly. "He didn't take the stand, so +we can't try him for perjury; and there isn't any other indictment +against him." + +Judge Babson turned ferociously upon Mr. Tutt: + +"This acquittal is a blot upon the administration of criminal justice; a +disgrace to the city! It is an unconscionable verdict; a reflection upon +the intelligence of the jury! The defendant is discharged. This court is +adjourned." + +The crowd surged round Angelo and bore him away, bewildered. The judge +and prosecutor hurried from the room. Alone Mr. Tutt stood at the bar, +trying to grasp the full meaning of what had occurred. + +He no longer felt tired; he experienced an exultation such as he had +never known before. Some miracle had happened! What was it? + +Unexpectedly the lawyer felt a rough warm hand clasped over his own upon +the rail and heard the voice of Mr. Walsh with its rich brogue saying: +"At first we couldn't see that there was much to be said for your side +of the case, Mr. Tutt; but when Oi stepped into the cathedral on me way +down to court this morning and spied you prayin' there for guidance I +knew you wouldn't be defendin' him unless he was innocent, and so we +decided to give him the benefit of the doubt." + + + + +Mock Hen and Mock Turtle + + + "Oh, East is East and West is West, and never the + twain shall meet." + --BALLAD OF EAST AND WEST. + + + "But the law of the jungle is jungle law only, and the + law of the pack is only for the pack." + --OTHER SAYINGS OF SHERE KHAN. + +A half turn from the clattering hubbub of Chatham Square and you are in +Chinatown, slipping, within ten feet, through an invisible wall, from +the glitter of the gin palace and the pawn-shop to the sinister shadows +of irregular streets and blind alleys, where yellow men pad swiftly +along greasy asphalt beneath windows glinting with ivory, bronze and +lacquer; through which float the scents of aloes and of incense and all +the subtle suggestion of the East. + +No one better than the Chink himself realizes the commercial value of +the taboo, the bizarre and the unclean. Nightly the rubber-neck car +swinging gayly with lanterns stops before the imitation joss house, the +spurious opium joint and tortuous passage to the fake fan-tan and faro +game, with a farewell call at Hong Joy Fah's Oriental restaurant and the +well-stocked novelty store of Wing, Hen & Co. The visitors see what they +expect to see, for the Chinaman always gives his public exactly what it +wants. + +But a dollar does not show you Chinatown. To some the ivories will +always be but crudely carven bone, the jades the potter's sham, the musk +and aloes the product of a soap factory, the joss but a cigar-store +Indian, and the Oriental dainties of Hong Fah the scrappings of a Yankee +grocery store. Yet behind the shoddy tinsel of Doyers and Pell Streets, +as behind Alice's looking-glass, there is another Chinatown--a strange, +inhuman, Oriental world, not necessarily of trapdoors and stifled +screams, but one moved by influences undreamed of in our banal +philosophies. Hearken then to the story of the avenging of Wah Sing. + + _'Tis a tale was undoubtedly true + In the reign of the Emperor Hwang_. + +In the murky cellar of a Pell Street tenement seventeen Chinamen sat +cross-legged in a circle round an octagonal teakwood table. To an +Occidental they would have appeared to differ in no detail except that +of a varying degree of fatness. An oil lamp flickered before a joss near +by, and the place reeked with the odor of starch, sweat, tobacco, rice +whisky and the incense that rose ceilingward in thin, shaking columns +from two bowls of Tibetan soapstone. An obese Chinaman with a walnutlike +countenance in which cunning and melancholy were equally commingled was +speaking monotonously through long, rat-tailed mustaches, while the +others listened with impassive decorum. It was a special meeting of the +Hip Leong Tong, held in their private clubrooms at the Great Shanghai +Tea Company, and conducted according to rule. + +"Therefore," said Wong Get, "as a matter of honor it is necessary that +our brother be avenged and that no chances be taken. A much too long +time has already elapsed. I have written the letter and will read it." + +He fumbled in his sleeve and drew forth a roll of brown paper covered +with heavy Chinese characters unwinding it from a strip of bamboo. + + + _To the Honorable Members of the On Gee Tong:_ + + Whereas it has pleased you to take the life of our beloved + friend and relative Wah Sing, it is with greatest courtesy + and the utmost regret that we inform you that it is + necessary for us likewise to remove one of your esteemed + society, and that we shall proceed thereto without delay. + + Due warning being thus honorably given I subscribe + myself with profound appreciation, + + For the Hip Leong Tong, + WONG GET. + +He ceased reading and there was a perfunctory grunt of approval from +round the circle. Then he turned to the official soothsayer and directed +him to ascertain whether the time were propitious. The latter tossed +into the air a handful of painted ivory sticks, carefully studied their +arrangement when fallen, and nodded gravely. + +"The omens are favorable, O honorable one!" + +"Then there is nothing left but the choice of our representatives," +continued Wong Get. "Pass the fateful box, O Fong Hen." + +Fong Hen, a slender young Chinaman, the official slipper, or messenger, +of the society, rose and, lifting a lacquered gold box from the table, +passed it solemnly to each member. + +"This time there will be four," said Wong Get. + +Each in turn averted his eyes and removed from the box a small sliver of +ivory. At the conclusion of the ceremony the four who had drawn red +tokens rose. Wong Get addressed them. + +"Mock Hen, Mock Ding, Long Get, Sui Sing--to you it is confided to +avenge the murder of our brother Wah Sing. Fail not in your purpose!" + +And the four answered unemotionally: "Those to whom it is confided will +not fail." + +Then pivoting silently upon their heels they passed out of the cellar. + +Wong Get glanced round the table. + +"If there is no further business the society will disperse after the +customary refreshment." + +Fong Hen placed thirteen tiny glasses upon the table and filled them +with rice whisky scented with aniseed and a dash of powdered ginger. At +a signal from Wong Get the thirteen Chinamen lifted the glasses and +drank. + +"The meeting is adjourned," said he. + + * * * * * + +Eighty years before, in a Cantonese rabbit warren two yellow men had +fought over a white woman, and one had killed the other. They had +belonged to different societies, or tongs. The associates of the +murdered man had avenged his death by slitting the throat of one of the +members of the other organization, and these in turn had retaliated thus +establishing a vendetta which became part and parcel of the lives of +certain families, as naturally and unavoidably as birth, love and death. +As regularly as the solstice they alternated in picking each other off. +Branches of the Hip Leong and On Gee tongs sprang up in San Francisco +and New York--and the feud was transferred with them to Chatham Square, +a feud imposing a sacred obligation rooted in blood, honor and religion +upon every member, who rather than fail to carry it out would have +knotted a yellow silken cord under his left ear and swung himself gently +off a table into eternal sleep. + +Young Mock Hen, one of the four avengers, had created a distinct place +for himself in Chinatown by making a careful study of New York +psychology. He was a good-looking Chink, smooth-faced, tall and supple; +he knew very well how to capitalize his attractiveness. By day he +attended Columbia University as a special student in applied +electricity, keeping a convenient eye meanwhile on three coolies whom he +employed to run The College Laundry on Morningside Heights. By night he +vicariously operated a chop-suey palace on Seventh Avenue, where +congregated the worst elements of the Tenderloin. But his heart was in +the gambling den which he maintained in Doyers Street, and where anyone +who knew the knock could have a shell of hop for the asking, once Mock +had given him the once-over through the little sliding panel. + +Mock was a Christian Chinaman. That is to say, purely for business +reasons--for what he got out of it and the standing that it gave him--he +attended the Rising Star Mission and also frequented Hudson House, the +social settlement where Miss Fanny Duryea taught him to play ping-pong +and other exciting parlor games, and read to him from books adapted to +an American child of ten. He was a great favorite at both places, for he +was sweet-tempered and wore an expression of heaven-born innocence. He +had even been to church with Miss Duryea, temporarily absenting himself +for that purpose of a Sunday morning from the steam-heated flat +where--unknown to her, of course--he lived with his white wife, Emma +Pratt, a lady of highly miscellaneous antecedents. + +Except when engaged in transacting legal or oilier business with the +municipal, sociologic or religious world--at which times his vocabulary +consisted only of the most rudimentary pidgin--Mock spoke a fluent and +even vernacular English learned at night school. Incidentally he was the +head of the syndicate which controlled and dispensed the loo, faro, +fan-tan and other gambling privileges of Chinatown. + + * * * * * + +Detective Mooney, of the Second, detailed to make good District Attorney +Peckham's boast that there had never been so little trouble with the +foreign element since the administration--of which he was an +ornament--came into office, saw Quong Lee emerge from his doorway in +Doyers Street just before four o'clock the following Thursday and slip +silently along under the shadow of the eaves toward Ah Fong's +grocery--and instantly sensed something peculiar in the Chink's walk. + +"Hello, Quong!" he called, interposing himself. "Where you goin'?" + +Quong paused with a deprecating gesture of widely spread open palms. + +"'Lo yourself!" replied blandly. "Me go buy li'l' glocery." + +Mooney ran his hands over the rotund body, frisking him for a possible +forty-four. + +"For the love of Mike!" he exclaimed, tearing open Quong's blouse. "What +sort of an undershirt is that?" Quong grinned broadly as the detective +lifted the suit of double-chain mail which swayed heavily under his blue +blouse from his shoulders to his knees. + +"So-ho!" continued the plain-clothes man. "Trouble brewin', eh?" + +He knew already that something was doing in the tongs from his +lobby-gow, Wing Foo. + +"Must weigh eighty pounds!" he whistled. "I'd like to see the pill that +would go through that!" It was, in fact, a medieval corselet of finest +steel mesh, capable of turning an elephant bullet. + +"Go'long!" ordered Mooney finally. "I guess you're safe!" + +He turned back in the direction of Chatham Square, while Quong resumed +his tortoiselike perambulation toward Ah Fong's. Pell and Doyers Streets +were deserted save for an Italian woman carrying a baby, and were +pervaded by an unnatural and suspicious silence. Most of the shutters on +the lower windows were down. Ah Fong's subsequent story of what happened +was simple, and briefly to the effect that Quong, having entered his +shop and priced various litchi nuts and pickled starfruit, had purchased +some powdered lizard and, with the package in his left hand, had opened +the door to go out. As he stood there with his right hand upon the knob +and facing the afternoon sun four shadows fell aslant the window and a +man whom he positively identified as Sui Sing emptied a bag of +powder--afterward proved to be red pepper--upon Quong's face; then +another, Long Get, made a thrust at him with a knife, the effect of +which he did not observe, as almost at the same instant Mock Hen felled +him with a blow upon the head with an iron bar, while a fourth, Mock +Ding, fired four shots at his crumpling body with a revolver one of +which glanced off and fractured a very costly Chien Lung vase and ruined +four boxes of mandarin-blossom tea. In his excitement he ducked behind +the counter, and when sufficiently revived he crawled forth to find what +had once been Quong lying across the threshold, the murderers gone, and +the Italian woman prostrate and shrieking with a hip splintered by a +stray bullet. On the sidewalk outside the window lay the remnants of the +bag of pepper, a knife broken short off at the handle, a heavy bar of +soft iron slightly bent, and a partially emptied forty-four-caliber +revolver. Quong's suit of mail had effectually protected him from the +knife thrust and the revolver shots, but his skull was crushed beyond +repair. Thus was the murder of Wah Sing avenged in due and proper form. + +Detective Mooney, distant not more than two hundred feet, rushed back to +the corner at the sound of the first shot--just in time to catch a side +glimpse of Mock Hen as he raced across Pell Street and disappeared into +the cellar of the Great Shanghai Tea Company. The Italian woman was +filling the air with her outcries, but the detective did not pause in +his hurtling pursuit. He was too late, however. The cellar door +withstood all his efforts to break it open. + +Bull Neck Burke, the wrestler, who tied Zabisko once on the stage of the +old Grand Opera House in 1913, had been promenading with Mollie Malone, +of the Champagne Girls and Gay Burlesquers Company. Both heard the +fusillade and saw Mock--a streak of flying blue--pass within a few feet +of them. + +"God!" ejaculated Mollie. "Sure as shootin', that's Mock Hen--and he's +murdered somebody!" + +"It's Mock all right!" agreed Bull Neck. "That puts us in as witnesses +or strike me!" And he looked at his watch--four one. + +"Here, Burke, put your shoulder to this!" shouted Mooney from the cellar +steps. "Now then!" + +The two of them threw their combined weight against it, the lock flew +open and they fell forward into the darkness. Three doors leading in +different directions met the glare of Mooney's match. But the fugitive +had a start of at least four minutes, which was three and a half more +than he required. + + * * * * * + +Mock Hen took the left-hand of the three doors and crept along a passage +opening into an empty opium parlor back of the Hip Leong clubroom. + +Diving beneath one of the bunks he inserted his body between the lower +planking at the back and the cellar wall, wormed his way some twelve +feet, raised a trap and emerged into a tunnel by means of which and +others he eventually reached the end of the block and the rooms of his +friend Hong Sue. + +Here he changed from the Oriental costume according to Chinese etiquette +necessary to the homicide, into a nobby suit of American clothes, put on +a false mustache, and walked boldly down Park Row, while just behind +him Doyers and Pell Streets swarmed with bluecoats and excited +citizenry. + +Hudson House, the social settlement presided over by Miss Fanny and +affected for business reasons by Mock Hen, was a mile and a half away. +But Mock took his time. Twenty-five full minutes elapsed before he +leisurely climbed the steps and slipped into the big reading room. There +was no one there and Mock deftly turned back the hand of the automatic +clock over the platform to three-fifty-five. Then he began to whistle. +Presently Miss Fanny entered from the rear room, her face lighting with +pleasure at the sight of her pet convert. + +"Good afternoon, Mock Hen! You are early to-day." + +Mock took her hand and stroked it affectionately. + +"I go Fulton Mark' buy li'l' terrapin. Stop in on way to see dear Miss +Fan'." + +They stood thus for a moment, and while they did so the clock struck +four. + +"I go now!" said Mock suddenly. "Four o'clock already." + +"It's early," answered Miss Fanny. "Won't you stay a little while?" + +"I go now," he repeated with resolution. "Good-by li'l' teacher!" + +She watched until his lithe figure passed through the door, and +presently returned to the back room. Mock waited outside until she had +disappeared. + +Then he changed back the clock. + + * * * * * + +"We've got you, you blarsted heathen!" cried Mooney hoarsely as he and +two others from the Central Office threw themselves upon Mock Hen on the +landing outside the door of his flat. "Look out, Murtha. Pipe that thing +under his arm!" + +"It's a bloody turtle!" gasped Murtha, shuddering + +"What's the matter, boys?" inquired Mock. "Leggo my arm, can't yer? +What'd yer want, anyway?" + +"We want you, you yellow skunk!" retorted Mooney. "Open that door! +Lively now!" + +"Sure!" answered Mock amiably. "Come on in! What's bitin' yer?" + +He unlocked the door and threw it open. + +"Take a chair," he invited them. "Have a cigar? You there, Emma?" + +Emma Pratt, clad in a wrapper and lying on the big double brass bedstead +in the rear room, raised herself on one elbow. + +"Yep!" she called through the passage. "Got the bird?" + +Mock looked at Murtha, who was carrying the terrapin. + +"Sure!" he called back. "Sit down, boys. What'd yer want? Can't yer +tell a feller?" + +"We want you for croaking Quong Lee!" snapped Mooney. "Where have you +been?" + +"Fulton Market--and Hudson House. I left here quarter of four. I haven't +seen Quong Lee. Where was he killed?" + +Mooney laughed sardonically. + +"That'll do for you, Mock! Your alibi ain't worth a damn this time. I +saw you myself." + +"You saw someone else," Mock assured him politely. "I haven't been in +Chinatown." + +"Say, what yer doin' wit' my Chink?" demanded Emma, appearing in the +doorway. "He was sittin' here wit' me all the afternoon, until about +just before four I sent him over to Fulton Market to buy a bird. Who's +been croaked, eh?" + +"Aw, cut it out, Emma!" replied Mooney. "That old stuff won't go here. +Your Chink's goin' to the chair. Murtha, look through the place while we +put Mock in the wagon. Hell!" he added under his breath. "Won't this +make Peckham sick!" + + * * * * * + +Mr. Ephraim Tutt just finished his morning mail when he was informed +that Mr. Wong Get desired an interview. Though the old lawyer did not +formally represent the Hip Leong Tong he was frequently retained by its +individual members, who held him in high esteem, for they had always +found him loyal to their interests and as much a stickler for honor as +themselves. Moreover, between him and Wong Get there existed a curious +sympathy as if in some previous state of existence Wong Get might have +been Mr. Tutt, and Mr. Tutt Wong Get. Perhaps, however, it was merely +because both were rather weary, sad and worldly wise. + +Wong Get did not come alone. He was accompanied by two other Hip Leongs, +the three forming the law committee appointed to retain the best +available counsel to defend Mock Hen. In his expansive frock coat and +bowler hat Wong might easily have excited mirth had it not been for the +extreme dignity of his demeanor. They were there, he stated, to request +Mr. Tutt to protect the interests of Mock Hen, and they were prepared to +pay a cash retainer and sign a written contract binding themselves to a +balance--so much if Mock should be convicted; so much if acquitted; so +much if he should die in the course of the trial without having been +either convicted or acquitted. It was, said Wong Get gently, a matter of +grave importance and they would be glad to give Mr. Tutt time to think +it over and decide upon his terms. Suppose, then, that they should +return at noon? With this understanding, accordingly, they departed. + +"There's no point in skinning a Chink just because he is a Chink," said +the junior Tutt when his partner had explained the situation to him. +"But it isn't the highest-class practise and they ought to pay well." + +"What do you call well?" inquired Mr. Tutt. + +"Oh, a thousand dollars down, a couple more if he's convicted, and five +altogether if he's acquitted." + +"Do you think they can raise that amount of money?" + +"I think so," answered Tutt. "It might be a good deal for an individual +Chink to cough up on his own account, but this is a coöperative affair. +Mock Hen didn't kill Quong Lee to get anything out of it for himself, +but to save the face of his society." + +"He didn't kill him at all!" declared Mr. Tutt, hardly moving a muscle +of his face. + +"Well, you know what I mean!" said Tutt. + +"He wasn't there," insisted Mr. Tutt. "He was way over in Fulton Market +buying a terrapin." + +"That is what, if I were district attorney, I should call a Mock Hen +with a mockturtle defense!" grunted Tutt. + +Mr. Tutt chuckled. + +"I shall have to get that off myself at the beginning of the case, or it +might convict him," he remarked. "But he wasn't there--unless the jury +find that he was." + +"In which case he will--or shall--have been there--whatever the verb +is," agreed Tutt. "Anyhow they'll tax every laundry and chop-suey palace +from the Bronx to the Battery to pay us." + +"I'd hate to take our fee in bird's-nest soup, shark's fin, +bamboo-shoots salad and ya ko main," mused Mr. Tutt. + +"Or in ivory chopsticks, oolong tea, imitation jade, litchi nuts and +preserved leeches!" groaned Tutt. "Be sure and get the thousand down; it +may be all the cash we'll ever see!" + +Promptly at twelve the law committee of the Hip Leong Tong returned to +the office of Tutt & Tutt. With them came a venerable Chinaman in native +costume, his wrinkled face as inscrutable as that of a snapping turtle. +The others took chairs, but this high dignitary preferred to sit upon +his heels on the floor, creating something of the impression of an +ancient slant-eyed Buddha. + +Wong Get translated for his benefit the arrangement proposed by Mr. +Tutt, after which there was a long pause while His Eminence remained +immovable, without even the flicker of an eyelid. Then he delivered +himself in an interminable series of gargles and gurgles, supplemented +by a few cough-like hisses, while Wong Get translated with rapid +dexterity, running verbally in and out among his words like a carriage +dog between the wheels of a vehicle. + +It was, declared Buddha, an affair of great moment touching upon and +appertaining to the private honor of the Duck, the Wong, the Fong, the +Long, the Sui and various other families, both in America and China. The +life of one of their members was at stake. Their face required that the +proceedings should be as dignified as possible. The price named by Mr. +Tutt was quite inadequate. + +Mr. Tutt, repressing a smile, passed a box of stogies. What amount, he +inquired through Wong Get, would satisfy the face of the Duck family? A +somewhat lengthy discussion ensued. Then Buddha rendered his decision. + +The honor of the Ducks, Longs and Fongs would not be satisfied unless +Mr. Tutt received five thousand dollars down, five more if Mock Hen was +convicted, three more if he died before the conclusion of the trial, and +twenty thousand if he was acquitted. + +Mr. Tutt, assuming an equal impassivity, pondered upon the matter for +about an inch of stogy and then informed the committee that the terms +were eminently satisfactory. Buddha thereupon removed from the folds of +his tunic a gigantic roll of soiled bills of all denominations and +carefully counting out five thousand dollars placed it upon the table. + +"H'm!" remarked Tutt when he learned of the proceeding. "_His_ face is +_our_ fortune!" + + * * * * * + +"Look here," expostulated District Attorney Peckham in his office to Mr. +Tutt a month later. "What's the use of our both wasting a couple of +weeks trying a Chinaman who is bound to be convicted? Your time's too +valuable for that sort of thing, and so is mine. We've got three white +witnesses that saw him do it, and a couple of dozen Chinks besides. He +doesn't stand a chance; but just because he is a Chink, and to get the +case out of the way, I'll let you plead him to murder in the second +degree. What do you say?" + +He tried to conceal his anxiety by nervously lighting a cigar. He would +have given a year's salary to have Mock Hen safely up the river, even on +a conviction for manslaughter in the third, for the newspapers were +making his life a burden with their constant references to the seeming +inability of the police department and district attorney's office to +prevent the recurrence of feud killings in the Chinatown districts. What +use was it, they demanded, to maintain the expensive machinery of +criminal justice if the tongs went gayly on shooting each other up and +incidentally taking the lives of innocent bystanders? Wasn't the law +intended to cover Chinamen as much as Italians, Poles, Greeks and +niggers? And now that one of these murdering Celestials had been caught +red-handed it was up to the D.A. to go to it, convict him, and send him +to the chair! They did not express themselves precisely that way, but +that was the gist of it. But Peckham knew that it was one thing to catch +a Chinaman, even red-handed, and another to convict him. And so did Mr. +Tutt. + +The old lawyer smiled blandly--after the fashion of the Hip Leong Tong. +Of course, he admitted, it would be much simpler to dispose of the case +as Mr. Peckham suggested, but his client was insistent upon his +innocence and seemed to have an excellent alibi. He regretted, +therefore, that he had no choice except to go to trial. + +"Then," groaned Peckham, "we may as well take the winter for it. After +this there's going to be a closed season on Chinamen in New York City!" + +Now though it was true that Mock Hen insisted upon his innocence, he had +not insisted upon it to Mr. Tutt, for the latter had not seen him. In +fact, the old lawyer, recognizing what the law did not, namely that a +system devised for the trial and punishment of Occidentals is totally +inadequate to cope with the Oriental, calmly went about his affairs, +intrusting to Mr. Bonnie Doon of his office the task of interviewing the +witnesses furnished by Wong Get. There was but one issue for the jury to +pass upon. Quong Lee was dead and his honorable soul was with his +illustrious ancestors. He had died from a single blow upon the head, +delivered with an iron bar, there present, to be in evidence, marked +"Exhibit A." Mock Hen was alleged to have done the deed. Had he? There +would be nothing for Mr. Tutt to do but to cross-examine the witnesses +and then call such as could testify to Mock's alibi. So he made no +preparation at all and dismissed the case from his mind. He had hardly +seen a dozen Chinamen in his life--outside of a laundry. + + * * * * * + +On the morning set for the trial Mr. Tutt, having been delayed by an +accident in the Subway, entered the Criminal Courts Building only a +moment or two before the call of the calendar. Somewhat preoccupied, he +did not notice the numerous Chinamen who dawdled about the entrance or +the half dozen who crowded with him into the elevator, but when Pat the +elevator man called, "Second floor!--Part One to your right!--Part Two +to the left!" and he stepped out into the marble-floored corridor that +ran round the inside of the building, he was confronted with an unusual +and somewhat ominous spectacle. + +The entire hallway on two sides of the building was lined with +Chinamen! They sat there motionless as blue-coated images, faces front, +their hands in their laps, their legs crossed beneath them. If anyone +appeared in the offing a couple of hundred pairs of glinting eyes +shifted automatically and followed him until he disappeared, but +otherwise no muscle quivered. + +"Say," growled Hogan, Judge Bender's private attendant, who was the +first to run the gantlet, "those Chinks are enough to give you the +Willies! Their eyes scared me to death, sticking me through the back!" + +Even dignified Judge Bender himself as he stalked along the hall, +preceded by two police officers, was not immune from a slight feeling of +uncanniness, and he instinctively drew his robe round his legs that it +might not come into contact with those curious slippers with felt soles +that protruded across the marble slabs. + +"Eyes right!" They had picked him up the instant he stepped out of the +private elevator--the four hundred of them. If he turned and looked they +were seemingly not watching him, but if he dropped his glance they swung +back in a single moment and focused themselves upon him. And every one +of them probably had a gun hidden somewhere in his baggy pants! The +judge confessed to not liking these foreign homicide cases. You never +could tell what might happen or when somebody was going to get the death +sign. There was Judge Deasy--he had the whole front of his house blown +clean out by a bomb! That had been a close call! And these Chinks--with +their secret oaths and rituals--they'd think nothing at all of jabbing a +knife into you. He didn't fancy it at all and, as he hurried along, +supremely conscious of the deadly cumulative effect of those beady eyes, +he fancied it less and less. What was there to prevent one of them from +getting right up in court and putting a bullet through you? He shivered, +recalling the recent assassination of a judge upon the bench by a Hindu +whom he had sentenced. When he reached his robing room he sent for +Captain Phelan. + +"See here, captain," he directed sharply, "I want you to keep all those +Chinamen out in the corridor; understand?" + +"I've got to let some of 'em in, judge," urged Phelan. "You've got to +have an interpreter--and there's a Chinese lawyer associated with Tutt & +Tutt--and of course Mr. O'Brien has to have a couple of 'em so's he'll +know what's going on. Y' see, judge, the On Gee Tong is helping the +prosecution against the Hip Leongs, so both sides has to be more or less +represented." + +"Well, make sure none of 'em is armed," ordered Judge Bender. "I don't +like these cases." + +Now the judge, being recently elected and unfamiliar with the situation, +did not realize that nothing could have been farther from the Oriental +mind or intention than an attack upon the officers engaged in the +administration of local justice, whom they regarded merely as nuisances. +What these Chinamen supremely desired was to be allowed to settle their +own affairs in their own historic and traditional way--the way of the +revolver, the silken cord, the knife and the iron bar. Once enmeshed in +Anglo-Saxon juridical procedure, to be sure, they were not averse to +letting it run its course on the bare chance that it might automatically +accomplish their revenge. But they distrusted it, being brought up +according to a much more effective system--one which when it wanted to +punish anybody simply reached out, grabbed him by the pigtail, yanked +him to his knees and sliced off his head. This so-called American +justice was all talk--words, words, words! From their point of view +judges, jurymen and prosecutors were useless pawns in life's game of +chess. Perhaps they are! Who knows! + +When Judge Bender entered the court room it was, in spite of his +injunction, full of blue blouses. A special panel of two hundred +talesmen filled the first half dozen rows of benches, the others being +occupied by witnesses both Chinese and white, policemen and the +miscellaneous human flotsam and jetsam that always manages somehow or +other to find its way to a murder trial. Inside the rail O'Brien, the +assistant district attorney, was busy in conversation with three cueless +Chinamen in American clothes. At the bar sat Mock Hen with Mr. Tutt +beside him, flanked by Wong Get, Tutt, Bonnie Doon and Buddha. + +The judge beckoned Mr. Tutt and O'Brien to the front of the bench. + +"Is there any chance of disposing of this case by a plea?" he inquired. + +O'Brien looked expectantly at Mr. Tutt, who shook his head. The judge +shrugged his shoulders. + +"Well, how long is it going to take?" + +"About six weeks," answered the old lawyer quietly. + +"What!" ejaculated judge and prosecutor in unison. + +"A day or two less, perhaps," affirmed Mr. Tutt, "but, likely as not, +considerably longer." + +"I shall cut it down as much as I can," announced the judge, appalled at +the prospect. "I shall not permit this trial to be dragged out +indefinitely." + +"Nothing would please me better, Your Honor," said Mr. Tutt with the +shadow of a smile. "Shall we proceed to select the jury?" + +The accuracy of Mr. Tutt's prophecy as to the probable length of the +trial was partially demonstrated when it developed that most of the +talesmen had a pronounced antipathy to Chinese murder cases, and a +deep-rooted prejudice against the race as a whole. In fact, a certain +subconscious influence affecting most of them was formulated by the +thirty-ninth talesman to be rejected, who, in a moment of resentment, +burst forth, "I don't mind trying decent American criminals, but I hold +it isn't any part of a citizen's duty to try Chinamen!" and was promptly +struck off the jury list. + +"I say, chief," disgustedly declared O'Brien to Peckham at the noon +recess as they clinked glasses over the bar at Pont's, "you've handed me +a ripe, juicy Messina all right! I won't be able to get a jury. We've +been at it since ten o'clock and we haven't lured a single sucker into +the box!" + +"What's the matter?" inquired the D.A. apprehensively. + +"I can't quite make out," answered O'Brien. "But most of 'em seem to +have a sort of idea that to kill a Chinaman ain't a crime but a virtue!" + +"Well, don't tell anybody," whispered Peckham, "but I'm somewhat of that +way of thinking myself. Set 'em up again, John!" + +However, by invoking the utmost celerity a jury was at last selected and +sworn at the end of the nineteenth day of the trial. As a jury O'Brien +confidentially admitted to Peckham it wasn't much! But what could you +expect of a bunch who were willing to swear that they hadn't any +prejudice against a Chink and would as soon acquit him as a white man? +The truth was that they were all gentlemen who, having lost their jobs, +were willing to swear to anything that would bring them in two dollars a +day. The more days the better! And it is historic fact that during the +sixty-nine days of Mock Hen's prosecution not one of them protested at +being kept away from his wife and children, his business or his +pleasure. On the contrary they all slumbered peacefully from ten until +four--and when the trial ended, on the whole they rather regretted that +it was over, the only genuine opinion regarding the case being that the +Chinks were all as funny as hell and that Mr. Tutt was a bully old boy. + +The evidence respecting the death of the unfortunate Quong Lee made +little impression upon them. Seemingly they regarded the story much as +they did that of Elisha and the bears or Bel and the dragon--as a sort +of apocryphal narrative which they were required to listen to, but in no +wise bound to believe. They were much interested in Quong's suit of +chain mail, however, and from time to time awoke to enjoy the various +verbal encounters between the judge and Mr. Tutt. As factors in the +proceedings they did not count, except to receive their two dollars per +diem, board, lodging and hack fare. + +The trial of Mock Hen being conducted in a foreign language, the first +judicial step was the swearing of an interpreter. The On Gees had +promptly produced one, whom O'Brien told the court was a very learned +man; a graduate of the Imperial University at Peking, and a Son of the +Sacred Dragon. Be that as it may, he was not prepossessing in his +appearance and Mr. Tutt assured Judge Bender that far from being what +the district attorney pretended, the man was a well-known gambler, who +made his living largely by blackmail. He might be a son of a dragon or +he might not; anyway he was a son of Belial. An interpreter was the +conduit through which all the evidence must pass. If the official were +biased or corrupt the testimony would be distorted, colored or +suppressed. + +Now he--Mr. Tutt--had an interpreter, the well-known Dr. Hong Su, +against whom nothing could be said, and upon whose fat head rested no +imputation of partiality; a graduate of Harvard, a writer of note, a-- + +O'Brien sprang to his feet: "My interpreter says your interpreter is an +opium smuggler, that he murdered his aunt in Hong Kong, that he isn't a +doctor at all, and that he never graduated from anything except a +chop-suey joint," he interjected. + +"This is outrageous!" cried Mr. Tutt, palpably shocked at such language. + +"Gentlemen! Gentlemen!" groaned Judge Bender. "What am I to do? I don't +know anything about these men. One looks to me about the same as the +other. The court has no time to inquire into their antecedents. They may +both be learned scholars or they may each be what the other says he +is--I don't know. But we've got to begin to try this case sometime." + +It was finally agreed that in order that there might be no possible +question of partiality there should be two interpreters--one for the +prosecution and one for the defense. Both accordingly were sworn and the +first witness, Ah Fong, was called. + +"Ask him if he understands the nature of an oath," directed O'Brien. + +The interpreter for the state turned to Ah Fong and said something +sweetly to him in multitudinous words. + +Instantly Doctor Su rose indignantly. The other interpreter was not +putting the question at all, but telling the witness what to say. +Moreover, the other interpreter belonged to the On Gee Tong. He stood +waving his arms and gobbling like an infuriated turkey while his +adversary replied in similar fashion. + +"This won't do!" snapped the judge. "This trial will degenerate into +nothing but a cat fight if we are not careful." Then a bright idea +suggested itself to his Occidental mind. "Suppose I appoint an official +umpire to say which of the other two interpreters is correct--and let +them decide who he shall be?" + +This proposition was received with grunts of satisfaction by the two +antagonists, who conferred together with astonishing amiability and +almost immediately conducted into the court room a tall, emaciated +Chinaman who they alleged was entirely satisfactory to both of them. He +was accordingly sworn as a third interpreter, and the trial began again. + +It was observed that thereafter there was no dispute whatever regarding +the accuracy of the testimony, and as each interpreter was paid for his +services at the rate of ten dollars a day it was rumored that the whole +affair had been arranged by agreement between the two societies, which +divided the money, amounting to some eighteen hundred dollars, between +them. But, as O'Brien afterward asked Peckham, "How in thunder could you +tell?" + +The court's troubles had, however, only begun. Ah Fong was a +whimsical-looking person, who gave an impression of desiring to make +himself generally agreeable. He was, of course, the star witness--if a +Chinaman can ever be a star witness--and presumably had been carefully +schooled as to the manner in which he should give his testimony. He and +he alone had seen the whole tragedy from beginning to end. He it was, if +anybody, who would tuck Mock Hen comfortably into his coffin. + +The problem of the interpreters having been solved Fong settled himself +comfortably in the witness chair, crossed his hands upon his stomach and +looked complacently at Mock Hen. + +"Well, now let's get along," adjured His Honor. "Swear the witness." + +Mr. Tutt immediately rose. + +"If the court please," said he, "I object to the swearing of the witness +unless it is made to appear that he will regard himself as bound by the +oath as administered. Now this man is a Chinaman. I should like to ask +him a preliminary question or two." + +"That seems fair, Mr. O'Brien," agreed the court. "Do you see any reason +why Mr. Tutt shouldn't interrogate the witness?" + +"Oh, let me qualify my own witness!" retorted O'Brien fretfully. "Ah +Fong, will you respect the oath to testify truthfully, about to be +administered to you?" + +The interpreter delivered a broadside of Chinese at Ah Fong, who +listened attentively and replied at equal length. Then the interpreter +went at him again, and again Ah Fong affably responded. It was +interminable. + +The two muttered and chortled at each other until O'Brien, losing +patience, jumped up and called out: "What's all this? Can't you ask him +a simple question and get a simple answer? This isn't a debating +society." + +The interpreter held up his hand, indicating that the prosecutor should +have patience. + +"_Ah-ya-ya-oo-aroo-yung-ung-loy-a-a-ya oo-chu-a-oy-ah-ohay-tching_!" he +concluded. + + +"_A-yah-oy-a-yoo-oy-ah-chuck-uh-ung-loy-oo-ayah-a-yoo-chung-chung-szt- +oo-aha-oy-ou-ungaroo--yah-yah-yah!_" replied Ah Fong. + +"Thank heaven, that's over!" sighed O'Brien. + +The interpreter drew himself up to his full height. + +"He says yes," he declared dramatically. + +"It's the longest yes I ever heard!" audibly remarked the foreman, who +was feeling his oats. + +"Does not that satisfy you?" inquired the court of Mr. Tutt. + +"I am sorry to say it does not!" replied the latter. "Mr. O'Brien has +simply asked whether he will keep his oath. His reply sheds no light on +whether his religious belief is such that it would obligate him to +respect an oath." + +"Well, ask him yourself!" snorted O'Brien. + +"Ah Fong, do you believe in any god?" inquired Mr. Tutt. + +"He says yes," answered the interpreter after the usual interchange. + +"What god do you believe in?" persisted Mr. Tutt. + +Suddenly Ah Fong made answer without the intervention of the +interpreter. + +"When I in this country," he replied complacently in English, "I b'lieve +Gees Clist; when I in China I b'lieve Chinese god." + +"Does Your Honor hold that an obliging acquiescence in local theology +constitutes such a religious belief as to make this man's oath sacred?" +inquired Mr. Tutt. + +The judge smiled. + +"I don't see why not!" he declared. "There isn't any precedent as far as +I am aware. But he says he believes in the Deity. Isn't that enough?" + +"Not unless he believes that the Deity will punish him if he breaks his +oath," answered Mr. Tutt. "Let me try him on that?" + +"Ah Fong, do you think God will punish you if you tell a lie?" + +Fong looked blank. The interpreter fired a few salvos. + +"He says it makes a difference the kind of oath." + +"Suppose it is a promise to tell the truth?" + +"He says what kind of a promise?" + +"A promise on the Bible," answered Mr. Tutt patiently. + +"He says what god you mean!" countered the interpreter. + +"Oh, any god!" roared Mr. Tutt. + +The interpreter, after a long parley, made reply. + +"Ah Fong says there is no binding oath except on a chicken's head." + +Judge Bender, O'Brien and Mr. Tutt gazed at one another helplessly. + +"Well, there you are!" exclaimed the lawyer. "Mr. O'Brien's oath wasn't +any oath at all! What kind of a chicken's head?" + +"A white rooster." + +"Quite so!" nodded Mr. Tutt. "Your Honor, I object to this witness being +sworn by any oath or in any form except on the head of a white rooster!" + +"Well, I don't happen to have a white rooster about me!" remarked +O'Brien, while the jury rocked with glee. "Ask him if something else +won't do. A big book for instance?" + +The interpreter put the question and then shook his head. According to +Ah Fong there was no virtue in books whatever, either large or small. On +some occasions an oath could be properly taken on a broken plate--also +white--but not in murder cases. It was chicken or nothing. + +"Are you not willing to waive the formality of an oath, Mr. Tutt?" asked +the judge in slight impatience. + +"And wave my client into the chair?" demanded the lawyer. "No, sir!" + +"I don't see what we can do except to adjourn court until you can +procure the necessary poultry," announced Judge Bender. "Even then we +can't slaughter them in court. We'll have to find some suitable place!" + +"Why not kill one rooster and swear all the witnesses at once?" +suggested Mr. Tutt in a moment of inspiration. + + * * * * * + +"My God, chief!" exclaimed O'Brien at four o'clock. "There ain't a white +rooster to be had anywhere! Hens, yes! By the hundred! But roosters are +extinct! Tomorrow will be the twenty-first day of this prosecution and +not a witness sworn yet." + +However, a poultryman was presently discovered who agreed simply for +what advertising there was in it to furnish a crate of white roosters, +a hatchet and a headsman's block, and to have them in the basement of +the building promptly at ten o'clock. + +Accordingly, at that hour Judge Bender convened Part IX of the General +Sessions in the court room and then adjourned downstairs, where all the +prospective witnesses for the prosecution were lined up in a body and +told to raise their right hands. + +Meantime Clerk McGuire was handed the hatchet, and approached the coop +with obvious misgivings. Ah Fong had already given a dubious approval to +the sex and quality of the fowls inside and naught remained but to +submit the proper oath and remove the head of the unfortunate victim. A +large crowd of policemen, witnesses, reporters, loafers, truckmen and +others drawn by the unusual character of the proceedings had assembled +and now proceeded without regard for the requirements of judicial +dignity to encourage McGuire in his capacity of executioner, by profane +shouts and jeers, to do his deadly deed. + +But the clerk had had no experience with chickens and in bashfully +groping for the selected rooster allowed several other occupants of the +crate to escape. Instantly the air was filled with fluttering, squawking +fowls while fifty frenzied police officers and Chinamen attempted +vainly to reduce them to captivity again. In the midst of the mêlée +McGuire caught his rooster, and fearful lest it should escape him +managed somehow to decapitate it. The body, however, had been flopping +around spasmodically several seconds upon the floor before he realized +that the oath had not been administered, and his voice suddenly rose +above the pandemonium in an excited brogue. + +"Hold up your hands, you! You do solemnly swear that in the case of The +People against Mock Hen you will tell the truth, the whole truth and +nothing but the truth so help you God!" + +But the interpreter was at that moment engaged in clasping to his bosom +a struggling rooster and was totally unable to fulfill his functions. +Meantime the jury, highly edified at this illustration of the +administration of justice, gazed down upon the spectacle from the +stairs. + +"This farce has gone far enough!" declared Judge Bender disgustedly. "We +will return to the court room. Put those roosters back where they +belong!" + +Once more the participants ascended to Part IX and Ah Fong took his seat +in the witness chair. The interpreter's blouse was covered with +pin-feathers and one of his thumbs was bleeding profusely. + +"Ask the witness if the oath that he has now taken will bind his +conscience?" directed the court. + +Again the interpreter and Ah Fong held converse. + +"He says," translated that official calmly, "that the chicken oath is +all right in China, but that it is no good in United States, and that +anyway the proper form of words was not used." + +"Good Lord!" ejaculated O'Brien. "Where am I?" + +"Me tell truth, all light," suddenly announced Ah Fong in English. "Go +ahead! Shoot!" And he smiled an inscrutable age-long Oriental smile. + +The jury burst into laughter. + +"He's stringing you!" the foreman kindly informed O'Brien, who cursed +silently. + +"Go on, Mister District Attorney, examine the witness," directed the +judge. "I shall permit no further variations upon the established forms +of procedure." + +Then at last and not until then--on the morning of the twenty-first +day--did Ah Fong tell his simple story and the jury for the first time +learn what it was all about. But by then they had entirely ceased to +care, being engrossed in watching Mr. Tutt at his daily amusement of +torturing O'Brien into a state of helpless exasperation. + +Ah Fong gave his testimony with a clarity of detail that left nothing +to be desired, and he was corroborated in most respects by the Italian +woman, who identified Mock Hen as the Chinaman with the iron bar. Their +evidence was supplemented by that of Bull Neck Burke and Miss Malone, +who also were positive that they had seen Mock running from the scene of +the murder at exactly four-one o'clock. + +Mr. Tutt hardly cross-examined Fong at all, but with Mr. Burke he +pursued very different tactics, speedily rousing the wrestler to such a +condition of fury that he was hardly articulate, for the old lawyer +gently hinted that Mr. Burke was inventing the whole story for the +purpose of assisting his friends in the On Gee Tong. + +"But I tell yer I don't know no Chinks!" bellowed Burke, looking more +like a bull than ever. "This here Mock Hen run right by me. My goil saw +him too. I looked at me ticker to get the time!" + +"Ah! Then you expected to be a witness for the On Gee Tong!" + +"Naw! I tell yer I was walkin' wit' me goil!" + +"What is the lady's name?" + +"Miss Malone." + +"What is her occupation?" + +"She's a gay burlesquer." + +"A gay burlesquer?" + +"Sure--champagne goil and gay burlesquer." + +"A champagne girl!" + +"Dat's what I said." + +"You mean that she is upon the stage?" + +"Sure--dat's it!" + +"Oh!" Mr. Tutt looked relieved. + +"What had you and Miss Malone been doing that afternoon?" + +"I told yer--walkin'." + +Mr. Tutt coughed slightly. + +"Is that all?" + +"Say, watcha drivin' at?" + +Mr. Tutt elevated his bushy eyebrows. + +"How do you earn your living?" he demanded, changing his method of +attack. + +Bull Neck allowed his head to sink still farther into the vast bulk of +his immense torso, strangely resembling, in this position, the fabled +anthropophagi whose heads are reputed thus to "grow beneath their +shoulders." + +Then throwing out his jaw he announced proudly between set teeth: "I'm a +perfessor of physical sculture!" + +The jury sniggered. Mr. Tutt appeared politely puzzled. + +"A professor of what?" + +"A perfessor of physical sculture!" repeated Bull Neck with great +satisfaction. + +"Oh! A professor of physical sculpture!" exclaimed Mr. Tutt, light +breaking over his wrinkled countenance. "And what may that be?" + +Bull Neck looked round disgustedly at the jury as if to say: "What +ignorance!" + +"Trainin' an' developin' prominent people!" he explained. + +"Um!" remarked Mr. Tutt. "Who invited you to testify in this case?" + +"Mr. Mooney." + +"Oh, you're a friend of Mooney's! That is all!" + +Now it is apparent from these questions and answers that Mr. Burke had +testified to nothing to his discredit and had conducted himself as a +gentleman and a sportsman according to his best lights. Yet owing to the +subtle suggestions contained in Mr. Tutt's inflections and demeanor the +jury leaped unhesitatingly to the conclusion that here was a man so +ignorant and debased that if he were not deliberately lying he was being +made a cat's-paw by the police in the interest of the On Gee Tong. + +Miss Malone fared even worse, for after a preliminary skirmish she +flatly refused to give Mr. Tutt or the jury any information whatever +regarding her past life, while Mooney, of course, labored from the +beginning to the end of his testimony under the curse of being a +policeman, one of that class whom most jurymen take pride in saying they +hold in natural distrust. In a word, the white witnesses to the +dastardly murder of Quong Lee created a general impression of +unreliability upon the minds of the jury, who wholly failed to realize +the somewhat obvious truth that the witnesses to a crime in Chinatown +will naturally if not inevitably be persons who either reside in or +frequent that locality. + +Twenty-four days had now been consumed in the trial, and as yet no +Chinese witnesses except Ah Fong had been called. Now, however, they +appeared in cohorts. Though Mooney had sworn that the streets were +practically empty at the time of the homicide forty-one Chinese +witnesses swore positively that they had been within easy view, claiming +variously to have been behind doors, peeking through shutters, at upper +windows and even on the roofs. All had identified Mock Hen as the +murderer, and none of them had ever heard of either the On Gee or the +Hip Leong Tong! Mr. Tutt could not shake them upon cross-examination, +and O'Brien began to show signs of renewed confidence. Each testified to +substantially the same story and they occupied seventeen full days in +the telling, so that when the prosecution rested, forty-two days had +been consumed since the first talesman had been called. The trial had +sunk into a dull, unbroken monotony, as Mr. Tutt said, of the "vain +repetitions of the heathen." Yet the police and the district attorney +had done all that could reasonably have been expected of them. They were +simply confronted by the very obvious fact--a condition and not a +theory--that the legal processes of Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence are of +slight avail in dealing with people of another race. + +Now it is possible that even had Mr. Tutt put in no defense whatever the +jury might have refused to convict, for there was a curious air of +unreality surrounding the whole affair. It all seemed somehow as +if--assuming that it had ever taken place at all--it had occurred in +some other world and in some other age. Perhaps under what might have +been practically a direction of the court a verdict of conviction might +have been returned--but it is doubtful. The more witnesses testified to +exactly the same thing in precisely the same words the less likely it +appeared to be. + +But Mr. Tutt was taking no chances and, upon the forty-third day of the +trial, at a nod from the bench, he opened his case. Never had he been +more serious; never more persuasive. Abandoning every suggestion of +frivolity, he weighed the testimony of each white witness and pointed +out its obvious lack of probative value. Not one, he said, except the +Italian woman, had had more than a fleeting glance of the face of the +man now accused of the crime. Such an identification was useless. The +Chinamen were patently lying. They had not been there at all! Would any +member of the jury hang a dog, even a yellow one, on such testimony? Of +course not! Much less a human being. The people had called forty +witnesses to prove that Mock Hen had killed Quong Lee. It made no +difference. The On Gee could have just as easily produced four hundred. +Moreover, Mr. Tutt did a very daring thing. He pronounced all Chinese +testimony in an American court of justice as absolutely valueless, and +boasted that for every Chinaman who swore Mock Hen was guilty he would +bring forward two who would swear him innocent. + +The thing was, as he had carefully explained to Bonnie Doon, to prove +that Mock was a good Chinaman and, if the jury did not believe that +there was any such animal, to convince them that it was possible. His +first task, however, was to polish off the Chinese testimony by calling +the witnesses who had been secured under the guidance of Wong Get. He +admitted afterward that in view of the exclusion law he had not supposed +there were so many Chinamen in the United States, for they crowded the +corridors and staircases of the Criminal Courts Building, arriving in +companies--the Wong family, the Mocks, the Fongs, the Lungs, the Sues, +and others of the sacred Hip Sing Society from near at hand and from +distant parts--from Brooklyn and Flatbush, from Flushing and Far +Rockaway, from Hackensack and Hoboken, from Trenton and Scranton, from +Buffalo and Saratoga, from Chicago and St. Louis, and each and every one +of them swore positively upon the severed neck of the whitest +rooster--the broken fragments of the whitest of porcelain plates--the +holiest of books--that he had been present in person at Fulton Market in +New York City at precisely four-fifteen o'clock in the afternoon and +assisted Mock Hen, the defendant, in selecting and purchasing a terrapin +for stew. + +Mr. Tutt grinned at the jury and the jury grinned affectionately back at +Mr. Tutt. Indeed, after the length of time they had all been together +they had almost as much respect for him as for the judge upon the bench. +The whole court seemed to be a sort of Tutt Club, of which even O'Brien +was a member. + +"Now," said Mr. Tutt, "I will call a few witnesses to show you what kind +of a man this is whom these highbinders accuse of the crime of murder!" + +Mock, rolling his eyes heavenward, assumed an expression of infantile +helplessness and trust. + +"Don't overdo it!" growled Tutt. "Just look kind of gentle." + +So Mock looked as gentle as a suckling dove while two professors from +Columbia University, three of his landlords in his more reputable +business enterprises, the superintendent of the Rising Sun Mission, four +ex-police officers, a fireman, and an investigator for the Society for +the Suppression of Sin swore upon Holy Writ and with all sincerity that +Mock Hen was not only a person of the most excellent character and +reputation but a Christian and a gentleman. + +And then Mr. Tutt played his trump card. + +"I will call Miss Frances Duryea, of Hudson House," he announced. "Miss +Duryea, will you kindly take the witness chair?" + +Miss Fanny modestly rose from her seat in the rear of the room and came +forward. No one could for an instant doubt the honesty and impartiality +of this devoted middle-aged woman, who, surrendering the comforts and +luxuries of her home uptown, to which she was well entitled by reason of +her age, was devoting herself to a life of service. If a woman like +that, thought the jury, was ready to vouch for Mock's good character, +why waste any more time on the case? But Miss Fanny was to do much more. + +"Miss Duryea," began Mr. Tutt, "do you know the defendant?" + +"Yes, sir; I do," she answered quietly. + +"How long have you known him?" + +"Six years." + +"Do you know his reputation for peace and quiet?" + +Miss Fanny half turned to the judge and then faced the jury. + +"He is one of the sweetest characters I have ever known," she replied, +"and I have known many--" + +"Oh, I object!" interrupted O'Brien. "This lady can't be permitted to +testify to anything like that. She must be limited by the rules of +evidence!" + +With one movement the jury wheeled and glared at him. + +"I guess this lady can say anything she wants!" declared the foreman +chivalrously. + +O'Brien sank down in his seat. What was the use! + +"Go on, please," gently directed Mr. Tutt. + +"As I was saying, Mr. Mock Hen is a very remarkable character," +responded Miss Fanny. "He is devoted to the mission and to us at the +settlement. I would trust him absolutely in regard to anything." + +"Thank you," said Mr. Tutt, smiling benignly. "Now, Miss Duryea, did you +see Mock Hen at any time on May sixth?" + +Instantly the jury showed renewed signs of life. May sixth? That was +the day of the murder. + +"I did," answered Miss Fanny with conviction. "He came to see me at +Hudson House in the afternoon and while we were talking the clock struck +four." + +The jury looked at one another and nodded. + +"Well, I guess that settles this case!" announced the foreman. + +"Right!" echoed a talesman behind him. + +"I object!" wailed O'Brien. "This is entirely improper!" + +"Quite so!" ruled Judge Bender sternly. "The jurymen will not make any +remarks!" + +"But, Your Honor--we all agreed at recess there was nothing in this +case," announced the foreman. "And now this testimony simply clinches +it. Why go on with it!" + +"That's so!" ejaculated another. "Let us go, judge." + +Mr. Tutt's weather-beaten face was wreathed in smiles. + +"Easy, gentlemen!" he cautioned. + +The judge shrugged his shoulders, frowning. + +"This is very irregular!" he said. + +Then he beckoned to O'Brien, and the two whispered together for several +minutes, while all over the court room on the part of those who had sat +there so patiently for sixty-nine days there was a prolonged and +ecstatic wriggling of arms and legs. Instinctively they all knew that +the farce was over. + +The assistant district attorney returned to his table but did not sit +down. + +"If the court please," he said rather wearily, "the last witness, Miss +Duryea, by her testimony, which I personally am quite ready to accept as +truthful, has interjected a reasonable doubt of the defendant's guilt +into what otherwise would in my opinion be a case for the jury. If Mock +Hen was at Hudson House, nearly two miles from Pell and Doyers Streets, +at four o'clock on the afternoon of the homicide, manifestly he could +not have been one of the assailants of Quong Lee at one minute past +four. I am satisfied that no jury would convict--" + +"Not on your life!" snorted the foreman airily. + +"--and I therefore," went on O'Brien, "ask the court to direct an +acquittal." + + * * * * * + +In the grand banquet hall of the Shanghai and Hongkong American-Chinese +Restaurant, Ephraim Tutt, draped in a blue mandarin coat with a tasseled +pill box rakishly upon his old gray head, sat beside Wong Get and Buddha +at the head of a long table surrounded by three hundred Chinamen in +their richest robes of ceremony. Lanterns of party-colored glass +swaying from gilded rafters shed a strange light upon a silken cloth +marvelously embroidered and laden with the choicest of Oriental dishes, +and upon the pale faces of the Hip Leong Tong--the Mocks, the Wongs, the +Fongs and the rest--both those who had testified and also those who had +merely been ready if duty called to do so, all of whom were now gathered +together to pay honor where they felt honor to be due; namely, at the +shrine of Mr. Tutt. + +Deft Chinese waiters slipped silently from guest to guest with +bird's-nest soup, guy soo main, mon goo guy pan, shark's fin and lung +har made of shreds of lobster, water chestnuts, rice and the succulent +shoots of the young bamboo, while three musicians in a corner sang +through their nose a syncopated dirge. "Wang-ang-ang-ang!" it rose and +fell as Mr. Tutt, his neck encircled by a wreath of lilies, essayed to +manipulate a pair of long black chop-sticks. "Wang-ang-ang-ang!" About +him were golden limes, ginger in syrup, litchi nuts, pickled leeches. + +Then he felt a touch upon his shoulder and turned to see Fong Hen, the +slipper, standing beside him. It was the duty of Fong Hen to drink with +each guest--more than that, to drink as much as each guest drank! He +gravely offered Mr. Tutt a pony of rice brandy. It was not the fiery +lava he had anticipated, but a soft, caressing nectar, fragrant as if +distilled from celestial flowers of the time of Confucius. The slipper +swallowed the same quantity at a gulp, bowed and passed along. + +Mr. Tutt vainly tried to grasp the fact that he was in his own native +city of New York. Long sleeves covered with red and purple dragons hid +his arms and hands, and below the collar a smooth tight surface of silk +across his breast made access to his pockets quite impossible. In one of +them reposed twenty one-thousand-dollar bills--his fee for securing the +acquittal of Mock Hen. Yes, he was in New York! + +The monotonous wail of the instruments, the pungency of the incense, the +subdued light, the humid breath of the roses carried the thoughts of Mr. +Tutt far away. Before him, against the blue misty sunshine, rose the +yellow temples of Peking. He could hear the faint tintinnabulation of +bells. He was wandering in a garden fragrant with jasmine blossoms and +adorned with ancient graven stones and carved gilt statues. The air was +sweet. Mr. Tutt was very tired.... + +"Let him sleep!" nodded Buddha, deftly conveying to his wrinkled lips a +delicate morsel of guy yemg dun. "Let him sleep! He has earned his +sleep. He has saved our face!" + +It was after midnight when Mr. Tutt, heavily laden with princely gifts +of ivory and jade and boxes of priceless teas, emerged from the side +door of the Shanghai and Hongkong American-Chinese Restaurant. The sky +was brilliant with stars and the sidewalks of Doyers and Pell Streets +were crowded with pedestrians. Near by a lantern-bedecked rubber-neck +wagon was in process of unloading its cargo of seekers after the curious +and unwholesome. On either side of him walked Wong Get and Buddha. They +had hardly reached the corner when five shots echoed in quick succession +above the noise of the traffic and the crowd turned with one accord and +rushed in the direction from which he had just come. + +Mr. Tutt, startled, stopped and looked back. Courteously also stopped +Wong Get and Buddha. A throng was fast gathering in front of the +Shanghai and Hongkong Restaurant. + +Then Murtha appeared, shouldering his way roughly through the mob. +Catching sight of Mr. Tutt, he paused long enough to whisper hoarsely in +the lawyer's ear: "Well, they got Mock Hen! Five bullets in him! But if +they were going to, why in hell couldn't they have done it three months +ago?" + + + + +Samuel and Delilah + + + "And it came to pass, when she pressed him daily with + her words, and urged him, so that his soul was vexed + unto death; that he told her all his heart, and said unto + her, There hath not come a razor upon mine head; ... + if I be shaven, then my strength will go from me, and I + shall become weak and be like any other man." + --JUDGES XVI, 16, 17. + +"Have you seen '76 Fed.' anywhere, Mr. Tutt?" inquired Tutt, appearing +suddenly in the doorway of his partner's office. + +Mr. Tutt looked up from Page 364 of the opinion he was perusing in "The +United States vs. One Hundred and Thirty-two Packages of Spirituous +Liquors and Wines." + +"Got it here in front of me," he answered shortly. "What do you want it +for?" + +Tutt looked over his shoulder. + +"That's a grand name for a case, isn't it? 'Packages of Wines!'" he +chuckled. "I made a note once of a matter entitled 'United States vs. +Forty-three Cases of Frozen Eggs'; and of another called 'United States +vs. One Feather Mattress and One Hundred and Fifty Pounds of +Butter'--along in 197 Federal Reports, if I remember correctly. And you +recall that accident case we had--Bump against the Railroad?" + +"You can't tell me anything about names," remarked Mr. Tutt. "I once +tried a divorce action. Fuss against Fuss; and another, Love against +Love. Do you really want this book?" + +"Not if you are using it," replied Tutt. "I just wanted to show an +authority to Mr. Sorg, the president of the Fat and Skinny Club. You +know our application for a certificate of incorporation was denied +yesterday by Justice McAlpin." + +"No, I didn't know it," returned Mr. Tutt. "Why?" + +"Here's his memorandum in the Law Journal," answered his partner. "Read +it for yourself": + + + Matter of Fat and Skinny Club, Inc. This is an + application for approval of a certificate of incorporation + as a membership corporation. The stated purposes are + to promote and encourage social intercourse and good + fellowship and to advance the interests of the community. + The name selected is the Fat and Skinny Club. If this + be the most appropriate name descriptive of its membership + it is better that it remain unincorporated. Application + denied. + +"Now who says the law isn't the perfection of common sense?" ruminated +Mr. Tutt. "Its general principles are magnificent." + +"And yet," mused Tutt, "only last week Judge McAlpin granted the +petition of one Solomon Swackhamer to change his name to Phillips Brooks +Vanderbilt. Is that right? Is that justice? Is it equity? I ask +you!--when he turns down the Fat and Skinnies?" + +"Oh, yes it is," retorted Mr. Tutt. "When you consider that Mr. +Swackhamer could have assumed the appellation of P.B. Vanderbilt or any +other name he chose without asking the court's permission at all." + +"What!" protested Tutt incredulously. + +"That's the law," returned the senior partner. "A man can call himself +what he chooses and change his name as often as he likes--so long, of +course, as he doesn't do it to defraud. The mere fact that a statute +likewise gives him the right to apply to the courts to accomplish the +same result makes no difference." + +"Of course it might make him feel a little more comfortable about it to +do it that way," suggested Tutt. "Do you know, as long as I've practised +law in this town I've always assumed that one had to get permission to +change one's name." + +"You've learned something," said Mr. Tutt suavely. "I hope you will put +it to good account. Here's '76 Fed.' Take it out and console the Fat and +Skinny Club with it if you can." + +Mr. Tutt surrendered the volume without apparent regret and Tutt retired +to his own office and to the task of soothing the injured feelings of +Mr. Sorg. + +A simple-minded little man was Tutt, for all his professional shrewdness +and ingenuity. Like many a hero of the battlefield and of the bar, once +inside the palings of his own fence he became modest, gentle, even +timorous. For Abigail, his wife, had no illusions about him and did not +affect to have any. To her neither Tutt nor Mr. Tutt was any such great +shakes. Had Tutt dared to let her know of many of the schemes which he +devised for the profit or safety of his clients she would have thought +less of him still; in fact, she might have parted with him forever. In a +sense Mrs. Tutt was an exacting woman. Though she somewhat reluctantly +consented to view the hours from nine a.m. to five p.m. in her husband's +day as belonging to the law, she emphatically regarded the rest of the +twenty-four hours as belonging to her. + +The law may be, as Judge Holmes has called it, "a jealous mistress," but +in the case of Tutt it was not nearly so jealous as his wife. So Tutt +was compelled to walk the straight-and-narrow path whether he liked it +or not. On the whole he liked it well enough, but there were +times--usually in the spring--when without being conscious of what was +the matter with him he mourned his lost youth. For Tutt was only +forty-eight and he had had a grandfather who had lived strenuously to +upward of twice that age. He was vigorous, sprightly, bright-eyed and as +hard as nails, even if somewhat resembling in his contours the late Mr. +Pickwick. Mrs. Tutt was tall, spare, capable and sardonic. She made Tutt +comfortable, but she no longer appealed to his sense of romance. Still +she held him. As the playwright hath said "It isn't good looks they +want, but good nature; if a warm welcome won't hold them, cold cream +won't." + +However, Tutt got neither looks nor cold cream. His welcome, in fact, +was warm only if he stayed out too late, and then the later the warmer. +His relationship to his wife was prosaic, respectful. In his heart of +hearts he occasionally thought of her as exceedingly unattractive. In a +word Mrs. Tutt performed her wifely functions in a purely matter-of-fact +way. Anything else would have seemed to her unseemly. She dressed in a +manner that would have been regarded as conservative even on Beacon +Hill. She had no intention of making an old fool of herself or of +letting him be one either. When people had been married thirty years +they could take some things for granted. Few persons therefore had ever +observed Mr. Tutt in the act of caressing Mrs. Tutt; and there were +those who said that he never had. Frankly, she was a trifle forbidding: +superficially not the sort of person to excite a great deal of +sentiment; and occasionally, as we have hinted, in the spring Tutt +yearned for a little sentiment. + +He did his yearning, however, entirely on the side and within those +hours consecrated to the law. In his wife's society he yearned not at +all. In her company he carefully kept his thoughts and his language +inside the innermost circle of decorum. At home his talk was entirely +"Yea, yea," and "Nay, nay," and dealt principally with politics and the +feminist movement, in which Abigail was deeply interested. + +And by this we do not mean to suggest that at other times or places Tutt +was anything but conventionally proper. He was not. He only yearned to +be, well knowing that he was deficient in courage if not in everything +else. + +But habit or no habit, likely or unlikely, Mrs. Tutt had no intention of +taking any chances so far as Tutt was concerned. If he did not reach +home precisely at six explanations were in order, and if he came in half +an hour later he had to demonstrate his integrity beyond a reasonable +doubt according to the established rules of evidence. + +Perhaps Mrs. Tutt did wisely to hold Tutt thus in leash considering the +character of many of the firm's clients. For it was quite impossible to +conceal the nature of the practise of Tutt & Tutt; much of which figured +flamboyantly in the newspapers. Some women would have taken it for +granted under like circumstances that their husbands had acquired a +touch at least of the wisdom of the serpent even if they remained quite +harmless. Abigail countenanced no thought of any demoralization in her +spouse. To her he was like the artist who smears himself and his smock +with paint while in his studio, but appears at dinner in spotless linen +without even a whiff of benzine about him to suggest his occupation. So +Tutt, though hand and glove in his office with the most notorious of the +elite of Longacre Square, came home to supper with the naiveté and +innocence of a theological student for whom an evening at a picture show +is the height of dissipation. + +Yet Tutt was no more of a Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde than most of us. +Merely, his daily transition was a little more abrupt. And when all is +said and done most of the devices invented by his fertile little brain +to further the interests of his clients were no more worthy of +condemnation than those put forward by far higher-priced and much more +celebrated attorneys. + +Not that Mrs. Tutt was blind to the dangers to which her husband by +virtue of his occupation was exposed. Far from it. Indeed she made it +her business to pay periodical visits to the office, ostensibly to see +whether or not it was properly cleaned and the windows washed, but in +reality--or at least so Tutt suspected--to find out whether the +personnel was entirely suitable for a firm of their standing and +particularly for a junior partner of his susceptibilities. + +But she never discovered anything to give her the slightest cause for +alarm. The dramatis personae of the offices of Tutt & Tutt were +characteristic of the firm, none of their employees--except Miss +Sondheim, the tumultous-haired lady stenographer--and Willie, the office +boy, being under forty years of age. + +When not engaged in running errands or fussing over his postage-stamp +album, Willie spent most of his time teasing old Scraggs, the scrivener, +an unsuccessful teetotaler. A faint odor of alcohol emanated from the +cage in which he performed his labors and lent an atmosphere of +cheerfulness to what might otherwise have seemed to Broadway clients an +unsympathetic environment, though there were long annual periods during +which he was as sober as a Kansas judge. The winds of March were apt, +however, to take hold of him. Perhaps it was the spring in his case +also. + +The backbone of the establishment was Miss Minerva Wiggin. In every law +office there is usually some one person who keeps the shop going. +Sometimes it is a man. If so, he is probably a sublimated stenographer +or law clerk who, having worked for years to get himself admitted to the +bar, finds, after achieving that ambition, that he has neither the +ability nor the inclination to brave the struggle for a livelihood by +himself. Perchance as a youth he has had visions of himself arguing test +cases before the Court of Appeals while the leaders of the bar hung upon +his every word, of an office crowded with millionaire clients and +servile employees, even as he is servile to the man for whom he labors +for a miserly ten dollars a week. + +His ambition takes him by the hand and leads him to high places, from +which he gazes down into the land of his future prosperity and +greatness. The law seems a mysterious, alluring, fascinating profession, +combining the romance of the drama with the gratifications of the +intellect. He springs to answer his master's bell; he sits up until all +hours running down citations and making extracts from opinions; he +rushes to court and answers the calendar and sometimes carries the +lawyer's brief case and attends him throughout a trial. Three years go +by--five--and he finds that he is still doing the same thing. He is now +a member of the bar, he has become the managing clerk, he attends to +fairly important matters, engages the office force, superintends +transfer of title, occasionally argues a motion. Five years more go by +and perhaps his salary is raised a trifle more. Then one day he awakes +to the realization that his future is to be only that of a trusted +servitor. + +Perchance he is married and has a baby. The time has come for him to +choose whether he will go forth and put his fortune to the test "to win +or lose it all" or settle down into the position of faithful legal hired +man. He is getting a bit bald, he has had one or two tussles with his +bank about accidental overdrafts. The world looks pretty bleak outside +and the big machine of the law goes grinding on heartless, inevitable. +Who is he to challenge the future? The old job is fairly easy; they +can't get on without him, they say; here is where he belongs; he knows +his business--give him his thirty-five hundred a year and let him stay! + +That is Binks, or Calkins, or Shivers, or any one of those worried +gray-haired men who sit in the outer office behind a desk strewn with +papers and make sure that no mistakes have been made. To them every +doubtful question of practise is referred and they answer +instantly--sometimes wrongly, but always instantly. They know the last +day for serving the demurrer in Bilbank against Terwilliger and whether +or not you can tax a referee's fee as a disbursement in a bill of costs; +they are experts on the precise form for orders in matrimonial actions +and the rule in regard to filing a summons and complaint in Oneida +County; they stand between the members of the firm and disagreeable +clients; they hire and discharge the office boys; they do everything +from writing a brief for the Supreme Court of the United States down to +making the contract with the window cleaners; they are the only lawyers +who really know anything and they were once promising young men, who +have found out at last that life and the Sunday-school books are very +far apart; but they run the works and make the law a gentleman's +profession for the rest of us. They are always there. Others come, grow +older, go away, but they remain. Many of them drink. All of which would +be irrelevant, incompetent and immaterial if this were not a legal +story. + +Scraggs had been one of these, but he had also been one of those who +drank, and now he was merely a bookkeeper. Miss Wiggin reigned in his +stead. + +A woman and not a man kept Tutt & Tutt on the map. When this sort of +thing occurs it is usually because the woman in question is the ablest +and very likely also the best person in the outfit, and she assumes the +control of affairs by a process of natural selection. Miss Wiggin was +the conscience, if Mr. Tutt was the heart, of Tutt & Tutt. Nobody, +unless it was Mr. Tutt, knew where she had come from or why she was +working if at all in only a semi-respectable law office. Without her +something dreadful would have happened to the general morale. Everybody +recognized that fact. + +Her very appearance gave the place tone--neutralized the faint odor of +alcohol from the cage. For in truth she was a fine-looking woman. Had +she been costumed by a Fifth Avenue dressmaker and done her coiffure +differently she would have been pretty. Because she drew her gray hair +straight back from her low forehead and tied it in a knob on the back of +her head, wore paper cuffs and a black dress, she looked nearer fifty +than forty-one, which she was. Two hundred dollars would have taken +twenty years off her apparent age--a year for every ten dollars; but she +would not have looked a particle less a lady. + +Her duties were ambiguous. She was always the first to arrive at the +office and was the only person permitted to open the firm mail outside +of its members. She overlooked the books that Scraggs kept and sent out +the bills. She kept the key to the cash box and had charge of the safe. +She made the entries in the docket and performed most of the duties of a +regular managing clerk. She had been admitted to the bar. She checked up +the charge accounts and on Saturdays paid off the office force. In +addition to all these things she occasionally took a hand at a brief, +drew most of the pleadings, and kept track of everything that was done +in the various cases. + +But her chief function, one which made her invaluable was that of +receiving clients who came to the office, and in the first instance +ascertaining just what their troubles were; and she was so sympathetic +and at the same time so sensible that many a stranger who casually +drifted in and would otherwise just as casually have drifted out again +remained a permanent fixture in the firm's clientele. Scraggs and +William adored her in spite of her being an utter enigma to them. She +was quiet but businesslike, of few words but with a latent sense of +humor that not infrequently broke through the surface of her gravity, +and she proceeded upon the excellent postulate that everyone with whom +she came in contact was actuated by the highest sense of honor. She +acted as a spiritual tonic to both Mr. Tutt and Tutt--especially to the +latter, who was the more in need of it. If they were ever tempted to +stray across the line of professional rectitude her simple assumption +that the thing couldn't be done usually settled the matter once and for +all. On delicate questions Mr. Tutt frankly consulted her. Without her, +Tutt & Tutt would have been shysters; with her they were almost +respectable. She received a salary of three thousand dollars a year and +earned double that amount, for she served where she loved and her first +thought was of Tutt & Tutt. If you can get a woman like that to run your +law office do not waste any time or consideration upon a man. Her price +is indeed above rubies. + +Yet even Miss Wiggin could not keep the shadow of the vernal equinox off +the simple heart of the junior Tutt. She had seen it coming for several +weeks, had scented danger in the way Tutt's childish eye had lingered +upon Miss Sondheim's tumultous black hair and in the rather rakish, +familiar way he had guided the ladies who came to get divorces out to +the elevator. And then there swam into his life the beautiful Mrs. +Allison, and for a time Tutt became not only hysterically young again, +but--well, you shall see. + +Yet, curiously enough, though we are a long way from where this story +opened, it all goes back to Phillips Brooks Vanderbilt and the Fat and +Skinny Club and the right to call ourselves by what names we please. +Moreover, as must be apparent, all that happened occurred beyond Miss +Wiggin's sphere of spiritual influence. Yet, had it not, even she could +not have harnessed Leviathan or loosed the bands of Orion--to say +nothing of counteracting the effect of spring. + +When Tutt returned with "76 Fed." after the departure of Mr. Sorg he +found his partner smoking the usual stogy and gazing pensively down upon +the harbor. The immediate foreground was composed of rectangular roofs +of divers colors, mostly reddish, ornamented with eccentrically shaped +chimney pots, pent-houses, skylights and water tanks, in addition to +various curious whistle-like protuberances from which white wraiths of +steam whirled and danced in the gay breeze. Beyond, in the middle +distance, a great highway of sparkling jewels led across the waves to +the distant faintly green hills of Staten Island. Three tiny aeroplanes +wove invisible threads against the blue woof of the sky above the New +Jersey shore. It was not a day to practise law at all. It was a day to +lie on one's back in the grass and watch the clouds or throw one's +weight against the tugging helm of a racing sloop and bite the spindrift +blown across her bows--not a day for lawyers but for lovers! + +"Here's '76 Fed.'," said Tutt. + +"What's become of Sorg?" + +"Gone. Mad. Says the whole point of the Fat and Skinny Club is in the +name." + +"I fancy--from looking at Mr. Sorg--that that is quite true," remarked +Mr. Tutt. He paused and reaching down into a lower compartment of his +desk, lifted out a tumbler and his bottle of malt extract, which he +placed carefully at his elbow and leaned back again contemplatively. +"Look here, Tutt," he said. "I want to ask you something. Is there +anything the matter with you?" + +Tutt regarded him with the air of a small boy caught peeking through a +knot hole. + +"Why,--no!" he protested lamely. "That is--nothing in particular. I do +feel a bit restless--sort of vaguely dissatisfied." + +Mr. Tutt nodded sympathetically. + +"How old are you, Tutt?" + +"Forty-eight." + +"And you feel just at present as if life were 'flat, stale and +unprofitable?'" + +"Why--yes; you might put it that way. The fact is every day seems just +like every other day. I don't even get any pleasure out of eating. The +very sight of a boiled egg beside my plate at breakfast gives me the +willies. I can't eat boiled eggs any more. They sicken me!" + +"Exactly!" Mr. Tutt poured out a glass of the malt extract. + +"I feel the same way about a lot of things," Tutt hurried on. "Special +demurrers, for instance. They bore me horribly. And supplementary +proceedings get most frightfully upon my nerves." + +"Exactly!" repeated Mr. Tutt. + +"What do you mean by 'exactly?'" snapped Tutt. + +"You're bored," explained his partner. + +"Rather!" agreed Tutt. "Bored to death. Not with anything special, you +understand; just everything. I feel as if I'd like to do something +devilish." + +"When a man feels like that he better go to a doctor," declared Mr. +Tutt. + +"A doctor!" exclaimed Tutt derisively. "What good would a doctor do me?" + +"He might keep you from getting into trouble." + +"Oh, you needn't be alarmed. I won't get into any trouble." + +"It's the dangerous age," said Mr. Tutt. "I've known a lot of +respectable married men to do the most surprising things round fifty." + +Tutt looked interested. + +"Have you now?" he inquired. "Well, I've no doubt it did some of 'em a +world of good. Tell you frankly sometimes I feel as if I'd rather like +to take a bit of a fling myself!" + +"Your professional experience ought to be enough to warn you of the +dangers of that sort of experiment," answered Mr. Tutt gravely. "It's +bad enough when it occurs inadvertently, so to speak, but when a man in +your condition of life deliberately goes out to invite trouble it's a +sad, sad spectacle." + +"Do you mean to imply that I'm not able to take care of myself?" +demanded Tutt. + +"I mean to imply that no man is too wise to be made a fool of by some +woman." + +"That every Samson has his Delilah?" + +"If you want to put it that way--yes." + +"And that in the end he'll get his hair cut?" + +Mr. Tutt took a sip from the tumbler of malt and relit his stogy. + +"What do you know about Samson and Delilah, Tutt?" he challenged. + +"Oh, about as much as you do, I guess, Mr. Tutt," answered his partner +modestly. + +"Well, who cut Samson's hair?" demanded the senior member. + +He emptied the dregs of the malt-extract bottle into his glass and +holding it to the light examined it critically. + +"Delilah, of course!" ejaculated Tutt. + +Mr. Tutt shook his head. + +"There you go off at half-cock again, Tutt!" he retorted whimsically. +"You wrong her. She did no such thing." + +"Why, I'll bet you a hundred dollars on it!" cried Tutt excitedly. + +"Make it a simple dinner at the Claridge Grill and I'll go you." + +"Done!" + +There were four books on the desk near Mr. Tutt's right hand--the New +York Code of Civil Procedure, an almanac, a Shakesperean concordance and +a Bible. + +"Look it up for yourself," said Mr. Tutt, waving his arm with a gesture +of the utmost impartiality. "That is, if you happen to know in what part +of Holy Writ said Delilah is to be found." + +Tutt followed the gesture and sat down at the opposite side of the desk. + +"There!" he exclaimed, after fumbling over the leaves for several +minutes. "What did I tell you? Listen, Mr. Tutt! It's in the sixteenth +chapter of Judges: 'And it came to pass, when she pressed him daily with +her words, and urged him, so that his soul was vexed unto death; That he +told her all his heart, and said unto her, There hath not come a razor +upon mine head.' Um--um." + +"Read on, Tutt!" ordered Mr. Tutt. + +"Um. 'And when Delilah saw that he had told her all his heart, she sent +and called for the lords of the Philistines, saying, Come up this once.' +Um-um." + +"Yes, go on!" + +"'And she made him sleep upon her knees; and she called for a man, and +she caused him to shave off the seven locks of his head.' Well, I'll be +hanged!" exclaimed Tutt. "Now, I would have staked a thousand dollars on +it. But look here, you don't win! Delilah did cut Samson's hair--through +her agent. '_Qui facit per alium facit per se!_'" + +"Your point is overruled," said Mr. Tutt. "A barber cut Samson's hair. +Let it be a lesson to you never to take anything on hearsay. Always look +up your authorities yourself. Moreover"--and he looked severely at +Tutt--"the cerebral fluid--like malt extract--tends to become cloudy +with age." + +"Well, anyhow, I'm no Samson," protested Tutt. "And I haven't met anyone +that looked like a Delilah. I guess after the procession of +adventuresses that have trailed through this office in the last twenty +years I'm reasonably safe." + +"No man is safe," meditated Mr. Tutt. "For the reason that no man knows +the power of expansion of his heart. He thinks it's reached its +limit--and then he finds to his horror or his delight that it hasn't. To +put it another way, a man's capacity to love may be likened to a +thermometer. At twenty-five or thirty he meets some young person, falls +in love with her, thinks his amatory thermometer has reached the +boiling-point and accordingly marries her. In point of fact it +hasn't--it's only marking summer heat--hasn't even registered the +temperature of the blood. Well, he goes merrily on life's way and some +fine day another lady breezes by, and this safe and sane citizen, who +supposes his capacity for affection was reached in early youth, suddenly +discovers to his amazement that his mercury is on the jump and presently +that his old thermometer has blown its top off." + +"Very interesting, Mr. Tutt," observed Tutt after a moment's silence. +"You seem to have made something of a study of these things." + +"Only in a business way--only in a business way!" Mr. Tutt assured him. +"Now, if you're feeling stale--and we all are apt to get that way this +time of year--why don't you take a run down to Atlantic City?" + +Now Tutt would have liked to go to Atlantic City could he have gone by +himself, but the idea of taking Abigail along robbed the idea of its +attraction. She had got more than ever on his nerves of late. But his +reply, whatever it might have been, was interrupted by the announcement +of Miss Wiggin, who entered at that moment, that a lady wished to see +him. + +"She asked for Mr. Tutt," explained Minerva. + +"But I think her case is more in your line," and she nodded to Tutt. + +"Good looking?" inquired Tutt roguishly. + +"Very," returned Miss Wiggin. "A blonde." + +"Thanks," answered Tutt, smoothing his hair; "I'm on my way." + +Now this free, almost vulgar manner of speech was in reality foreign to +both Tutt and Miss Wiggin and it was born of the instant, due doubtless +to some peculiar juxtaposition of astral bodies in Cupid's horoscope +unknown to them, but which none the less had its influence. Strange +things happen on the eve of St. Agnes and on Midsummer Night--even in +law offices. + +Mrs. Allison was sitting by the window in Tutt's office when he came in, +and for a full minute he paused upon the threshold while she pretended +she did not know that he was there. The deluge of sunlight that fell +upon her face betrayed no crack or wrinkle--no flaw of any kind--in the +white marble of its perfection. It was indeed a lovely face, classic in +the chiseling of its transparent alabaster; and when she turned, her +eyes were like misty lakes of blue. Bar none, she was the most beautiful +creature--and there had been many--that had ever wandered into the +offices of Tutt & Tutt. He sought for a word. "Wonderful"; that was, it, +she was "wonderful." His stale spirit soared in ecstasy, and left him +tongue-tied. In vulgar parlance he was rattled to death, this +commonplace little lawyer who for a score of years had dealt cynically +with the loves and lives of the flock of female butterflies who +fluttered annually in and out of the office. Throughout that period he +had sat unemotionally behind his desk and listened in an aloof, cold, +professional manner to the stories of their wrongs as they sobbed or +hissed them forth. Wise little lawyer that he was, he had regarded them +all as just what they were and nothing else--specimens of the Cecropia. +And he had not even patted them upon the shoulder or squeezed their +hands when he had bade them good-by--maintaining always an impersonal +and dignified demeanor. + +Therefore he was surprised to hear himself say in soothing, almost +cooing tones: + +"Well, my dear, what can I do for you?" + +Shades of Abigail! "Well, my dear!" Tutt--Tutt! Tutt! + +"I am in great trouble," faltered Mrs. Allison, gazing in misty +helplessness out of her blue grottoes at him while her beautiful red +lips trembled. + +"I hope I can help you!" he breathed. "Tell me all about it! Take your +time. May I relieve you of your wrap?" + +She wriggled out of it gratefully and he saw for the first time the +round, slender pillar of her neck. What a head she had--in its nimbus of +hazy gold. What a figure! His forty-eight-year-old lawyer's heart +trembled under its heavy layer of half-calf dust. He found difficulty in +articulating. He stammered, staring at her most shamelessly both of +which symptoms she did not notice. She was used to them in the other +sex. Tutt did not know what was the matter with him. He had in fact +entered upon that phase at which the wise man, be he old or young, turns +and runs. + +But Tutt did not run. In legal phrase he stopped, looked and listened, +experiencing a curious feeling of expansion. This enchanting creature +transmuted the dingy office lined with its rows of calfskin bindings +into a golden grot in which he stood spellbound by the low murmur of her +voice. A sense of infinite leisure emanated from her--a subtle denial of +the ordinary responsibilities--very relaxing and delightful to Tutt. But +what twitched his very heartstrings was the dimple that came and went +with that pathetic little twisted smile of hers. + +"I came to you," said Mrs. Allison, "because I knew you were both kind +and clever." + +Tutt smiled sweetly. + +"Kind, perhaps--not clever!" he beamed. + +"Why, everyone says you are one of the cleverest lawyers in New York," +she protested. Then, raising her innocent China-blue eyes to his she +murmured, "And I so need kindness!" + +Tutt's breast swelled with an emotion which he was forced to admit was +not altogether avuncular--that curious sentimental mixture that +middle-aged men feel of paternal pity, Platonic tenderness and +protectiveness, together with all those other euphemistic synonyms, that +make them eager to assist the weak and fragile, to try to educate and +elevate, and particularly to find out just how weak, fragile, uneducated +and unelevated a helpless lady may be. But in spite of his half century +of experience Tutt's knowledge of these things was purely vicarious. He +could have told another man when to run, but he didn't know when to run +himself. He could have saved another, himself he could not save--at any +rate from Mrs. Allison. + +He had never seen anyone like her. He pulled his chair a little nearer. +She was so slender, so supple, so--what was it?--svelte! And she had an +air of childish dignity that appealed to him tremendously. There was +nothing, he assured himself, of the vamp about her at all. + +"I only want to get my rights," she said, tremulously. "I'm nearly out +of my mind. I don't know what to do or where to turn!" + +"Is there"--he forced himself to utter the word with difficulty--"a--a +man involved?" + +She flushed and bowed her head sadly, and instantly a poignant rage +possessed him. + +"A man I trusted absolutely," she replied in a low voice. + +"His name?" + +"Winthrop Oaklander." + +Tutt gasped audibly, for the name was that of one of Manhattan's most +distinguished families, the founder of which had swapped glass beads and +red-flannel shirts with the aborigines for what was now the most +precious water frontage in the world--and moreover, Mrs. Allison +informed Tutt, he was a clergyman. + +"I don't wonder you're surprised!" agreed Mrs. Allison. + +"Why--I--I'm--not surprised at all!" prevaricated Tutt, at the same time +groping for his silk handkerchief. "You don't mean to say you've got a +case against this man Oaklander!" + +"I have indeed!" she retorted with firmly compressed lips. "That is, if +it is what you call a case for a man to promise to marry a woman and +then in the end refuse to do so." + +"Of course it is!" answered Tutt. "But why on earth wouldn't he?" + +"He found out I had been divorced," she explained. "Up to that time +everything had been lovely. You see he thought I was a widow." + +"Ah!" + +Mr. Tutt experienced another pang of resentment against mankind in +general. + +"I had a leading part in one of the season's successes on Broadway," she +continued miserably. "But when Mr. Oaklander promised to marry me I left +the stage; and now--I have nothing!" + +"Poor child!" sighed Tutt. + +He would have liked to take her in his arms and comfort her, but he +always kept the door into the outer office open on principle. + +"You know, Mr. Oaklander is the pastor of St. Lukes-Over-the-Way," said +Mrs. Allison. "I thought that maybe rather than have any publicity he +might do a little something for me." + +"I suppose you've got something in the way of evidence, haven't you? +Letters or photographs or something?" inquired Tutt, reverting +absent-mindedly to his more professional manner. + +"No," she answered. "We never wrote to one another. And when we went out +it was usually in the evening. I don't suppose half a dozen people have +ever seen us together." + +"That's awkward!" meditated Tutt, "if he denies it." + +"Of course he will deny it!" + +"You can't tell. He may not." + +"Oh, yes, he will! Why, he even refuses to admit that he ever met me!" +declared Mrs. Allison indignantly. + +Now, to Tutt's credit be it said that neither at this point nor at any +other did any suspicion of Mrs. Allison's sincerity enter his mind. For +the first time in his professional existence he accepted what a lady +client told him at its face value. Indeed he felt that no one, not even +a clergyman, could help loving so miraculous a woman, or that loving her +one could refrain from marrying her save for some religious or other +permanent obstacle He was sublimely, ecstatically happy in the mere +thought that he, Tutt, might be of help to such a celestial being, and +he desired no reward other than the privilege of being her willing slave +and of reading her gratitude in those melting, misty eyes. + +Mrs. Allison went away just before lunch time, leaving her telephone +number, her handkerchief, a pungent odor of violet talc, and a +disconsolate but highly excited Tutt. Never, at any rate within twenty +years, had he felt so young. Life seemed tinged with every color of the +spectrum. The radiant fact was that he would--he simply had to--see her +again. What he might do for her professionally--all that aspect of the +affair was shoved far into the background of his mind. His only thought +was how to get her back into his office at the earliest possible moment. + +"Shall I enter the lady's name in the address book?" inquired Miss +Wiggin coldly as he went out to get a bite of lunch. + +Tutt hesitated. + +"Mrs. Georgie Allison is her name," he said in a detached sort of way. + +"Address?" + +Tutt felt in his waistcoat pocket. + +"By George!" he muttered, "I didn't take it. But her telephone number is +Lincoln Square 9187." + +To chronicle the details of Tutt's second blooming would be needlessly +to derogate from the dignity of the history of Tutt & Tutt. There is a +silly season in the life of everyone--even of every lawyer--who can call +himself a man, and out of such silliness comes the gravity of knowledge. +Tutt found it necessary for his new client to come to the office almost +every day, and as she usually arrived about the noon hour what was more +natural than that he should invite her out to lunch? Twice he walked +home with her. The telephone was busy constantly. And the only thorn in +the rose of Tutt's delirious happiness was the fear lest Abigail might +discover something. The thought gave him many an anxious hour, cost him +several sleepless nights. At times this nervousness about his wife +almost exceeded the delight of having Mrs. Allison for a friend. Yet +each day he became on more and more cordial terms with her, and the +lunches became longer and more intimate. + +The Reverend Winthrop Oaklander gave no sign of life, however. The +customary barrage of legal letters had been laid down, but without +eliciting any response. The Reverend Winthrop must be a wise one, opined +Tutt, and he began to have a hearty contempt as well as hatred for his +quarry. The first letter had been the usual vague hint that the +clergyman might and probably would find it to his advantage to call at +the offices of Tutt & Tutt, and so on. The Reverend Winthrop, however +did not seem to care to secure said advantage whatever it might be. The +second epistle gave the name of the client and proposed a friendly +discussion of her affairs. No reply. The third hinted at legal +proceedings. Total silence. The fourth demanded ten thousand dollars +damages and threatened immediate suit. + +In answer to this last appeared the Reverend Winthrop himself. He was a +fine-looking young chap with a clear eye--almost as blue as +Georgie's--and a skin even pinker than hers, and he stood six feet five +in his Oxfords and his fist looked to Tutt as big as a coconut. + +"Are you the blackmailer who's been writing me those letters?" he +demanded, springing into Tutt's office. "If you are, let me tell you +something. You've got hold of the wrong monkey. I've been dealing with +fellows of your variety ever since I got out of the seminary. I don't +know the lady you pretend to represent, and I never heard of her. If I +get any more letters from you I'll go down and lay the case before the +district attorney; and if he doesn't put you in jail I'll come up here +and knock your head off. Understand? Good day!" + +At any other period in his existence Tutt could not have failed to be +impressed with the honesty of this husky exponent of the church +militant, but he was drugged as by the drowsy mandragora. The blatant +defiance of this muscular preacher outraged him. This canting hypocrite, +this wolf in priest's clothing must be brought to book. But how? Mrs. +Allison had admitted the literal truth when she had told him that there +were no letters, no photographs. There was no use commencing an action +for breach of promise if there was no evidence to support it. And once +the papers were filed their bolt would have been shot. Some way must be +devised whereby the Reverend Winthrop Oaklander could be made to +perceive that Tutt & Tutt meant business, and--equally imperative +--whereby Georgie would be impressed with the fact that not +for nothing had she come to them--that is, to him--for help. + +The fact of the matter was that the whole thing had become rather +hysterical. Tutt, though having nothing seriously to reproach himself +with, was constantly haunted by a sense of being rather ridiculous and +doing something behind his wife's back. He told himself that his +Platonic regard for Georgie was a noble thing and did him honor, but it +was an honor which he preferred to wear as an entirely private +decoration. He was conscious of being laughed at by Willie and Scraggs +and disapproved of by Miss Wiggin, who was very snippy to him. And in +addition there was the omnipresent horror of having Abigail unearth his +philandering. He now not only thought of Mrs. Allison as Georgie but +addressed her thus, and there was quite a tidy little bill at the +florist's for flowers that he had sent her. In one respect only did he +exhibit even the most elementary caution--he wrote and signed all his +letters to her himself upon the typewriter, and filed copies in the +safe. + +"So there we are!" he sighed as he gave to Mrs. Allison a somewhat +expurgated, or rather emasculated version of the Reverend Winthrop's +visit. "We have got to hand him something hot or make up our minds to +surrender. In a word we have got to scare him--Georgie." + +And then it was that, like the apocryphal mosquito, the Fat and Skinny +Club justified its attempted existence. For the indefatigable Sorg made +an unheralded reappearance in the outer office and insisted upon seeing +Tutt, loudly asserting that he had reason to believe that if a new +application were now made to another judge--whom he knew--it would be +more favorably received. Tutt went to the doorway and stood there +barring the entrance and expostulating with him. + +"All right!" shouted Sorg. "All right! I hear you! But don't tell me +that a man named Solomon Swackhamer can change his name to Phillips +Brooks Vanderbilt and in the same breath a reputable body of citizens be +denied the right to call themselves what they please!" + +"He don't understand!" explained Tutt to Georgie, who had listened with +wide, dreamy eyes. "He don't appreciate the difference between doing a +thing as an individual and as a group." + +"What thing?" + +"Why, taking a name." + +"I don't get you," said Georgie. + +"Sorg wanted to call his crowd the Fat and Skinny Club, and the court +wouldn't let him--thought it was silly." + +"Well?" + +"But he could have called himself Mr. Fat or Mr. Skinny or Mr. Anything +Else without having to ask anybody--Oh, I say!" + +Tutt had stiffened into sculpture. + +"What is it?" demanded Georgie fascinated. + +"I've got an idea," he cried. "You can call yourself anything you like. +Why not call yourself Mrs. Winthrop Oaklander?" + +"But what good would that do?" she asked vaguely. + +"Look here!" directed Tutt. "This is the surest thing you know! Just go +up to the Biltmore and register as Mrs. Winthrop Oaklander. You have a +perfect legal right to do it. You could call yourself Mrs. Julius Caesar +if you wanted to. Take a room and stay there until our young Christian +soldier offers you a suitable inducement to move along. Even if you're +violating the law somehow his first attempt to make trouble for you will +bring about the very publicity he is anxious to avoid. Why, it's +marvelous--and absolutely safe? They can't touch you. He'll come across +inside of two hours. If he doesn't a word to the reporters will start +things in the right direction." + +For a moment Mrs. Allison looked puzzled. Then her beautiful face broke +into an enthusiastic classic smile and she laid her little hand softly +on his arm. + +"What a clever boy you are--Sammy!" + +A subdued snigger came from the direction of the desk usually occupied +by William. Tutt flushed. It was one thing to call Mrs. Allison +"Georgie" in private and another to have her "Sammy" him within hearing +of the office force. And just then Miss Wiggin passed by with her nose +slightly in the air. + +"What a perfectly wonderful idea!" went on Mrs. Allison rapturously. "A +perfectly wonderful idea!" + +Then she smiled a strange, mysterious, significant smile that almost +tore Tutt's heart out by the roots. + +"Listen, Sammy," she whispered, with a new light in those beautiful +eyes. "I want five thousand dollars." + +"Five?" repeated Tutt simply. "I thought you wanted ten thousand!" + +"Only five from you, Sammy!" + +"Me!" he gagged. + +"You--dearest!" + +Tutt turned blazing hot; then cold, dizzy and sea-sick. His sight was +slightly blurred. Slowly he groped for the door and closed it +cautiously. + +"What--are--you--talking about?" he choked, though he knew perfectly +well. + +Georgie had thrown herself back in the leather chair by his desk and had +opened her gold mesh-bag. + +"About five thousand dollars," she replied with the careful enunciation +of a New England school-mistress. + +"What five thousand dollars?" + +"The five you're going to hand me before I leave this office, Sammy +darling," she retorted dazzlingly. + +Tutt's head swam and he sank weakly into his swivel chair. It was +incredible that he, a veteran of the criminal bar, should have been so +tricked. Instantly, as when a reagent is injected into a retort of +chemicals and a precipitate is formed leaving the previously cloudy +liquid like crystal, Tutt's addled brain cleared. He was caught! The +victim of his own asininity. He dared not look at this woman who had +wound him thus round her finger, innocent as he was of any wrongdoing; +he was ashamed to think of his wife. + +"My Lord!" he murmured, realizing for the first time the depth of his +weakness. + +"Oh, it isn't as bad as that!" she laughed. "Remember you were going to +charge Oaklander ten thousand. This costs you only five. Special rates +for physicians and lawyers!" + +"And suppose I don't choose to give it to you?" he asked. + +"Listen here, you funny little man!" she answered in caressing tones +that made him writhe. "You'd stand for twenty if I insisted on it. Oh, +don't jump! I'm not going to. You're getting off easy--too easy. But I +want to stay on good terms with you. I may need you sometime in my +business. Your certified check for five thousand dollars--and I leave +you." + +She struck a match and started to light a tiny gold-tipped cigarette. + +"Don't!" he gasped. "Not in the office." + +"Do I get the five thousand?" + +He ground his teeth, not yet willing to concede defeat. + +"You silly old bird!" she said. "Do you know how many times you've had +me down here in your office in the last three weeks? Fifteen. How many +times you've taken me out to lunch? Ten. How often you've called me on +the telephone? Eighty-nine How many times you've sent me flowers? +Twelve. How many letters you've written me? Eleven! Oh, I realize +they're typewritten, but a photograph enlargement would show they were +typed in your office. Every typewriter has its own individuality, you +know. Your clerks and office boy have heard me call you Sammy. Why, +every time you've moved with me beside you someone has seen you. That's +enough, isn't it? But now, on top of all that, you go and hand me +exactly what I need on a gold plate." + +He gazed at her stupidly. + +"Why, if now you don't give me that check I shall simply go up to the +Biltmore and register as Mrs. Samuel Tutt. I shall take a room and stay +there until you offer me a proper inducement to move on." She giggled +delightedly. "It's marvelous--absolutely safe," she quoted. "They can't +touch me. You'll come across inside of two hours. If you don't a word to +the reporters will start things in the right direction." + +"Don't!" he groaned. "I must have been crazy. That was simply +blackmail!" + +"That's exactly what it was!" she agreed. "There aren't any letters +except these typewritten ones, or photographs, or any evidence at all, +but you're going to give me five thousand dollars just the same. Just so +that your wife won't know what a silly old fool you've been. Where's +your check book, Sam?" + +Tutt pulled out the bottom drawer of his desk and slowly removed his +personal check book. With his fountain pen in his hand he paused and +looked at her. + +"Rather than give you another cent I'd stand the gaff," he remarked +defiantly. + +"I know it," she answered. "I looked you up before I came here the first +time. You are good for exactly five thousand dollars." + +Tutt filled out the check to cash and sent Willie across the street to +the bank to have it certified. The sun was just sinking over the Jersey +shore beyond the Statue of Liberty and the surface of the harbor +undulated like iridescent watered silk. The clouds were torn into +golden-purple rents, and the air was so clear that one could look down +the Narrows far out to the open sea. Standing there by the window Mrs. +Allison looked as innocently beautiful as the day Tutt had first beheld +her. After all, he thought, perhaps the experience had been worth the +money. + +Something of the same thought may have occurred to the lady, for as she +took the check and carefully examined the certification she remarked +with a distinct access of cordiality: "Really, Sammy, you're quite a +nice little man. I rather like you." + +Tutt stood after she had gone watching the sunset until the west was +only a mass of leaden shadows Then, strangely relieved, he took his hat +and started out of the office. Somewhat to his surprise he found Miss +Wiggin still at her desk. + +"By the way," she remarked casually as he passed her, "what shall I +charge that check to? The one you just drew to cash for five thousand +dollars?" + +"Charge it to life insurance," he said shortly. + +He felt almost gay as he threaded his way through the crowds along +Broadway. Somehow a tremendous load had been lifted from his shoulders +He would no longer be obliged to lead a sneaking, surreptitious +existence. He felt like shouting with joy now that he could look the +world frankly in the face. The genuine agony he had endured during the +past three weeks loomed like a sickness behind him. He had been a +fool--and there was no fool like an old one. Just let him get back to +his old Abigail and there'd be no more wandering-boy business for him! +Abigail might not have the figure or the complexion that Georgie had, +but she was a darn sight more reliable. Henceforth she could have him +from five p.m. to nine a.m. without reserve. As for kicking over the +traces, sowing wild oats and that sort of thing, there was nothing in it +for him. Give him Friend Wife. + +He stopped at the florist's and, having paid a bill of thirty-six +dollars for Georgie's flowers, purchased a double bunch of violets and +carried them home with him. Abigail was watching for him out of the +window. Something warm rushed to his heart at the sight of her. Through +the lace curtains she looked quite trim. + +"Hello, old girl!" he cried, as she opened the door. "Waiting for me, +eh? Here's a bunch of posies for you." + +And he kissed her on the cheek. + +"That's more than I ever did to Georgie," he said to himself. + +"Why, Samuel!" laughed Abigail with a faded blush. "What's ever got into +you?" + +"Dunno!" he retorted gaily. "The spring, I guess. What do you say to a +little dinner at a restaurant and then going to the play?" + +She bridled--being one of the generation who did such things--with +pleasure. + +"Seems to me you're getting rather extravagant." she objected. "Still--" + +"Oh, come along!" he bullied her. "One of my clients collected five +thousand dollars this afternoon." + +Tutt summoned a taxi and they drove to the brightest, most glittering of +Broadway hostelries. Abigail had never been in such a chic place before. +It half terrified and shocked her, all those women in dresses that +hardly came up to their armpits. Some of them were handsome though. That +slim one at the table by the pillar, for instance. She was really quite +lovely with that mass of yellow-golden hair, that startlingly white +skin, and those misty China-blue eyes. And the gentleman with her, the +tall man with the pink cheeks, was very handsome, too. + +"Look, Samuel," she said, touching his hand. "See that good-looking +couple over there." + +But Samuel was looking at them already--intently. And just then the +beautiful woman turned and, catching sight of the Tutts, smiled +cordially if somewhat roguishly and raised her glass, as did her +companion. Mechanically Tutt elevated his. The three drank to one +another. + +"Do you know those people, Samuel?" inquired Mrs. Tutt somewhat stiffly. +"Who are they?" + +"Oh, those over there?" he repeated absently. "I don't really know what +the lady's name is, she's been down to our office a few times. But the +man is Winthrop Oaklander--and the funny part of it is, I always thought +he was a clergyman." + +Later in the evening he turned to her between the acts and remarked +inconsequently: "Say, Abbie, do I look as if I'd just had my hair cut?" + + + + +The Dog Andrew + + + "Every dog is entitled to one bite."--UNREPORTED + OPINION OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION OF THE NEW + YORK SUPREME COURT. + +"Now see here!" shouted Mr. Appleboy, coming out of the boathouse, where +he was cleaning his morning's catch of perch, as his neighbor Mr. +Tunnygate crashed through the hedge and cut across Appleboy's parched +lawn to the beach. "See here, Tunnygate, I won't have you trespassing on +my place! I've told you so at least a dozen times! Look at the hole +you've made in that hedge, now! Why can't you stay in the path?" + +His ordinarily good-natured countenance was suffused with anger and +perspiration. His irritation with Mr. Tunnygate had reached the point of +explosion. Tunnygate was a thankless friend and he was a great cross to +Mr. Appleboy. Aforetime the two had been intimate in the fraternal, +taciturn intimacy characteristic of fat men, an attraction perhaps akin +to that exerted for one another by celestial bodies of great mass, for +it is a fact that stout people do gravitate toward one another--and hang +or float in placid juxtaposition, perhaps merely as a physical result of +their avoirdupois. So Appleboy and Tunnygate had swum into each other's +spheres of influence, either blown by the dallying winds of chance or +drawn by some mysterious animal magnetism, and, being both addicted to +the delights of the soporific sport sanctified by Izaak Walton, had +raised unto themselves portable temples upon the shores of Long Island +Sound in that part of the geographical limits of the Greater City known +as Throggs Neck. + +Every morn during the heat of the summer months Appleboy would rouse +Tunnygate or conversely Tunnygate would rouse Appleboy, and each in his +own wobbly skiff would row out to the spot which seemed most propitious +to the piscatorial art. There, under two green umbrellas, like two fat +rajahs in their shaking howdahs upon the backs of two white elephants, +the friends would sit in solemn equanimity awaiting the evasive cunner, +the vagrant perch or cod or the occasional flirtatious eel. They rarely +spoke and when they did the edifice of their conversation--their Tower +of Babel, so to speak--was monosyllabic. Thus: + +"Huh! Ain't had a bite!" + +"Huh!" + +"Huh!" + +Silence for forty minutes. Then: "Huh! Had a bite?" + +"Nope!" + +"Huh!" + +That was generally the sum total of their interchange Yet it satisfied +them, for their souls were in harmony. To them it was pregnant of +unutterable meanings, of philosophic mysteries more subtle than those of +the esoterics, of flowers and poetry, of bird-song and twilight, of all +the nuances of softly whispered avowals, of the elusive harmonies of +love's half-fainting ecstasy. + +"Huh!" + +"Huh!" + +And then into this Eden--only not by virtue of the excision of any +vertebra such as was originally necessary in the case of Adam--burst +woman. There was silence no longer. The air was rent with clamor; for +both Appleboy and Tunnygate, within a month of one another, took unto +themselves wives. Wives after their own image! + +For a while things went well enough; it takes ladies a few weeks to find +out each other's weak points. But then the new Mrs. Tunnygate +unexpectedly yet undeniably began to exhibit the serpent's tooth, the +adder's tongue or the cloven hoof--as the reader's literary traditions +may lead him to prefer. For no obvious reason at all she conceived a +violent hatred of Mrs. Appleboy, a hatred that waxed all the more +virulent on account of its object's innocently obstinate refusal to +comprehend or recognize it. Indeed Mrs. Tunnygate found it so difficult +to rouse Mrs. Appleboy into a state of belligerency sufficiently +interesting that she soon transferred her energies to the more worthy +task of making Appleboy's life a burden to him. + +To this end she devoted herself with a truly Machiavellian ingenuity, +devising all sorts of insults irritations and annoyances, and adding to +the venom of her tongue the inventive cunning of a Malayan witch doctor. +The Appleboys' flower-pots mysteriously fell off the piazza, their +thole-pins disappeared, their milk bottles vanished, Mr. Appleboy's fish +lines acquired a habit of derangement equaled only by barbed-wire +entanglements, and his clams went bad! But these things might have been +borne had it not been for the crowning achievement of her malevolence, +the invasion of the Appleboys' cherished lawn, upon which they lavished +all that anxious tenderness which otherwise they might have devoted to a +child. + +It was only about twenty feet by twenty, and it was bordered by a hedge +of moth-eaten privet, but anyone who has ever attempted to induce a +blade of grass to grow upon a sand dune will fully appreciate the +deviltry of Mrs. Tunnygate's malignant mind. Already there was a horrid +rent where Tunnygate had floundered through at her suggestion in order +to save going round the pathetic grass plot which the Appleboys had +struggled to create where Nature had obviously intended a floral vacuum. +Undoubtedly it had been the sight of Mrs. Appleboy with her small +watering pot patiently encouraging the recalcitrant blades that had +suggested the malicious thought to Mrs. Tunnygate that maybe the +Appleboys didn't own that far up the beach. They didn't--that was the +mockery of it. Like many others they had built their porch on their +boundary line, and, as Mrs. Tunnygate pointed out, they were claiming to +own something that wasn't theirs. So Tunnygate, in daily obedience to +his spouse, forced his way through the hedge to the beach, and daily the +wrath of the Appleboys grew until they were driven almost to +desperation. + +Now when the two former friends sat fishing in their skiffs they either +contemptuously ignored one another or, if they "Huh-Huhed!" at all the +"Huhs!" resembled the angry growls of infuriated beasts. The worst of it +was that the Appleboys couldn't properly do anything about it. Tunnygate +had, as Mrs. Tunnygate sneeringly pointed out, a perfect legal right to +push his way through the hedge and tramp across the lawn, and she didn't +propose to allow the Appleboys to gain any rights by proscription, +either. Not much! + +Therefore, when Mr. Appleboy addressed to Mr. Tunnygate the remarks with +which this story opens, the latter insolently replied in words, form or +substance that Mr. Appleboy could go to hell. Moreover, as he went by +Mr. Appleboy he took pains to kick over a clod of transplanted sea +grass, nurtured by Mrs. Appleboy as the darling of her bosom, and +designed to give an air of verisimilitude to an otherwise bare and +unconvincing surface of sand. Mr. Appleboy almost cried with vexation. + +"Oh!" he ejaculated, struggling for words to express the full content of +his feeling. "Gosh, but you're--mean!" + +He hit it! Curiously enough, that was exactly the word! Tunnygate was +mean--and his meanness was second only to that of the fat hippopotama +his wife. + +Then, without knowing why, for he had no formulated ideas as to the +future, and probably only intended to try to scare Tunnygate with vague +threats, Appleboy added: "I warn you not to go through that hedge again! +Understand--I warn you! And if you do I won't be responsible for the +consequences!" + +He really didn't mean a thing by the words, and Tunnygate knew it. + +"Huh!" retorted the latter contemptuously. "You!" + +Mr. Appleboy went inside the shack and banged the door. Mrs. Appleboy +was peeling potatoes in the kitchen-living room. + +"I can't stand it!" he cried weakly. "He's driving me wild!" + +"Poor lamb!" soothed Mrs. Appleboy, peeling an interminable rind. "Ain't +that just a sweetie? Look! It's most as long as your arm!" + +She held it up dangling between her thumb and fore-finger. Then, with a +groan she dropped it at his feet. "I know it's a real burden to you, +deary!" she sighed. + +Suddenly they both bent forward with startled eyes, hypnotized by the +peel upon the floor. + +Unmistakably it spelt "dog"! They looked at one another significantly. + +"It is a symbol!" breathed Mrs. Appleboy in an awed whisper. + +"Whatever it is, it's some grand idea!" exclaimed her husband. "Do you +know anybody who's got one? I mean a--a--" + +"I know just what you mean," she agreed. "I wonder we never thought of +it before! But there wouldn't be any use in getting any dog!" + +"Oh, no!" he concurred. "We want a real--dog!" + +"One you know about!" she commented. + +"The fact is," said he, rubbing his forehead, "if they know about 'em +they do something to 'em. It ain't so easy to get the right kind." + +"Oh, we'll get one!" she encouraged him. "Now Aunt Eliza up to Livornia +used to have one. It made a lot of trouble and they ordered her--the +selectmen did--to do away with it. But she only pretended she had--she +didn't really--and I think she's got him yet." + +"Gee!" said Mr. Appleboy tensely. "What sort was it?" + +"A bull!" she replied. "With a big white face." + +"That's the kind!" he agreed excitedly. "What was its name?" + +"Andrew," she answered. + +"That's a queer name for a dog!" he commented "Still, I don't care what +his name is, so long as he's the right kind of dog! Why don't you write +to Aunt Eliza to-night?" + +"Of course Andrew may be dead," she hazarded. "Dogs do die." + +"Oh, I guess Andrew isn't dead!" he said hopefully "That tough kind of +dog lasts a long time. What will you say to Aunt Eliza?" + +Mrs. Appleboy went to the dresser and took a pad and pencil from one of +the shelves. + +"Oh, something like this," she answered, poising the pencil over the +pad in her lap: + +"Dear Aunt Eliza: I hope you are quite well. It is sort of lonely living +down here on the beach and there are a good many rough characters, so we +are looking for a dog for companionship and protection Almost any kind +of healthy dog would do and you may be sure he would have a good home. +Hoping to see you soon. Your affectionate niece, Bashemath." + +"I hope she'll send us Andrew," said Appleboy fervently. + +"I guess she will!" nodded Bashemath. + + * * * * * + +"What on earth is that sign?" wrathfully demanded Mrs. Tunnygate one +morning about a week later as she looked across the Appleboys' lawn from +her kitchen window. "Can you read it, Herman?" + +Herman stopped trying to adjust his collar and went out on the piazza. + +"Something about 'dog'," he declared finally. + +"Dog!" she exclaimed. "They haven't got a dog!" + +"Well," he remarked, "that's what the sign says: 'Beware of the dog'! +And there's something above it. Oh! 'No crossing this property. +Trespassing forbidden.'" + +"What impudence!" avowed Mrs. Tunnygate. "Did you ever know such +people! First they try and take land that don't belong to them, and then +they go and lie about having a dog. Where are they, anyway?" + +"I haven't seen 'em this morning," he answered. "Maybe they've gone away +and put up the sign so we won't go over. Think that'll stop us!" + +"In that case they've got another think comin'!" she retorted angrily. +"I've a good mind to have you go over and tear up the whole place!" + +"'N pull up the hedge?" he concurred eagerly. "Good chance!" + +Indeed, to Mr. Tunnygate it seemed the supreme opportunity both to +distinguish himself in the eyes of his blushing bride and to gratify +that perverse instinct inherited from our cave-dwelling ancestors to +destroy utterly--in order, perhaps, that they may never seek to avenge +themselves upon us--those whom we have wronged. Accordingly Mr. +Tunnygate girded himself with his suspenders, and with a gleam of +fiendish exultation in his eye stealthily descended from his porch and +crossed to the hole in the hedge. No one was in sight except two +barefooted searchers after clams a few hundred yards farther up the +beach and a man working in a field half a mile away. The bay shimmered +in the broiling August sun and from a distant grove came the rattle and +wheeze of locusts. Throggs Neck blazed in silence, and utterly silent +was the house of Appleboy. + +With an air of bravado, but with a slightly accelerated heartbeat, +Tunnygate thrust himself through the hole in the hedge and looked +scornfully about the Appleboy lawn. A fierce rage worked through his +veins. A lawn! What effrontery! What business had these condescending +second-raters to presume to improve a perfectly good beach which was +satisfactory to other folks? He'd show 'em! He took a step in the +direction of the transplanted sea grass. Unexpectedly the door of the +Appleboy kitchen opened. + +"I warned you!" enunciated Mr. Appleboy with unnatural calmness, which +with another background might have struck almost anybody as suspicious. + +"Huh!" returned the startled Tunnygate, forced under the circumstances +to assume a nonchalance that he did not altogether feel. "You!" + +"Well," repeated Mr. Appleboy. "Don't ever say I didn't!" + +"Pshaw!" ejaculated Mr. Tunnygate disdainfully. + +With premeditation and deliberation, and with undeniable malice +aforethought, he kicked the nearest bunch of sea grass several feet in +the air. His violence carried his leg high in the air and he partially +lost his equilibrium. Simultaneously a white streak shot from beneath +the porch and something like a red-hot poker thrust itself savagely into +an extremely tender part of his anatomy. + +"Ouch! O--o--oh!" he yelled in agony. "Oh!" + +"Come here, Andrew!" said Mr. Appleboy mildly. "Good doggy! Come here!" + +But Andrew paid no attention. He had firmly affixed himself to the base +of Mr. Tunnygate's personality without any intention of being +immediately detached. And he had selected that place, taken aim, and +discharged himself with an air of confidence and skill begotten of +lifelong experience. + +"Oh! O--o--oh!" screamed Tunnygate, turning wildly and clawing through +the hedge, dragging Andrew after him. "Oh! O--oh!" + +Mrs. Tunnygate rushed to the door in time to see her spouse lumbering up +the beach with a white object gyrating in the air behind him. + +"What's the matter?" she called out languidly. Then perceiving the +matter she hastily followed. The Appleboys were standing on their lawn +viewing the whole proceeding with ostentatious indifference. + +Up the beach fled Tunnygate, his cries becoming fainter and fainter. The +two clam diggers watched him curiously, but made no attempt to go to his +assistance. The man in the field leaned luxuriously upon his hoe and +surrendered himself to unalloyed delight. Tunnygate was now but a white +flicker against the distant sand. His wails had a dying fall: +"O--o--oh!" + +"Well, we warned him!" remarked Mr. Appleboy to Bashemath with a smile +in which, however, lurked a slight trace of apprehension. + +"We certainly did!" she replied. Then after a moment she added a trifle +anxiously: "I wonder what will happen to Andrew!" + +Tunnygate did not return. Neither did Andrew. Secluded in their kitchen +living-room the Appleboys heard a motor arrive and through a crack in +the door saw it carry Mrs. Tunnygate away bedecked as for some momentous +ceremonial. At four o'clock, while Appleboy was digging bait, he +observed another motor making its wriggly way along the dunes. It was +fitted longitudinally with seats, had a wire grating and was marked +"N.Y.P.D." Two policemen in uniform sat in front. Instinctively Appleboy +realized that the gods had called him. His heart sank among the clams. +Slowly he made his way back to the lawn where the wagon had stopped +outside the hedge. + +"Hey there!" called out the driver. "Is your name Appleboy?" + +Appleboy nodded. + +"Put your coat on, then, and come along," directed the other. "I've got +a warrant for you." + +"Warrant?" stammered Appleboy dizzily. + +"What's that?" cried Bashemath, appearing at the door. "Warrant for +what?" + +The officer slowly descended and handed Appleboy a paper. + +"For assault," he replied. "I guess you know what for, all right!" + +"We haven't assaulted anybody," protested Mrs. Appleboy heatedly. +"Andrew--" + +"You can explain all that to the judge," retorted the cop. "Meantime put +on your duds and climb in. If you don't expect to spend the night at the +station you'd better bring along the deed of your house so you can give +bail." + +"But who's the warrant for?" persisted Mrs. Appleboy. + +"For Enoch Appleboy," retorted the cop wearily. "Can't you read?" + +"But Enoch didn't do a thing!" she declared. "It was Andrew!" + +"Who's Andrew?" inquired the officer of the law mistrustfully. + +"Andrew's a dog," she explained. + + * * * * * + +"Mr. Tutt," announced Tutt, leaning against his senior partner's door +jamb with a formal-looking paper in his hand, "I have landed a case +that will delight your legal soul." + +"Indeed?" queried the elder lawyer. "I have never differentiated between +my legal soul and any other I may possess. However, I assume from your +remark that we have been retained in a matter presenting some peculiarly +absurd, archaic or otherwise interesting doctrine of law?" + +"Not directly," responded Tutt. "Though you will doubtless find it +entertaining enough, but indirectly--atmospherically so to speak--it +touches upon doctrines of jurisprudence, of religion and of philosophy, +replete with historic fascination." + +"Good!" exclaimed Mr. Tutt, laying down his stogy. "What kind of a case +is it?" + +"It's a dog case!" said the junior partner, waving the paper. "The dog +bit somebody." + +"Ah!" exclaimed Mr. Tutt, perceptibly brightening. "Doubtless we shall +find a precedent in Oliver Goldsmith's famous elegy: + + "And in that town a dog was found, + As many dogs there be, + Both mongrel, puppy, whelp, and hound, + And curs of low degree." + +"Only," explained Tutt, "in this case, though the man recovered of the +bite, the dog refused to die!" + +"And so they want to prosecute the dog? It can't be done. An animal +hasn't been brought to the bar of justice for several centuries." + +"No, no!" interrupted Tutt. "They don't--" + +"There was a case," went on Mr. Tutt reminiscently "Let me see--at +Sauvigny, I think it was--about 1457, when they tried a sow and three +pigs for killing a child. The court assigned a lawyer to defend her, but +like many assigned counsel he couldn't think of anything to say in her +behalf. As regards the little pigs he did enter the plea that no animus +was shown, that they had merely followed the example of their mother, +and that at worst they were under age and irresponsible. However, the +court found them all guilty, and the sow was publicly hanged in the +market place." + +"What did they do with the three little pigs?" inquired Tutt with some +interest. + +"They were pardoned on account of their extreme youth," said Mr. Tutt, +"and turned loose again--with a warning." + +"I'm glad of that!" sighed Tutt. "Is that a real case?" + +"Absolutely," replied his partner. "I've read it in the Sauvigny +records." + +"I'll be hanged!" exclaimed Tutt. "I never knew that animals were ever +held personally responsible." + +"Why, of course they were!" said Mr. Tutt. "Why shouldn't they be? If +animals have souls why shouldn't they be responsible for their acts?" + +"But they haven't any souls!" protested Tutt. + +"Haven't they now?" remarked the elder lawyer. "I've seen many an old +horse that had a great deal more conscience than his master. And on +general principles wouldn't it be far more just and humane to have the +law deal with a vicious animal that had injured somebody than to leave +its punishment to an irresponsible and arbitrary owner who might be +guilty of extreme brutality?" + +"If the punishment would do any good--yes!" agreed Tutt. + +"Well, who knows?" meditated Mr. Tutt. "I wonder if it ever does any +good? But anybody would have to agree that responsibility for one's acts +should depend upon the degree of one's intelligence--and from that point +of view many of our friends are really much less responsible than +sheep." + +"Which, as you so sagely point out, would, however be a poor reason for +letting their families punish them in case they did wrong. Just think +how such a privilege might be abused! If Uncle John didn't behave +himself as his nephews thought proper they could simply set upon him and +briskly beat him up." + +"Yes, of course, the law even to-day recognizes the right to exercise +physical discipline within the family. Even homicide is excusable, under +Section 1054 of our code, when committed in lawfully correcting a child +or servant." + +"That's a fine relic of barbarism!" remarked Tutt. "But the child soon +passes through that dangerous zone and becomes entitled to be tried for +his offenses by a jury of his peers; the animal never does." + +"Well, an animal couldn't be tried by a jury of his peers, anyhow," said +Mr. Tutt. + +"I've seen juries that were more like nanny goats than men!" commentated +Tutt. "I'd like to see some of our clients tried by juries of geese or +woodchucks." + +"The field of criminal responsibility is the No Man's Land of the law," +mused Mr. Tutt. "Roughly, mental capacity to understand the nature of +one's acts is the test, but it is applied arbitrarily in the case of +human beings and a mere point of time is taken beyond which, +irrespective of his actual intelligence, a man is held accountable for +whatever he does. Of course that is theoretically unsound. The more +intelligent a person is the more responsible he should be held to be and +the higher the quality of conduct demanded of him by his fellows. Yet +after twenty-one all are held equally responsible--unless they're +actually insane. It isn't equity! In theory no man or animal should be +subject to the power of discretionary punishment on the part of +another--even his own father or master. I've often wondered what earthly +right we have to make the animals work for us--to bind them to slavery +when we denounce slavery as a crime. It would horrify us to see a human +being put up and sold at auction. Yet we tear the families of animals +apart, subject them to lives of toil, and kill them whenever we see fit. +We say we do this because their intelligence is limited and they cannot +exercise any discrimination in their conduct, that they are always in +the zone of irresponsibility and so have no rights. But I've seen +animals that were shrewder than men, and men who were vastly less +intelligent than animals." + +"Right-o!" assented Tutt. "Take Scraggs, for instance. He's no more +responsible than a chipmunk." + +"Nevertheless, the law has always been consistent," said Mr. Tutt, "and +has never discriminated between animals any more than it has between men +on the ground of varying degrees of intelligence. They used to try 'em +all, big and little, wild and domesticated, mammals and invertebrates." + +"Oh, come!" exclaimed Tutt. "I may not know much law, but--" + +"Between 1120 and 1740 they prosecuted in France alone no less than +ninety-two animals. The last one was a cow." + +"A cow hasn't much intelligence," observed Tutt. + +"And they tried fleas," added Mr. Tutt. + +"They have a lot!" commented his junior partner. "I knew a flea once, +who--" + +"They had a regular form of procedure," continued Mr. Tutt, brushing the +flea aside, "which was adhered to with the utmost technical accuracy. +You could try an individual animal, either in person or by proxy, or you +could try a whole family, swarm or herd. If a town was infested by rats, +for example, they first assigned counsel--an advocate, he was +called--and then the defendants were summoned three times publicly to +appear. If they didn't show up on the third and last call they were +tried _in absentia_, and if convicted were ordered out of the country +before a certain date under penalty of being exorcised." + +"What happened if they were exorcised?" asked Tutt curiously. + +"It depended a good deal on the local power of Satan," answered the old +lawyer dryly. "Sometimes they became even more prolific and destructive +than they were before, and sometimes they promptly died. All the leeches +were prosecuted at Lausanne in 1451. A few selected representatives +were brought into court, tried, convicted and ordered to depart within +a fixed period. Maybe they didn't fully grasp their obligations or +perhaps were just acting contemptuously, but they didn't depart and so +were promptly exorcised. Immediately they began to die off and before +long there were none left in the country." + +"I know some rats and mice I'd like to have exorcised," mused Tutt. + +"At Autun in the fifteenth century the rats won their case," said Mr. +Tutt. + +"Who got 'em off?" asked Tutt. + +"M. Chassensée, the advocate appointed to defend them. They had been a +great nuisance and were ordered to appear in court. But none of them +turned up. M. Chassensée therefore argued that a default should not be +taken because _all_ the rats had been summoned, and some were either so +young or so old and decrepit that they needed more time. The court +thereupon granted him an extension. However, they didn't arrive on the +day set, and this time their lawyer claimed that they were under duress +and restrained by bodily fear--of the townspeople's cats. That all these +cats, therefore should first be bound over to keep the peace! The court +admitted the reasonableness of this, but the townsfolk refused to be +responsible for their cats and the judge dismissed the case!" + +"What did Chassensée get out of it?" inquired Tutt. + +"There is no record of who paid him or what was his fee." + +"He was a pretty slick lawyer," observed Tutt. "Did they ever try +birds?" + +"Oh, yes!" answered Mr. Tutt. "They tried a cock at Basel in 1474--for +the crime of laying an egg." + +"Why was that a crime?" asked Tutt. "I should call it a _tour de +force_." + +"Be that as it may," said his partner, "from a cock's egg is hatched the +cockatrice, or basilisk, the glance of whose eye turns the beholder to +stone. Therefore they tried the cock, found him guilty and burned him +and his egg together at the stake. That is why cocks don't lay eggs +now." + +"I'm glad to know that," said Tutt. "When did they give up trying +animals?" + +"Nearly two hundred years ago," answered Mr. Tutt. "But for some time +after that they continued to try inanimate objects for causing injury to +people. I've heard they tried one of the first locomotives that ran over +a man and declared it forfeit to the crown as a deodand." + +"I wonder if you couldn't get 'em to try Andrew," hazarded Tutt, "and +maybe declare him forfeited to somebody as a deodand." + +"Deodand means 'given to God,'" explained Mr. Tutt. + +"Well, I'd give Andrew to God--if God would take him," declared Tutt +devoutly. + +"But who is Andrew?" asked Mr. Tutt. + +"Andrew is a dog," said Tutt, "who bit one Tunnygate, and now the Grand +Jury have indicted not the dog, as it is clear from your historical +disquisition they should have done, but the dog's owner, Mr. Enoch +Appleboy." + +"What for?" + +"Assault in the second degree with a dangerous weapon." + +"What was the weapon?" inquired Mr. Tutt simply. + +"The dog." + +"What are you talking about?" cried Mr. Tutt. "What nonsense!" + +"Yes, it is nonsense!" agreed Tutt. "But they've done it all the same. +Read it for yourself!" And he handed Mr. Tutt the indictment. + + * * * * * + +"The Grand Jury of the County of New York by this indictment accuse +Enoch Appleboy of the crime of assault in the second degree, committed +as follows: + +"Said Enoch Appleboy, late of the Borough of Bronx, City and County +aforesaid, on the 21st day of July, in the year of our Lord one +thousand nine hundred and fifteen, at the Borough and County aforesaid, +with force and arms in and upon one Herman Tunnygate, in the peace of +the State and People then and there being, feloniously did willfully and +wrongfully make an assault in and upon the legs and body of him the said +Herman Tunnygate, by means of a certain dangerous weapon, to wit: one +dog, of the form, style and breed known as 'bull,' being of the name of +'Andrew,' then and there being within control of the said Enoch +Appleboy, which said dog, being of the name of 'Andrew,' the said Enoch +Appleboy did then and there feloniously, willfully and wrongfully +incite, provoke, and encourage, then and there being, to bite him, the +said Herman Tunnygate, by means whereof said dog 'Andrew' did then and +there grievously bite the said Herman Tunnygate in and upon the legs and +body of him, the said Herman Tunnygate, and the said Enoch Appleboy thus +then and there feloniously did willfully and wrongfully cut, tear, +lacerate and bruise, and did then and there by the means of the dog +'Andrew' aforesaid feloniously, willfully and wrongfully inflict +grievous bodily harm upon the said Herman Tunnygate, 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." + +"That," asserted Mr. Tutt, wiping his spectacles, "is a document worthy +of preservation in the Congressional Library. Who drew it?" + +"Don't know," answered Tutt, "but whoever he was he was a humorist!" + +"It's no good. There isn't any allegation of _scienter_ in it," affirmed +Mr. Tutt. + +"What of it? It says he assaulted Tunnygate with a dangerous weapon. You +don't have to set forth that he knew it was a dangerous weapon if you +assert that he did it willfully. You don't have to allege in an +indictment charging an assault with a pistol that the defendant knew it +was loaded." + +"But a dog is different!" reasoned Mr. Tutt. "A dog is not _per se_ a +dangerous weapon. Saying so doesn't make it so, and that part of the +indictment is bad on its face--unless, to be sure, it means that he hit +him with a dead dog, which it is clear from the context that he didn't. +The other part--that he set the dog on him--lacks the allegation that +the dog was vicious and that Appleboy knew it; in other words an +allegation of _scienter_. It ought to read that said Enoch Appleboy +'well knowing that said dog Andrew was a dangerous and ferocious animal +and would, if incited, provoked and encouraged, bite the legs and body +of him the said Herman--did then and there feloniously, willfully and +wrongfully incite, provoke and encourage the said Andrew, and so +forth.'" + +"I get you!" exclaimed Tutt enthusiastically. "Of course an allegation +of _scienter_ is necessary! In other words you could demur to the +indictment for insufficiency?" + +Mr. Tutt nodded. + +"But in that case they'd merely go before the Grand Jury and find +another--a good one. It's much better to try and knock the case out on +the trial once and for all." + +"Well, the Appleboys are waiting to see you," said Tutt. "They are in my +office. Bonnie Doon got the case for us off his local district leader, +who's a member of the same lodge of the Abyssinian Mysteries--Bonnie's +been Supreme Exalted Ruler of the Purple Mountain for over a year--and +he's pulled in quite a lot of good stuff, not all dog cases either! +Appleboy's an Abyssinian too." + +"I'll see them," consented Mr. Tutt, "but I'm going to have you try the +case. I shall insist upon acting solely in an advisory capacity. Dog +trials aren't in my line. There are some things which are _infra +dig_--even for Ephraim Tutt." + + * * * * * + +Mr. Appleboy sat stolidly at the bar of justice, pale but resolute. +Beside him sat Mrs. Appleboy, also pale but even more resolute. A jury +had been selected without much manifest attention by Tutt, who had +nevertheless managed to slip in an Abyssinian brother on the back row, +and an ex-dog fancier for Number Six. Also among those present were a +delicatessen man from East Houston Street, a dealer in rubber novelties, +a plumber and the editor of Baby's World. The foreman was almost as fat +as Mr. Appleboy, but Tutt regarded this as an even break on account of +the size of Tunnygate. As Tutt confidently whispered to Mrs. Appleboy, +it was as rotten a jury as he could get. + +Mrs. Appleboy didn't understand why Tutt should want a rotten jury, but +she nevertheless imbibed some vicarious confidence from this statement +and squeezed Appleboy's hand encouragingly. For Appleboy, in spite of +his apparent calm, was a very much frightened man, and under the creases +of his floppy waistcoat his heart was beating like a tom-tom. The +penalty for assault in the second degree was ten years in state's +prison, and life with Bashemath, even in the vicinity of the Tunnygates, +seemed sweet. The thought of breaking stones under the summer sun--it +was a peculiarly hot summer--was awful. Ten years! He could never live +through it! And yet as his glance fell upon the Tunnygates, arrayed in +their best finery and sitting with an air of importance upon the front +bench of the court room, he told himself that he would do the whole +thing all over again--yes, he would! He had only stood up for his +rights, and Tunnygate's blood was upon his own head--or wherever it was. +So he squeezed Bashemath's hand tenderly in response. + +Upon the bench Judge Witherspoon, assigned from somewhere upstate to +help keep down the ever-lengthening criminal calendar of the +Metropolitan District, finished the letter he was writing to his wife in +Genesee County, sealed it and settled back in his chair. An old war +horse of the country bar, he had in his time been mixed up in almost +every kind of litigation, but as he looked over the indictment he with +difficulty repressed a smile. Thirty years ago he'd had a dog case +himself; also of the form, style and breed known as bull. + +"You may proceed, Mister District Attorney!" he announced, and little +Pepperill, the youngest of the D.A.'s staff, just out of the law school, +begoggled and with his hair plastered evenly down on either side of his +small round head, rose with serious mien, and with a high piping voice +opened the prosecution. + +It was, he told them, a most unusual and hence most important case. The +defendant Appleboy had maliciously procured a savage dog of the most +vicious sort and loosed it upon the innocent complainant as he was on +his way to work, with the result that the latter had nearly been torn to +shreds. It was a horrible, dastardly, incredible, fiendish crime, he +would expect them to do their full duty in the premises, and they should +hear Mr. Tunnygate's story from his own lips. + +Mr. Tunnygate limped with difficulty to the stand, and having been sworn +gingerly sat down--partially. Then turning his broadside to the gaping +jury he recounted his woes with indignant gasps. + +"Have you the trousers which you wore upon that occasion?" inquired +Pepperill. + +Mr. Tunnygate bowed solemnly and lifted from the floor a paper parcel +which he untied and from which he drew what remained of that now +historic garment. + +"These are they," he announced dramatically. + +"I offer them in evidence," exclaimed Pepperill, "and I ask the jury to +examine them with great care." + +They did so. + +Tutt waited until the trousers had been passed from hand to hand and +returned to their owner; then, rotund, chipper and birdlike as ever, +began his cross-examination much like a woodpecker attacking a stout +stump. The witness had been an old friend of Mr. Appleboy's, had he not? +Tunnygate admitted it, and Tutt pecked him again. Never had done him +any wrong, had he? Nothing in particular. Well, any wrong? Tunnygate +hesitated. Why, yes, Appleboy had tried to fence in the public beach +that belonged to everybody. Well, did that do the witness any harm? The +witness declared that it did; compelled him to go round when he had a +right to go across. Oh! Tutt put his head on one side and glanced at the +jury. How many feet? About twenty feet. Then Tutt pecked a little +harder. + +"Didn't you tear a hole in the hedge and stamp down the grass when by +taking a few extra steps you could have reached the beach without +difficulty?" + +"I--I simply tried to remove an illegal obstruction," declared Tunnygate +indignantly. + +"Didn't Mr. Appleboy ask you to keep off?" + +"Sure--yes!" + +"Didn't you obstinately refuse to do so?" + +Mr. Pepperill objected to "obstinately" and it was stricken out. + +"I wasn't going to stay off where I had a right to go," asserted the +witness. + +"And didn't you have warning that the dog was there?" + +"Look here!" suddenly burst out Tunnygate. "You can't hector me into +anything. Appleboy never had a dog before. He got a dog just to sic him +on me! He put up a sign 'Beware of the dog,' but he knew that I'd think +it was just a bluff. It was a plant, that's what it was! And just as +soon as I got inside the hedge that dog went for me and nearly tore me +to bits. It was a rotten thing to do and you know it!" + +He subsided, panting. + +Tutt bowed complacently. + +"I move that the witness' remarks be stricken out on the grounds first, +that they are unresponsive; second, that they are irrelevant, +incompetent and immaterial; third, that they contain expressions of +opinion and hearsay; and fourth, that they are abusive and generally +improper." + +"Strike them out!" directed Judge Witherspoon. Then he turned to +Tunnygate. "The essence of your testimony is that the defendant set a +dog on you, is it not? You had quarreled with the defendant, with whom +you had formerly been on friendly terms. You entered on premises claimed +to be owned by him, though a sign warned you to beware of a dog. The dog +attacked and bit you? That's the case, isn't it?" + +"Yes, Your Honor." + +"Had you ever seen that dog before?" + +"No, sir." + +"Do you know where he got it?" + +"My wife told me--" + +"Never mind what your wife told you. Do you--" + +"He don't know where the dog came from, judge!" suddenly called out Mrs. +Tunnygate in strident tones from where she was sitting. "But I know!" +she added venomously. "That woman of his got it from--" + +Judge Witherspoon fixed her coldly with an impassive and judicial eye. + +"Will you kindly be silent, madam? You will no doubt be given an +opportunity to testify as fully as you wish. That is all, sir, unless +Mr. Tutt has some more questions." + +Tutt waved the witness from the stand contemptuously. + +"Well, I'd like a chance to testify!" shrilled Mrs. Tunnygate, rising in +full panoply. + +"This way, madam," said the clerk, motioning her round the back of the +jury box. And she swept ponderously into the offing like a full-rigged +bark and came to anchor in the witness chair, her chin rising and +falling upon her heaving bosom like the figurehead of a vessel upon a +heavy harbor swell. + +Now it has never been satisfactorily explained just why the character of +an individual should be in any way deducible from such irrelevant +attributes as facial anatomy, bodily structure or the shape of the +cranium. Perhaps it is not, and in reality we discern disposition from +something far more subtle--the tone of the voice, the expression of the +eyes, the lines of the face or even from an aura unperceived by the +senses. However that may be, the wisdom of the Constitutional safeguard +guaranteeing that every person charged with crime shall be confronted by +the witnesses against him was instantly made apparent when Mrs. +Tunnygate took the stand, for without hearing a word from her firmly +compressed lips the jury simultaneously swept her with one comprehensive +glance and turned away. Students of women, experienced adventurers in +matrimony, these plumbers, bird merchants "delicatessens" and the rest +looked, perceived and comprehended that here was the very devil of a +woman--a virago, a shrew, a termagant, a natural-born trouble-maker; and +they shivered and thanked God that she was Tunnygate's and not theirs; +their unformulated sentiment best expressed in Pope's immortal couplet: + + Oh woman, woman! when to ill thy mind + Is bent, all hell contains no fouler fiend. + +She had said no word. Between the judge and jury nothing had passed, and +yet through the alpha rays of that mysterious medium of communication +by which all men as men are united where woman is concerned, the +thought was directly transmitted and unanimously acknowledged that here +for sure was a hell cat! + +It was as naught to them that she testified to the outrageous illegality +of the Appleboys' territorial ambitions, the irascibility of the wife, +the violent threats of the husband; or that Mrs. Appleboy had been +observed to mail a suspicious letter shortly before the date of the +canine assault. They disregarded her. Yet when Tutt upon +cross-examination sought to attack her credibility by asking her various +pertinent questions they unhesitatingly accepted his implied accusations +as true, though under the rules of evidence he was bound by her denials. + +Peck 1: "Did you not knock Mrs. Appleboy's flower pots off the piazza?" +he demanded significantly. + +"Never! I never did!" she declared passionately + +But they knew in their hearts that she had. + +Peck 2: "Didn't you steal her milk bottles?" + +"What a lie! It's absolutely false!" + +Yet they knew that she did. + +Peck 3: "Didn't you tangle up their fish lines and take their +thole-pins?" + +"Well, I never! You ought to be ashamed to ask a lady such questions!" + +They found her guilty. + +"I move to dismiss, Your Honor," chirped Tutt blithely at the conclusion +of her testimony. + +Judge Witherspoon shook his head. + +"I want to hear the other side," he remarked. "The mere fact that the +defendant put up a sign warning the public against the dog may be taken +as some evidence that he had knowledge of the animal's vicious +propensities. I shall let the case go to the jury unless this evidence +is contradicted or explained. Reserve your motion." + +"Very well, Your Honor," agreed Tutt, patting himself upon the abdomen. +"I will follow your suggestion and call the defendant. Mr. Appleboy, +take the stand." + +Mr. Appleboy heavily rose and the heart of every fat man upon the jury, +and particularly that of the Abyssinian brother upon the back row, went +out to him. For just as they had known without being told that the new +Mrs. Tunnygate was a vixen, they realized that Appleboy was a kind, +good-natured man--a little soft, perhaps, like his clams, but no more +dangerous. Moreover, it was plain that he had suffered and was, indeed, +still suffering, and they had pity for him. Appleboy's voice shook and +so did the rest of his person as he recounted his ancient friendship for +Tunnygate and their piscatorial association, their common matrimonial +experiences, the sudden change in the temperature of the society of +Throggs Neck, the malicious destruction of their property and the +unexplained aggressions of Tunnygate upon the lawn. And the jury, +believing, understood. + +Then like the sword of Damocles the bessemer voice of Pepperill severed +the general atmosphere of amiability: "Where did you get that dog?" + +Mr. Appleboy looked round helplessly, distress pictured in every +feature. + +"My wife's aunt lent it to us." + +"How did she come to lend it to you?" + +"Bashemath wrote and asked for it." + +"Oh! Did you know anything about the dog before you sent for it?" + +"Of your own knowledge?" interjected Tutt sharply. + +"Oh, no!" returned Appleboy. + +"Didn't you know it was a vicious beast?" sharply challenged Pepperill. + +"Of your own knowledge?" again warned Tutt. + +"I'd never seen the dog." + +"Didn't your wife tell you about it?" + +Tutt sprang to his feet, wildly waving his arms: "I object; on the +ground that what passed between husband and wife upon this subject must +be regarded as confidential." + +"I will so rule," said Judge Witherspoon, smiling. "Excluded." + +Pepperill shrugged his shoulders. + +"I would like to ask a question," interpolated the editor of Baby's +World. + +"Do!" exclaimed Tutt eagerly. + +The editor, who was a fat editor, rose in an embarrassed manner. + +"Mr. Appleboy!" he began. + +"Yes, sir!" responded Appleboy. + +"I want to get this straight. You and your wife had a row with the +Tunnygates. He tried to tear up your front lawn. You warned him off. He +kept on doing it. You got a dog and put up a sign and when he +disregarded it you sicked the dog on him. Is that right?" + +He was manifestly friendly, merely a bit cloudy in the cerebellum. The +Abyssinian brother pulled him sharply by the coat tails. + +"Sit down," he whispered hoarsely. "You're gumming it all up." + +"I didn't sic Andrew on him!" protested Appleboy. + +"But I say, why shouldn't he have?" demanded the baby's editor. "That's +what anybody would do!" + +Pepperill sprang frantically to his feet. + +"Oh, I object! This juryman is showing bias. This is entirely improper." + +"I am, am I?" sputtered the fat editor angrily. "I'll show you--" + +"You want to be fair, don't you?" whined Pepperill. "I've proved that +the Appleboys had no right to hedge in the beach!" + +"Oh, pooh!" sneered the Abyssinian, now also getting to his feet. +"Supposing they hadn't? Who cares a damn? This man Tunnygate deserved +all he's got!" + +"Gentlemen! Gentlemen!" expostulated the judge firmly. "Take your seats +or I shall declare a mistrial. Go on, Mr. Tutt. Call your next witness." + +"Mrs. Appleboy," called out Tutt, "will you kindly take the chair?" And +that good lady, looking as if all her adipose existence had been devoted +to the production of the sort of pies that mother used to make, placidly +made her way to the witness stand. + +"Did you know that Andrew was a vicious dog?" inquired Tutt. + +"No!" answered Mrs. Appleboy firmly. "I didn't." + +O woman! + +"That is all," declared Tutt with a triumphant smile. + +"Then," snapped Pepperill, "why did you send for him?" + +"I was lonely," answered Bashemath unblushingly. + +"Do you mean to tell this jury that you didn't know that that dog was +one of the worst biters in Livornia?" + +"I do!" she replied. "I only knew Aunt Eliza had a dog. I didn't know +anything about the dog personally." + +"What did you say to your aunt in your letter?" + +"I said I was lonely and wanted protection." + +"Didn't you hope the dog would bite Mr. Tunnygate?" + +"Why, no!" she declared. "I didn't want him to bite anybody." + +At that the delicatessen man poked the plumber in the ribs and they both +grinned happily at one another. + +Pepperill gave her a last disgusted look and sank back in his seat. + +"That is all!" he ejaculated feebly. + +"One question, if you please, madam," said Judge Witherspoon. "May I be +permitted to"--he coughed as a suppressed snicker ran round the +court--"that is--may I not--er--Oh, look here! How did you happen to +have the idea of getting a dog?" + +Mrs. Appleboy turned the full moon of her homely countenance upon the +court. + +"The potato peel came down that way!" she explained blandly. + +"What!" exploded the dealer in rubber novelties. + +"The potato peel--it spelled 'dog,'" she repeated artlessly. + +"Lord!" deeply suspirated Pepperill. "What a case! Carry me out!" + +"Well, Mr. Tutt," said the judge, "now I will hear what you may wish to +say upon the question of whether this issue should be submitted to the +jury. However, I shall rule that the indictment is sufficient." + +Tutt elegantly rose. + +"Having due respect to Your Honor's ruling as to the sufficiency of the +indictment I shall address myself simply to the question of _scienter_. +I might, of course, dwell upon the impropriety of charging the defendant +with criminal responsibility for the act of another free agent even if +that agent be an animal--but I will leave that, if necessary, for the +Court of Appeals. If anybody were to be indicted in this case I hold it +should have been the dog Andrew. Nay, I do not jest! But I can see by +Your Honor's expression that any argument upon that score would be +without avail." + +"Entirely," remarked Witherspoon. "Kindly go on!" + +"Well," continued Tutt, "the law of this matter needs no elucidation. It +has been settled since the time of Moses." + +"Of whom?" inquired Witherspoon. "You don't need to go back farther +than Chief Justice Marshall so far as I am concerned." + +Tutt bowed. + +"It is an established doctrine of the common law both of England and +America that it is wholly proper for one to keep a domestic animal for +his use, pleasure or protection, until, as Dykeman, J., says in Muller +vs. McKesson, 10 Hun., 45, 'some vicious propensity is developed and +brought out to the knowledge of the owner.' Up to that time the man who +keeps a dog or other animal cannot be charged with liability for his +acts. This has always been the law. + +"In the twenty-first chapter of Exodus at the twenty-eighth verse it is +written: 'If an ox gore a man or a woman, that they die; then the ox +shall be surely stoned, and his flesh shall not be eaten; but the owner +of the ox shall be quit. But if the ox were wont to push with his horn +in time past, and it hath been testified to his owner, and he hath not +kept him in, but that he hath killed a man or a woman; the ox shall be +stoned, and his owner also shall be put to death.' + +"In the old English case of Smith vs. Pehal, 2 Strange, 1264, it was +said by the court: 'If a dog has once bit a man, and the owner having +notice thereof keeps the dog, and lets him go about or lie at his door, +an action will lie against him at the suit of a person who is bit, +though it happened by such person's treading on the dog's toes; for it +was owing to his not hanging the dog on the first notice. And the safety +of the king's subjects ought not afterwards to be endangered.' That is +sound law; but it is equally good law that 'if a person with full +knowledge of the evil propensities of an animal wantonly excites him or +voluntarily and unnecessarily puts himself in the way of such an animal +he would be adjudged to have brought the injury upon himself, and ought +not to be entitled to recover. In such a case it cannot be said in a +legal sense that the keeping of the animal, which is the gravamen of the +offense, produced the injury.' + +"Now in the case at bar, first there is clearly no evidence that this +defendant knew or ever suspected that the dog Andrew was otherwise than +of a mild and gentle disposition. That is, there is no evidence whatever +of _scienter_. In fact, except in this single instance there is no +evidence that Andrew ever bit anybody. Thus, in the word of Holy Writ +the defendant Appleboy should be quit, and in the language of our own +courts he must be held harmless. Secondly, moreover, it appears that the +complainant deliberately put himself in the way of the dog Andrew, after +full warning. I move that the jury be directed to return a verdict of +not guilty." + +"Motion granted," nodded Judge Witherspoon, burying his nose in his +handkerchief. "I hold that every dog is entitled to one bite." + +"Gentlemen of the jury," chanted the clerk: "How say you? Do you find +the defendant guilty or not guilty?" + +"Not guilty," returned the foreman eagerly, amid audible evidences of +satisfaction from the Abyssinian brother, the Baby's World editor and +the others. Mr. Appleboy clung to Tutt's hand, overcome by emotion. + +"Adjourn court!" ordered the judge. Then he beckoned to Mr. Appleboy. +"Come up here!" he directed. + +Timidly Mr. Appleboy approached the dais. + +"Don't do it again!" remarked His Honor shortly. + +"Eh? Beg pardon, Your Honor, I mean--" + +"I said: 'Don't do it again!'" repeated the judge with a twinkle in his +eye. Then lowering his voice he whispered: "You see I come from +Livornia, and I've known Andrew for a long time." + +As Tutt guided the Appleboys out into the corridor the party came face +to face with Mr. and Mrs. Tunnygate. + +"Huh!" sneered Tunnygate. + +"Huh!" retorted Appleboy. + + + + +Wile Versus Guile + + + For 'tis the sport to have the engineer + Hoist with his own petar.--HAMLET. + +It was a mouse by virtue of which Ephraim Tutt had leaped into fame. It +is true that other characters famous in song and story--particularly in +"Mother Goose"--have similarly owed their celebrity in whole or part to +rodents, but there is, it is submitted, no other case of a mouse, as +mouse _per se_, reported in the annals of the law, except Tutt's mouse, +from Doomsday Book down to the present time. + +Yet it is doubtful whether without his mouse Ephraim Tutt would ever +have been heard of at all, and same would equally have been true if when +pursued by the chef's gray cat the mouse aforesaid had jumped in another +direction. But as luck would have it, said mouse leaped foolishly into +an open casserole upon a stove in the kitchen of the Comers Hotel, and +Mr. Tutt became in his way a leader of the bar. + +It is quite true that the tragic end of the mouse in question has +nothing to do with our present narrative except as a side light upon the +vagaries of the legal career, but it illustrates how an attorney if he +expects to succeed in his profession, must be ready for anything that +comes along--even if it be a mouse. + +The two Tutts composing the firm of Tutt & Tutt were both, at the time +of the mouse case, comparatively young men. Tutt was a native of Bangor, +Maine, and numbered among his childhood friends one Newbegin, a +commercial wayfarer in the shingle and clapboard line; and as he hoped +at some future time to draw Newbegin's will or to incorporate for him +some business venture Tutt made a practise of entertaining his +prospective client at dinner upon his various visits to the metropolis, +first at one New York hostelry and then at another. + +Chance led them one night to the Comers, and there amid the imitation +palms and imitation French waiters of the imitation French restaurant +Tutt invited his friend Newbegin to select what dish he chose from those +upon the bill of fare; and Newbegin chose kidney stew. It was at about +that moment that the adventure which has been referred to occurred in +the hotel kitchen. The gray cat was cheated of its prey, and in due +course the casserole containing the stew was borne into the dining room +and the dish was served. + +Suddenly Mr. Newbegin contorted his mouth and exclaimed: + +"Heck! A mouse!" + +It was. The head waiter was summoned, the manager, the owner. Guests and +garçons crowded about Tutt and Mr. Newbegin to inspect what had so +unexpectedly been found. No one could deny that it was, mouse--cooked +mouse; and Newbegin had ordered kidney stew. Then Tutt had had his +inspiration. + +"You shall pay well for this!" he cried, frowning at the distressed +proprietor, while Newbegin leaned piteously against a pâpier-maché +pillar. "This is an outrage! You shall be held liable in heavy damages +for my client's indigestion!" + +And thus Tutt & Tutt got their first case out of Newbegin, for under the +influence of the eloquence of Mr. Tutt a jury was induced to give him a +verdict of one thousand dollars against the Comers Hotel, which the +Court of Appeals sustained in the following words, quoting verbatim from +the learned brief furnished by Tutt & Tutt, Ephraim Tutt of counsel: + +"The only legal question in the case, or so it appears to us, is whether +there is such a sale of food to a guest on the part of the proprietor +as will sustain a warranty. If we are not in error, however, the law is +settled and has been since the reign of Henry the Sixth. In the Ninth +Year Book of that Monarch's reign there is a case in which it was held +that 'if I go to a tavern to eat, and the taverner gives and sells me +meat and it corrupted, whereby I am made very sick, action lies against +him without any express warranty, for there is a warranty in law'; and +in the time of Henry the Seventh the learned Justice Keilway said, 'No +man can justify selling corrupt victual, but an action on the case lies +against the seller, whether the victual was warranted to be good or +not.' Now, certainly, whether mouse meat be or be not deleterious to +health a guest at a hotel who orders a portion of kidney stew has the +right to expect, and the hotel keeper impliedly warrants, that such dish +will contain no ingredients beyond those ordinarily placed therein." + + * * * * * + +"A thousand dollars!" exulted Tutt when the verdict was rendered. "Why, +anyone would eat mouse for a thousand dollars!" + +The Comers Hotel became in due course a client of Tutt & Tutt, and the +mouse which made Mr. Tutt famous did not die in vain, for the case +became celebrated throughout the length and breadth of the land, to the +glory of the firm and a vast improvement in the culinary conditions +existing in hotels. + +"Come in, Mr. Barrows! Come right in! I haven't seen you for--well, how +long is it?" exclaimed Mr. Tutt, extending a long welcoming arm toward a +human scarecrow upon the threshold. + +"Five years," answered the visitor. "I only got out day before +yesterday. Fourteen months off for good behavior." + +He coughed and put down carefully beside him a large dress-suit case +marked E.V.B., Pottsville, N.Y. + +"Well, well!" sighed Mr. Tutt. "So it is. How time flies!" + +"Not in Sing Sing!" replied Mr. Barrows ruefully. + +"I suppose not. Still, it must feel good to be out!" + +Mr. Barrows made no reply but dusted off his felt hat. He was but the +shadow of a man, an old man at that, as was attested by his long gray +beard, his faded blue eyes, and the thin white hair about his fine +domelike forehead. + +"I forget what your trouble was about," said Mr. Tutt gently. "Won't you +have a stogy?" + +Mr. Barrows shook his head. + +"I ain't used to it," he answered. "Makes me cough." He gazed about him +vaguely. + +"Something about bonds, wasn't it?" asked Mr. Tutt. + +"Yes," replied Mr. Barrows; "Great Lakes and Canadian Southern." + +"Of course! Of course!" + +"A wonderful property," murmured Mr. Barrows regretfully. "The bonds +were perfectly good. There was a defect in the foreclosure proceedings +which made them a permanent underlying security of the reorganized +company--under The Northern Pacific R.R. Co. vs. Boyd; you know--but the +court refused to hold that way. They never will hold the way you want, +will they?" He looked innocently at Mr. Tutt. + +"No," agreed the latter with conviction, "they never will!" + +"Now those bonds were as good as gold," went on the old man; "and yet +they said I had to go to prison. You know all about it. You were my +lawyer." + +"Yes," assented Mr. Tutt, "I remember all about it now." + +Indeed it had all come back to him with the vividness of a landscape +seen during a lightning flash--the crowded court, old Doc Barrows upon +the witness stand, charged with getting money on the strength of +defaulted and outlawed bonds--picked up heaven knows where--pathetically +trying to persuade an unsympathetic court that for some reason they +were still worth their face value, though the mortgage securing the debt +which they represented had long since been foreclosed and the money +distributed. + +"I'd paid for 'em--actual cash," he rambled on. "Not much, to be +sure--but real money. If I got 'em cheap that was my good luck, wasn't +it? It was because my brain was sharper than other folks'! I said they +had value and I say so now--only nobody will believe it or take the +trouble to find out. I learned a lot up there in Sing Sing too," he +continued, warming to his subject. "Do you know, sir, there are fortunes +lying all about us? Take gold, for instance! There's a fraction of a +grain in every ton of sea water. But the big people don't want it taken +out because it would depress the standard of exchange. I say it's a +conspiracy--and yet they jailed a man for it! There's great mineral +deposits all about just waiting for the right man to come along and +develop 'em." + +His lifted eye rested upon the engraving of Abraham Lincoln over Mr. +Tutt's desk. "There was a man!" he exclaimed inconsequently; then +stopped and ran his transparent, heavily veined old hand over his +forehead. "Where was I? Let me see. Oh, yes--gold. All those great +properties could be bought at one time or another for a song. It needed +a pioneer! That's what I was--a pioneer to find the gold where other +people couldn't find it. That's not any crime; it's a service to +humanity! If only they'd have a little faith--instead of locking you up. +The judge never looked up the law about those Great Lakes bonds! If he +had he'd have found out I was right! I'd looked it up. I studied law +once myself." + +"I know," said Mr. Tutt, almost moved to tears by the sight of the wreck +before him. "You practised up state, didn't you?" + +"Yes," responded Doc Barrows eagerly. "And in Chicago too. I'm a member +of the Cook County bar. I'll tell you something! If the Supreme Court of +Illinois hadn't been wrong in its law I'd be the richest man in the +world--in the whole world!" He grabbed Mr. Tutt by the arm and stared +hard into his eyes. "Didn't I show you my papers? I own seven feet of +water front clean round Lake Michigan all through the city of Chicago I +got it for a song from the man who found out the flaw in the original +title deed of 1817; he was dying. 'I'll sell my secret to you,' he says, +'because I'm passing on. May it bring you luck!' I looked it all up and +it was just as he said. So I got up a corporation--The Chicago Water +Front and Terminal Company--and sold bonds to fight my claim in the +courts. But all the people who had deeds to my land conspired against +me and had me arrested! They sent me to the penitentiary. There's +justice for you!" + +"That was too bad!" said Mr. Tutt in a soothing voice. "But after all +what good would all that money have done you?" + +"I don't want money!" affirmed Doc plaintively. "I've never needed +money. I know enough secrets to make me rich a dozen times over. Not +money but justice is what I want--my legal rights. But I'm tired of +fighting against 'em. They've beaten me! Yes, they've beaten me! I'm +going to retire. That's why I came in to see you, Mr. Tutt. I never paid +you for your services as my attorney. I'm going away. You see my married +daughter lost her husband the other day and she wants me to come up and +live with her on the farm to keep her from being lonely. Of course it +won't be much like life in Wall Street--but I owe her some duty and I'm +getting on--I am, Mr. Tutt, I really am!" + +He smiled. + +"And I haven't seen Louisa for three years--my only daughter. I shall +enjoy being with her. She was such a dear little girl! I'll tell you +another secret"--his voice dropped to a whisper--"I've found out there's +a gold mine on her farm, only she doesn't know it. A rich vein runs +right through her cow pasture. We'll be rich! Wouldn't it be fine, Mr. +Tutt, to be rich? Then I'm going to pay you in real money for all you've +done for me--thousands! But until then I'm going to let you have +these--all my securities; my own, you know, every one of them." + +He placed the suitcase in front of Mr. Tutt and opened the clasps with +his shaking old fingers. It bulged with bonds, and he dumped them forth +until they covered the top of the desk. + +"These are my jewels!" he said. "There's millions represented here!" He +lifted one tenderly and held it to the light, fresh as it came from the +engraver's press--a thousand dollar first-mortgage bond of The Chicago +Water Front and Terminal Company. "Look at that! Good as gold--if the +courts only knew the law." + +He took up a yellow package of valueless obligations upon the top of +which an old-fashioned locomotive from whose bell-shaped funnel the +smoke poured in picturesque black clouds, dragging behind it a chain of +funny little passenger coaches, drove furiously along beside a rushing +river through fields rich with corn and wheat amid a border of dollar +signs. + +"The Great Lakes and Canadian Southern," he crooned lovingly. "The child +of my heart! The district attorney kept all the rest--as evidence, he +claimed, but some day you'll see he'll bring an action against the Lake +Shore or the New York Central based on these bonds. Yes, sir! They're +all right!" + +He pawed them over, picking out favorites here and there and excitedly +extolling the merits of the imaginary properties they represented. There +were the repudiated bonds of Southern states and municipalities of +railroads upon whose tracks no wheel had ever turned; of factories never +built except in Doc Barrows' addled brain; of companies which had +defaulted and given stock for their worthless obligations; certificates +of oil, mining and land companies; deeds to tracts now covered with sky +scrapers in Pittsburgh, St. Louis and New York--each and every one of +them not worth the paper they were printed on except to some crook who +dealt in high finance. But they were exquisitely engraved, quite lovely +to look at, and Doc Barrows gloated upon them with scintillating eyes. + +"Ain't they beauties?" he sighed. "Some day--yes sir!--some day they'll +be worth real money. I paid it for some of 'em. But they're yours--all +yours." + +He gathered them up with care and returned them to the suitcase, then +fastened the clasps and patted the leather cover with his hand. + +"They are yours, sir!" he exclaimed dramatically. + +"As you say," agreed Mr. Tutt, "there's gold lying round everywhere if +we only had sense enough to look for it. But I think you're wise to +retire. After all, you have the satisfaction of knowing that your +enterprises were sound even if other people disagreed with you." + +"If this was 1819 instead of 1919 I'd own Chicago," began Doc, a gleam +appearing in his eye. "But they don't want to upset the status +quo--that's why I haven't got a fair chance. But they needn't worry! I'd +be generous with 'em--give 'em easy terms--long leases and nominal +rents." + +"But you'll like living with your daughter, I'm sure," said Mr. Tutt. +"It will make a new man of you in no time." + +"Healthiest spot in northern New York," exclaimed Doc. "Within two miles +of a lake--fishing, shooting, outdoor recreation of all kinds, an ideal +site for a mammoth summer hotel." + +Mr. Tutt rose and laid his arms round old Doc Barrows' shoulders. + +"Thank you a thousand times," he said gratefully, "for the securities. +I'll be glad to keep them for you in my vault." His lips puckered in a +stealthy smile which he tried hard to conceal. + +"Louisa may want to repaper the farmhouse some time," he added to +himself. + +"Oh, they're all yours to keep!" insisted Doc. "I want you to have +them!" His voice trembled. + +"Well, well!" answered Mr. Tutt. "Leave it that way; but if you ever +should want them they'll be here waiting for you." + +"I'm no Indian giver!" replied Doc with dignity. "Give, give, give a +thing--never take it back again." + +He laughed rather childishly. He was evidently embarrassed. + +"Could--could you let me have the loan of seventy-five cents?" he asked +shyly. + + * * * * * + +Down below, inside a doorway upon the other side of the street, Sergeant +Murtha of the Detective Bureau waited for Doc Barrows to come out and be +arrested again. Murtha had known Doc for fifteen years as a harmless old +nut who had rarely succeeded in cheating anybody, but who was regarded +as generally undesirable by the authorities and sent away every few +years in order to keep him out of mischief. There was no danger that the +public would accept Doc's version of the nature or value of his +securities, but there was always the chance that some of his worthless +bonds--those bastard offsprings of his cracked old brain--would find +their way into less honest but saner hands. So Doc rattled about from +penitentiary to prison and from prison to madhouse and out again, +constantly taking appeals and securing writs of habeas corpus, and +feeling mildly resentful, but not particularly so, that people should be +so interfering with his business. Now as from force of long habit he +peered out of the doorway before making his exit; he looked like one of +the John Sargent's prophets gone a little madder than usual--a Jeremiah +or a Habakkuk. + +"Hello, Doc!" called Murtha in hearty, friendly tones. "Hie spy! Come on +out!" + +"Oh, how d'ye do, captain!" responded Doc. "How are you? I was just +interviewing my solicitor." + +"Sorry," said Murtha. "The inspector wants to see you." + +Doc flinched. + +"But they've just let me go!" he protested faintly. + +"It's one of those old indictments--Chicago Water Front or something. +Anyhow--Here! Hold on to yourself!" + +He threw his arms around the old man, who seemed on the point of +falling. + +"Oh, captain! That's all over! I served time for that out in Illinois!" +For some strange reason all the insanity had gone out of his bearing. + +"Not in this state," answered Murtha. New pity for this poor old wastrel +took hold upon him. "What were you going to do?" + +"I was going to retire, captain," said Doc faintly. "My daughter's +husband--he owned a farm up in Cayuga County--well, he died and I was +planning to go up there and live with her." + +"And sting all the boobs?" grinned Murtha not unsympathetically. "How +much money have you got?" + +"Seventy-five cents." + +"How much is the ticket?" + +"About nine dollars," quavered Doc. "But I know a man down on Chatham +Square who might buy a block of stock in the Last Chance Gold Mining +Company; I could get the money that way." + +"What's the Last Chance Gold Mining Company?" asked Murtha sharply. + +"It's a company I'm going to organize. I'll tell you a secret, Murtha. +There's a vein of gold runs right through my daughter Louisa's cow +pasture--she doesn't know anything about it--" + +"Oh, hell!" exclaimed Murtha. "Come along to the station. I'll let you +have the nine bones. And you can put me down for half a million of the +underwriting." + + * * * * * + +That same evening Mr. Tutt was toasting his carpet slippers before the +sea-coal fire in his library, sipping a hot toddy and rereading for the +eleventh time the "Lives of the Chancellors" when Miranda, who had not +yet finished washing the few dishes incident to her master's meager +supper, pushed open the door and announced that a lady was calling. + +"She said you'd know her sho' enough, Mis' Tutt," grinned Miranda, +swinging her dishrag, "'case you and she used to live tergidder when you +was a young man." + +This scandalous announcement did not have the startling effect upon the +respectable Mr. Tutt which might naturally have been anticipated, since +he was quite used to Miranda's forms of expression. + +"It must be Mrs. Effingham," he remarked, closing the career of Lord +Eldon and removing his feet from the fender. + +"Dat's who it is!" answered Miranda. "She's downstairs waitin' to come +up." + +"Well, let her come," directed Mr. Tutt, wondering what his old +boarding-house keeper could want of him, for he had not seen Mrs. +Effingham for more than fifteen years, at which time she was well +provided with husband, three children and a going business. Indeed, it +required some mental adjustment on his part to recognize the withered +little old lady in widow's weeds and rusty black with a gold star on her +sleeve who so timidly, a moment later, followed Miranda into the room. + +"I'm afraid you don't recognize me," she said with a pitiful attempt at +faded coquetry. "I don't blame you, Mr. Tutt. You don't look a day older +yourself. But a great deal has happened to me!" + +"I should have recognized you anywhere," he protested gallantly. "Do sit +down, Mrs. Effingham won't you? I am delighted to see you. How would you +like a glass of toddy? Just to show there's no ill-feeling!" + +He forced a glass into her hand and filled it from the teakettle +standing on the hearth, while Miranda brought a sofa cushion and tucked +it behind the old lady's back. + +Mrs. Effingham sighed, tasted the toddy and leaned back deliciously. She +was very wrinkled and her hair under the bonnet was startlingly white in +contrast with the crepe of her veil, but there were still traces of +beauty in her face. + +"I've come to you, Mr. Tutt," she explained apologetically, "because I +always said that if I ever was in trouble you'd be the one to whom I +should go to help me out." + +"What greater compliment could I receive?" + +"Well, in those days I never thought that time would come," she went on. +"You remember my husband--Jim? Jim died two years ago. And little +Jimmy--our eldest--he was only fourteen when you boarded with us--he was +killed at the Front last July." She paused and felt for her +handkerchief, but could not find it. "I still keep the house; but do you +know how old I am, Mr. Tutt? I'm seventy-one! And the two older girls +got married long ago and I'm all alone except for Jessie, the +youngest--and I haven't told her anything about it." + +"Yes?" said Mr. Tutt sympathetically. "What haven't you told her about?" + +"My trouble. You see, Jessie's not a well girl--she really ought to live +out West somewhere, the doctor says--and Jim and I had saved up all +these years so that after we were gone she would have something to live +on. We saved twelve thousand dollars--and put it into Government bonds." + +"You couldn't have anything safer, at any rate," remarked the lawyer. "I +think you did exceedingly well." + +"Now comes the awful part of it all!" exclaimed Mrs. Effingham, clasping +her hands. "I'm afraid it's gone--gone forever. I should have consulted +you first before I did it, but it all seemed so fair and above-board +that I never thought." + +"Have you got rid of your bonds?" + +"Yes--no--that is, the bank has them. You see I borrowed ten thousand +dollars on them and gave it to Mr. Badger to invest in his oil company +for me." + +Mr. Tutt groaned inwardly. Badger was the most celebrated of Wall +Street's near-financiers. + +"Where on earth did you meet Badger?" he demanded. + +"Why, he boarded with me--for a long time," she answered. "I've no +complaint to make of Mr. Badger. He's a very handsome polite gentleman. +And I don't feel altogether right about coming to you and saying +anything that might be taken against him--but lately I've heard so many +things--" + +"Don't worry about Badger!" growled Mr. Tutt. "How did you come to +invest in his oil stock?" + +"I was there when he got the telegram telling how they had found oil on +the property; it came one night at dinner. He was tickled to death. The +stock had been selling at three cents a share, and, of course, after the +oil was discovered he said it would go right up to ten dollars. But he +was real nice about it--he said anybody who had been living there in the +house could share his good fortune with him, come in on the ground +floor, and have it just the same for three cents. A week later there +came a photograph of the gusher and almost all of us decided to buy +stock." + +At this point in the narrative Mr. Tutt kicked the coal hod violently +and uttered a smothered ejaculation. + +"Of course I didn't have any ready money," explained Mrs. Effingham, +"but I had the bonds--they only paid two per cent and the oil stock was +going to pay twenty--and so I took them down to the bank and borrowed +ten thousand dollars on them. I had to sign a note and pay five per cent +interest. I was making the difference--fifteen hundred dollars every +year." + +"What has it paid?" demanded Mr. Tutt ironically. + +"Twenty per cent," replied Mrs. Effingham. "I get Mr. Badger's check +regularly every six months." + +"How many times have you got it?" + +"Twice." + +"Well, why don't you like your investment?" inquired Mr. Tutt blandly. +"I'd like something that would pay me twenty per cent a year!" + +"Because I'm afraid Mr. Badger isn't quite truthful, and one of the +ladies--that old Mrs. Channing; you remember her, don't you--the one +with the curls?--she tried to sell her stock and nobody would make a bid +on it at all--and when she spoke to Mr. Badger about it he became very +angry and swore right in front of her. Then somebody told me that Mr. +Badger had been arrested once for something--and--and--Oh, I wish I +hadn't given him the money, because if it's lost Jessie won't have +anything to live on after I'm dead--and she's too sick to work. What do +you think, Mr. Tutt? Do you suppose Mr. Badger would buy the stock +back?" + +Mr. Tutt smiled grimly. + +"Not if I know him! Have you got your stock with you?" + +She nodded. Fumbling in her black bag she pulled forth a flaring +certificate--of the regulation kind, not even engraved--which evidenced +that Sarah Maria Ann Effingham was the legal owner of three hundred and +thirty thousand shares of the capital stock of the Great Geyser Texan +Petroleum and Llano Estacado Land Company. + +Mr. Tutt took it gingerly between his thumb and forefinger. It was +signed ALFRED HAYNES BADGER, Pres., and he had an almost irresistible +temptation to twist it into a spill and light a stogy with it. But he +used a match instead, while Mrs. Effingham watched him apprehensively. +Then he handed the stock back to her and poured out another glass of +toddy. + +"Ever been in Mr. Badger's office?" + +"Oh, yes!" she answered. "It's a lovely office. You can see 'way down +the harbor--and over to New Jersey. It's real elegant." + +"Would you mind going there again? That is, are you on friendly terms +with him?" + +Already a strange, rather desperate plan was half formulated in his +mind. + +"Oh, we're perfectly friendly," she smiled. "I generally go down there +to get my check." + +"Whose check is it--his or the company's?" + +"I really don't know," she answered simply. "What difference would it +make?" + +"Oh, nothing--except that he might claim that he'd loaned you the +money." + +"Loaned it? To me?" + +"Why, yes. One hears of such things." + +"But it is my money!" she cried, stiffening. + +"You paid that for the stock." + +She shook her head helplessly. + +"I don't understand these things," she murmured. "If Jim had been alive +it wouldn't have happened. He was so careful." + +"Husbands have some uses occasionally." + +Suddenly she put her hands to her face. + +"Oh, Mr. Tutt! Please get the money back from him. If you don't +something terrible will happen to Jessie!" + +"I'll do my best," he said gently, laying his hand on her fragile +shoulder. "But I may not be able to do it--and anyhow I'll need your +help." + +"What can I do?" + +"I want you to go down to Mr. Badger's office to-morrow morning and tell +him that you are so much pleased with your investment that you would +like to turn all your securities over to him to sell and put the money +into the Great Geyser Texan Petroleum and Llano Estacado Land Company." + +He rolled out the words with unction. + +"But I don't!" + +"Oh, yes, you do!" he assured her. "You want to do just what I tell +you, don't you?" + +"Of course," she answered. "But I thought you didn't like Mr. Badger's +oil company." + +"Whether I like it or not makes no difference. I want you to say just +what I tell you." + +"Oh, very well, Mr. Tutt." + +"Then you must tell him about the note, and that first it will have to +be paid off." + +"Yes." + +"And then you must hand him a letter which I will dictate to you now." + +She flushed slightly, her eyes bright with excitement. + +"You're sure it's perfectly honest, Mr. Tutt? I wouldn't want to do +anything unfair!" + +"Would you be honest with a burglar?" + +"But Mr. Badger isn't a burglar!" + +"No--he's only about a thousand times worse. He's a robber of widows and +orphans. He isn't man enough to take a chance at housebreaking." + +"I don't know what you mean," she sighed. "Where shall I write?" + +Mr. Tutt cleared a space upon his desk, handed her a pad and dipped a +pen in the ink while she took off her gloves. + +"Address the note to the bank," he directed. + +She did so. + +"Now say: 'Kindly deliver to Mr. Badger all the securities I have on +deposit with you, whenever he pays my note. Very truly yours, Sarah +Maria Ann Effingham.'" + +"But I don't want him to have my securities!" she retorted. + +"Oh, you won't mind! You'll be lucky to get Mr. Badger to take back your +oil stock on any terms. Leave the certificate with me," laughed Mr. +Tutt, rubbing his long thin hands together almost gleefully. "And now as +it is getting rather late perhaps you will do me the honor of letting me +escort you home." + +It was midnight before Mr. Tutt went to bed. In the first place he had +felt himself so neglectful of Mrs. Effingham that after he had taken her +home he had sat there a long time talking over the old lady's affairs +and making the acquaintance of the phthisical Jessie, who turned out to +be a wistful little creature with great liquid eyes and a delicate +transparent skin that foretold only too clearly what was to be her +future. There was only one place for her, Mr. Tutt told +himself--Arizona; and by the grace of God she should go there, Badger or +no Badger! + +As the old lawyer walked slowly home with his hands clasped behind his +back he pondered upon the seeming mockery and injustice of the law that +forced a lonely, half-demented old fellow with the fixed delusion that +he was a financier behind prison bars and left free the sharp slick +crook who had no bowels or mercies and would snatch away the widow's +mite and leave her and her consumptive daughter to die in the poorhouse. +Yet such was the case, and there they all were! Could you blame people +for being Bolsheviks? And yet old Doc Barrows was as far from a +Bolshevik as anyone could well be. + +Mr. Tutt passed a restless night, dreaming, when he slept at all, of +mines from which poured myriads of pieces of yellow gold, of gushers +spouting columns of blood-red oil hundreds of feet into the air, and of +old-fashioned locomotives dragging picturesque trains of cars across +bright green prairies studded with cacti in the shape of dollar signs. +Old Doc Barrows was with him, and from time to time he would lean toward +him and whisper "Listen, Mr. Tutt, I'll tell you a secret! There's a +vein of gold runs right through my daughter's cow pasture!" + +When Willie next morning at half past eight reached the office he found +the door already unlocked and Mr. Tutt busy at his desk, up to his +elbows in a great mass of bonds and stock certificates. + +"Gee!" he exclaimed to Miss Sondheim, the stenographer, when she made +her appearance at a quarter past nine. "Just peek in the old man's door +if you want to feel rich! Say, he must ha' struck pay dirt! I wonder if +we'll all get a raise?" + +But all the securities on Mr. Tutt's desk would not have justified even +the modest advance of five dollars in Miss Sondheim's salary, and their +employer was merely sorting out and making an inventory of Doc Barrows' +imaginary wealth. By the time Mrs. Effingham arrived by appointment at +ten o'clock he had them all arranged and labeled; and in a special +bundle neatly tied with a piece of red tape were what on their face were +securities worth upward of seventy thousand dollars. There were ten of +the beautiful bonds of the Great Lakes and Canadian Southern Railroad +Company with their miniature locomotives and fields of wheat, and ten +equally lovely bits of engraving belonging to the long-since defunct +Bluff Creek and Iowa Central, ten more superb lithographs issued by the +Mohawk and Housatonic in 1867 and paid off in 1882, and a variety of +gorgeous chromos of Indians and buffaloes, and of factories and +steamships spouting clouds of soft-coal smoke; and on the top of all was +a pile of the First Mortgage Gold Six Per Cent obligations of the +Chicago Water Front and Terminal Company--all of them fresh and crisp, +with that faintly acrid smell which though not agreeable to the nostrils +nevertheless delights the banker's soul. + +"Ah! Good morning to you, Mrs. Effingham!" Mr. Tutt cried, waving her in +when that lady was announced. "You are not the only millionaire, you +see! In fact, I've stumbled into a few barrels of securities +myself--only I didn't pay anything for them." + +"Gracious!" cried Mrs. Effingham, her eyes lighting with astonishment. +"Wherever did you get them? And such exquisite pictures! Look at that +lamb!" + +"It ought to have been a wolf!" muttered Mr. Tutt. "Well, Mrs. +Effingham, I've decided to make you a present--just a few pounds of +Chicago Water Front and Canadian Southern--those over there in that +pile; and now if you say so we'll just go along to your bank." + +"Give them to me!" she protested. "What on earth for? You're joking, Mr. +Tutt." + +"Not a bit of it!" he retorted. "I don't make any pretensions as to the +value of my gift, but they're yours for whatever they're worth." + +He wrapped them carefully in a piece of paper and returned the balance +to Doc Barrows' dress-suit case. + +"Aren't you afraid to leave them that way?" she asked, surprised. + +"Not at all! Not at all!" he laughed. "You see there are fortunes lying +all about us everywhere if we only know where to look. Now the first +thing to do is to get your bonds back from the bank." + +Mr. Thomas McKeever, the popular loan clerk of the Mustardseed National, +was just getting ready for the annual visit of the state bank examiner +when Mr. Tutt, followed by Mrs. Effingham, entered the exquisitely +furnished boudoir where lady clients were induced by all modern +conveniences except manicures and shower baths to become depositors. Mr. +Tutt and Mr. McKeever belonged to the same Saturday evening poker game +at the Colophon Club, familiarly known as The Bible Class. + +"Morning, Tom," said Mr. Tutt. "This is my client, Mrs. Effingham. You +hold her note, I believe, for ten thousand dollars secured by some +government bonds. She has a use for those bonds and I thought that you +might be willing to take my indorsement instead. You know I'm good for +the money." + +"Why, I guess we can accommodate her, Mr. Tutt!" answered the +Chesterfieldian Mr. McKeever. "Certainly we can. Sit down, Mrs. +Effingham, while I send for your bonds. See the morning paper?" + +Mrs. Effingham blushingly acknowledged that she had not seen the paper. +In fact, she was much too excited to see anything. + +"Sign here!" said the loan clerk, placing the note before the lawyer. + +Mr. Tutt indorsed it in his strange, humpbacked chirography. + +"Here are your bonds," said Mr. McKeever, handing Mrs. Effingham a small +package in a manila envelope. She took them in a half-frightened way, as +if she thought she was doing something wrong. + +"And now," said Mr. Tutt, "the lady would like a box in your +safe-deposit vaults; a small one--about five dollars a year--will do. +She has quite a bundle of securities with her, which I am looking into. +Most if not all of them are of little or no value, but I have told her +she might just as well leave them as security for what they are worth, +in addition to my indorsement. Really it's just a slick game of ours to +get the bank to look after them for nothing. Isn't it, Mrs. Effingham?" + +"Ye-es!" stammered Mrs. Effingham, not understanding what he was talking +about. + +"Well," answered Mr. McKeever, "we never refuse collateral. I'll put the +bonds with the note--" His eye caught the edges of the bundle. "Great +Scott, Tutt! What are you leaving all these bonds here for against that +note? There must be nearly a hundred thousand dol--" + +"I thought you never refused collateral, Mr. McKeever!" challenged Mr. +Tutt sternly. + +Twenty minutes later the exquisite blonde that acted as Mr. Badger's +financial accomplice learned from Mrs. Effingham's faltering lips that +the widow would like to see the great man in regard to further +investments. + +"How does it look, Mabel?" inquired the financier from behind his +massive mahogany desk covered with a six by five sheet of plate glass. +"Is it a squeal or a fall?" + +"Easy money," answered Mabel with confidence. "She wants to put a +mortgage on the farm." + +"Keep her about fourteen minutes, tell her the story of my +philanthropies, and then shoot her in," directed Badger. + +So Mrs. Effingham listened politely while Mabel showed her the +photographs of Mr. Badger's home for consumptives out in Tyrone, New +Mexico, and of his wife and children, taken on the porch of his summer +home at Seabright, New Jersey; and then, exactly fourteen minutes having +elapsed, she was shot in. + +"Ah! Mrs. Effingham! Delighted! Do be seated!" Mr. Badger's smile was +like that of the boa constrictor about to swallow the rabbit. + +"About my oil stock," hesitated Mrs. Effingham. + +"Well, what about it?" demanded Badger sharply. "Are you dissatisfied +with your twenty per cent?" + +"Oh, no!" stammered the old lady. "Not at all! I just thought if I could +only get the note paid off at the Mustardseed Bank I might ask you to +sell the collateral and invest the proceeds in your gusher." + +"Oh!" Mr. Badger beamed with pleasure. "Do you really wish to have me +dispose of your securities for you?" + +He did not regard it as necessary to inquire into the nature of the +collateral. If it was satisfactory to the Mustardseed National it must +of course exceed considerably the amount of the note. + +"Yes," answered Mrs. Effingham timidly; and she handed him the letter +dictated by Mr. Tutt. + +"Well," replied Mr. Badger thoughtfully, after reading it, "what you ask +is rather unusual--quite unusual, I may say, but I think I may be able +to attend to the matter for you. Leave it in my hands and think no more +about it. How have you been, my dear Mrs. Effingham? You're looking +extraordinarily well!" + +Mr. McKeever had about concluded his arrangements for welcoming the +state bank examiner when the telephone on his desk buzzed, and on taking +up the receiver he heard the ingratiating voice of Alfred Haynes Badger. + +"Is this the Loan Department of the Mustardseed National?" + +"It is," he answered shortly. + +"I understand you hold a note of a certain Mrs. Effingham for ten +thousand dollars. May I ask if it is secured?" + +"Who is this?" snapped McKeever. + +"One of her friends," replied Mr. Badger amicably. + +"Well, we don't discuss our clients' affairs over the telephone. You had +better come in here if you have any inquiries to make." + +"But I want to pay the note," expostulated Mr. Badger. + +"Oh! Well, anybody can pay the note who wants to." + +"And of course in that case you would turn over whatever collateral is +on deposit to secure the note?" + +"If we were so directed." + +"May I ask what collateral there is?" + +"I don't know." + +"There is some collateral, I suppose?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, I have an order from Mrs. Effingham directing the bank to turn +over whatever securities she has on deposit as collateral, on my payment +of the note." + +"In that case you'll get 'em," said Mr. McKeever gruffly. "I'll get +them out and have 'em ready for you." + + * * * * * + +"Here is my certified check for ten thousand; dollars," announced Alfred +Haynes Badger a few minutes later. "And here is the order from Mrs. +Effingham. Now will you kindly turn over to me all the securities?" + +Mr. McKeever, knowing something of the reputation of Mr. Badger, first +called up the bank which had certified the latter's check, and having +ascertained that the certification was genuine he marked Mrs. +Effingham's note as paid and then took down from the top of his roll-top +desk the bundle of beautifully engraved securities given him by Mr. +Tutt. Badger watched him greedily. + +"Thank you," he gurgled, stuffing them into his pocket. "Much obliged +for your courtesy. Perhaps you would like me to open an account here?" + +"Oh, anybody can open an account who wants to," remarked Mr. McKeever +dryly, turning away from him to something else. + +Mr. Badger fairly flew back to his office. The exquisite blonde had +hardly ever before seen him exhibit so much agitation. + +"What have you pulled this time?" she inquired dreamily. "Father's +daguerreotype and the bracelet of mother's hair?" + +"I've grabbed off the whole bag of tricks!" he cried. "Look at 'em! +We've not seen so much of the real stuff in six months. + +"Ten--twenty--thirty--forty--fifty--By gad!--sixty--seventy!" + +"What are they?" asked Mabel curiously. "Some bonds--what?" + +"I should say so!" he retorted gaily. "Say, girlie, I'll give you the +swellest meal of your young life to-night! Chicago Water Front and +Terminal, Great Lakes and Canadian Southern, Mohawk and Housatonic, +Bluff Creek and Iowa Central. '_Oh, Mabel_!'" + +It was at just about this period of the celebration that Mr. Tutt +entered the outer office and sent in his name; and as Mr. Badger was at +the height of his good humor he condescended to see him. + +"I have called," said Mr. Tutt, "in regard to the bonds belonging to my +client, Mrs. Effingham. I see you have them on the desk there in front +of you. Unfortunately she has changed her mind. She has decided not to +have you dispose of her securities." + +Mr. Badger's expression instantly became hostile and defiant. + +"It's too late!" he replied. "I have paid off her note and I am going to +carry out the rest of the arrangement." + +"Oh," said Mr. Tutt, "so you are going to sell all her securities and +put the proceeds into your bogus oil company--whether she wishes it or +not? If you do the district attorney will get after you." + +"I stand on my rights," snarled Badger. "Anyhow I can sell enough of the +securities to pay myself back my ten thousand dollars." + +"And then you'll steal the rest?" inquired Mr. Tutt. "Be careful, my +dear sir! Remember there is such a thing as equity, and such a place as +Sing Sing." + +Badger gave a cynical laugh. + +"You're too late, my friend! I've got a written order--_a written +order_--from your client, as you call her. She can't go back on it now. +I've got the bonds and I'm going to dispose of them." + +"Very well," said Mr. Tutt tolerantly. "You can do as you see fit. +But"--and he produced ten genuine one-thousand-dollar bills and +exhibited them to Mr. Badger at a safe distance--"I now on behalf of +Mrs. Effingham make you a legal tender of the ten thousand dollars you +have just paid out to cancel her note, and I demand the return of the +securities. Incidentally I beg to inform you that they are not worth the +paper they are printed on." + +"Indeed!" sneered Badger. "Well, my dear! old friend, you might have +saved yourself the trouble of coming round here. You and your client +can go straight to hell. _You_ can keep the money; _I'll_ keep the +bonds. See?" + +Mr. Tutt sighed and shook his head hopelessly. + +Then he put the bills back into his pocket and started slowly for the +door. + +"You absolutely and finally decline to give up the securities?" he asked +plaintively. + +"Absolutely and finally?" mocked Mr. Badger with a sweeping bow. + +"Dear! Dear!" almost moaned Mr. Tutt. "I'd heard of you a great many +times but I never realized before what an unscrupulous man you were! +Anyhow, I'm glad to have had a look at you. By the way, if you take the +trouble to dig through all that junk you'll find the certificate of +stock in the Great Jehoshaphat Oil Company you used to flim flam Mrs. +Effingham with out of her ten thousand dollars. Maybe you can use it on +someone else! Anyhow, she's about two thousand dollars to the good. It +isn't every widow who can get twenty per cent and then get her money +back in full." + + + + +The Hepplewhite Tramp + + + "No freeman shall be taken, or imprisoned, or disseized + or outlawed, or exiled, or in any way harmed--nor will + we go upon or send upon him--save by the lawful judgment + of his peers or by the law of the land." + --MAGNA CHARTA, Sec. 39. + + "'Somebody has been lying in my bed--and here she + is,' cried the Little, Small, Wee Bear, in his little, small, + wee voice." + --THE THREE BEARS. + +One of the nicest men in New York was Mr. John De Puyster Hepplewhite. +The chief reason for his niceness was his entire satisfaction with +himself and the padded world in which he dwelt, where he was as +protected from all shocking, rough or otherwise unpleasant things as a +shrinking débutante from the coarse universe of fact. Being thus +shielded from every annoyance and irritation by a host of sycophants he +lived serenely in an atmosphere of unruffled calm, gazing down benignly +and with a certain condescension from the rarefied altitude of his +Fifth Avenue windows, pleased with the prospect of life as it appeared +to him to be and only slightly conscious of the vileness of his fellow +man. + +Certainly he was not conscious at all of the existence of the celebrated +law firm of Tutt & Tutt. Such vulgar persons were not of his sphere. His +own lawyers were gray-headed, dignified, rather smart attorneys who +moved only in the best social circles and practised their profession +with an air of elegance. When Mr. Hepplewhite needed advice he sent for +them and they came, chatted a while in subdued easy accents, and went +away--like cheerful undertakers. Nobody ever spoke in loud tones near +Mr. Hepplewhite because Mr. Hepplewhite did not like anything loud--not +even clothes. He was, as we have said, quite one of the nicest men in +New York. + +At the moment when Mrs. Witherspoon made her appearance he was sitting +in his library reading a copy of "Sainte-Beuve" and waiting for Bibby, +the butler, to announce tea. It was eight minutes to five and there was +still eight minutes to wait; so Mr. Hepplewhite went on reading +"Sainte-Beuve." + +Then "Mrs. Witherspoon!" intoned Bibby, and Mr. Hepplewhite rose +quickly, adjusted his eye-glass and came punctiliously forward. + +"My dear Mrs. Witherspoon!" he exclaimed crisply. "I am really +delighted to see you. It was quite charming of you to give me this +week-end." + +"Adorable of you to ask me Mr. Hepplewhite!" returned the lady. "I've +been looking forward to this visit for weeks. What a sweet room? Is that +a Corot?" + +"Yes--yes!" murmured her host modestly. "Rather nice, I think, eh? I'll +show you my few belongings after tea. Now will you go upstairs first or +have tea first?" + +"Just as you say," beamed Mrs. Witherspoon. "Perhaps I had better run up +and take off my veil." + +"Whichever you prefer," he replied chivalrously. "Do exactly as you +like. Tea will be ready in a couple of minutes." + +"Then I think I'll run up." + +"Very well. Bibby, show Mrs. Witherspoon--" + +"Very good, sir. This way, please, madam. Stockin', fetch Mrs. +Witherspoon's bag from the hall." + +Mr. Hepplewhite stood rubbing his delicate hands in front of the fire, +telling himself what a really great pleasure it was to have Mrs. +Witherspoon staying with him over the week-end. He was having a dinner +party for her that evening--of forty-eight. All that it had been +necessary for him to do to have the party was to tell Mr. Sadducee, his +secretary, that he wished to have it and direct him to send the +invitations from List Number One and then to tell Bibby the same thing +and to order the chef to serve Dinner Number Four--only to have +Johannisberger Cabinet instead of Niersteiner. + +All these things were highly important to Mr. Hepplewhite, for upon the +absolute smoothness with which tea and dinner were served and the +accuracy with which his valet selected socks to match his tie his entire +happiness, to say nothing of his peace of mind, depended. His daily life +consisted of a series of subdued and nicely adjusted social events. They +were forecast for months ahead. Nothing was ever done on the spur of the +moment at Mr. Hepplewhite's. He could tell to within a couple of seconds +just exactly what was going to occur during the balance of the day, the +remainder of Mrs. Witherspoon's stay and the rest of the month. It would +have upset him very much not to know exactly what was going to happen, +for he was a meticulously careful host and being a creature of habit the +unexpected was apt to agitate him extremely. + +So now as he stood rubbing his hands it was in the absolute certainty +that in just a few more seconds one of the footmen would appear between +the tapestry portières bearing aloft a silver tray with the tea things, +and then Bibby would come in with the paper, and presently Mrs. +Witherspoon would come down and she would make tea for him and they +would talk about tea, and Aiken, and whether the Abner Fullertons were +going to get a domestic or foreign divorce, and how his bridge was these +days. It would be very nice, and he rubbed his hands very gently and +waited for the Dresden clock to strike five in the subdued and decorous +way that it had. But he did not hear it strike. + +Instead a shriek rang out from the hall above, followed by yells and +feet pounding down the stairs. Mr. Hepplewhite turned cold and something +hard rose up in his throat. His sight dimmed. And then Bibby burst in, +pale and with protruding eyes. + +"There was a man in the guest room!" he gasped. "Stockin's got him. What +shall we do?" + +At that moment Mrs. Witherspoon followed. + +"Oh, Mr. Hepplewhite! Oh, Mr. Hepplewhite!" she gasped, staggering +toward him. + +Mr. Hepplewhite would have taken her in his arms and attempted to +comfort her only it was not done in Mr. Hepplewhite's set unless under +extreme provocation. So he pressed an armchair upon her; or, rather, +pressed her into an armchair; and leaned against the bookcase feeling +very faint. He was extremely agitated. + +"S-send for the police! S-s-send for B-burk!" he stuttered. Burk was a +husky watchman who also acted as a personal guard for Mr. Hepplewhite. + +An alarm began to beat a deafening staccato in the hall outside the +library. Bibby rushed gurgling from the room. Several tall men in knee +breeches and silk stockings dashed excitedly up and down stairs using +expressions such as had never before been heard by Mr. Hepplewhite, and +the clanging gong of a police wagon was audible as it clattered up the +Avenue. + +"Oh, Mr. Hepplewhite," whispered Mrs. Witherspoon, unconsciously seeking +his hand. "I never was so frightened in my life!" + +Then the gong stopped and the police poured into the house and up the +stairs. There were muffled noises and suppressed ejaculations of "Aw, +come on there, now! I've got him, Mike! No funny business now, you! Come +along quiet!" + +The whole house seemed blue with policemen, and Mr. Hepplewhite became +aware of a very fat man in a blue cap marked Captain, who removed the +cap deferentially and otherwise indicated that he was making obeisance. +Behind the fat man stood three other equally fat men, who held between +them with grim firmness, by arm, neck and shoulder, a much smaller--in +fact, quite a small--man shabby, unkempt, and with a desperate look upon +his unshaven face. + +"We've got him, all right, Mr. Hepplewhite!" exulted the captain, +obviously grateful that God had vouchsafed to deliver the criminal into +his and not into other hands. "Shall I take him to the house--or do you +want to examine him?" + +"I?" ejaculated Mr. Hepplewhite. "Mercy, no! Take him away as quickly as +possible!" + +"As you say, sir," wheezed the captain. "Come along, boys! Take him over +to court and arraign him!" + +"Yes, do!" urged Mrs. Witherspoon. "And arraign him as hard as you can; +for he really frightened me nearly to death, the terrible man!" + +"Leave him to me, ma'am!" adjured the captain "Will you have your butler +act as complainant sir?" he asked. + +"Why--yes--Bibby will do whatever is proper," agreed Mr. Hepplewhite. +"It will not be necessary for me to go to court, will it?" + +"Oh, no!" answered the captain. "Mr. Bibby will do all right. I suppose +we had better make the charge burglary, sir?" + +"I suppose so," replied Mr. Hepplewhite vaguely. + +"Get on, boys," ordered the captain. "Good evening, sir. Good evening, +ma'am. Step lively, you!" + +The blue cloud faded away, bearing with it both Bibby and the burglar. +Then the third footman brought the belated tea. + +"What a frightful thing to have happen!" grieved Mrs. Witherspoon as she +poured out the tea for Mr. Hepplewhite. "You don't take cream, do you?" + +"No, thanks," he answered. "I find too much cream hard to digest. I have +to be rather careful, you know. By the way, you haven't told me where +the burglar was or what he was doing when you went into the room." + +"He was in the bed," said Mrs. Witherspoon. + + * * * * * + +"In the 'Decay of Lying,' Mr. Tutt," said Tutt thoughtfully, as he +dropped in for a moment's chat after lunch, "Oscar Wilde says, 'There is +no essential incongruity between crime and culture.'" + +The senior partner removed his horn-rimmed spectacles and carefully +polished the lenses with a bit of chamois, which he produced from his +watch pocket, meanwhile resting the muscles of his forehead by elevating +his eyebrows until he somewhat resembled an inquiring but good-natured +owl. + +"That's plain enough," he replied. "The most highly cultivated people +are often the most unscrupulous. I go Oscar one better and declare that +there is a distinct relationship between crime and progress!" + +"You don't say, now!" ejaculated Tutt. "How do you make that out?" + +Mr. Tutt readjusted his spectacles and slowly selected a stogy from the +bundle in the dusty old cigar box. + +"Crime," he announced, "is the violation of the will of the majority as +expressed in the statutes. The law is wholly arbitrary and depends upon +public opinion. Acts which are crimes in one century or country become +virtues in another, and vice versa. Moreover, there is no difference, +except one of degree, between infractions of etiquette and of law, each +of which expresses the feelings and ideas of society at a given moment. +Violations of good taste, manners, morals, illegalities, wrongs, +crimes--they are all fundamentally the same thing, the insistence on +one's own will in defiance of society as a whole. The man who keeps his +hat on in a drawing-room is essentially a criminal because he prefers +his own way of doing things to that adopted by his fellows." + +"That's all right," answered Tutt. "But how about progress?" + +"Why, that is simple," replied his partner. "The man who refuses to bow +to habit, tradition, law--who thinks for himself and acts for himself, +who evolves new theories, who has the courage of his convictions and +stakes his life and liberty upon them--that man is either a statesman, a +prophet or a criminal. And in the end he is either hailed as a hero and +a liberator or is burned, cast into prison or crucified." + +Tutt looked interested. + +"Well, now," he returned, helping himself from the box, "I never thought +of it, but, of course, it's true. Your proposition is that progress +depends on development and development depends on new ideas. If the new +idea is contrary to those of society it is probably criminal. If its +inventor puts it across, gets away with it, and persuades society that +he is right he is a leader in the march of progress. If he fails he goes +to jail. Hence the relationship between crime and progress. Why not say +that crime is progress?" + +"If successful it is," answered Mr. Tutt. "But the moment it is +successful it ceases to be crime." + +"I get you," nodded Tutt. "Here to-day it is a crime to kill one's +grandmother; but I recall reading that among certain savage tribes to do +so is regarded as a highly virtuous act. Now if I convince society that +to kill one's grandmother is a good thing it ceases to be a crime. +Society has progressed. I am a public benefactor." + +"And if you don't persuade society you go to the chair," remarked Mr. +Tutt laconically. + +"To use another illustration," exclaimed Tutt, warming to the subject, +"the private ownership of property at the present time is recognized and +protected by the law, but if we had a Bolshevik government it might be a +crime to refuse to share one's property with others." + +"In that case if you took your share of another's property by force, +instead of being a thief you would be a Progressive," smiled his +partner. + +Tutt robbed his forehead. + +"Looking at it that way, you know," said he, "makes it seem as if +criminals were rather to be admired." + +"Well, some of them are, and a great multitude of them certainly were," +answered Mr. Tutt. "All the early Christian martyrs were criminals in +the sense that they were law-breakers." + +"And Martin Luther," suggested Tutt. + +"And Garibaldi," added Mr. Tutt. + +"And George Washington--maybe?" hazarded the junior partner. + +Mr. Tutt shrugged his high shoulders. + +"You press the analogy a long way, but--in a sense every successful +revolutionist was in the beginning a criminal--as every rebel is and +perforce must be," he replied. + +"So," said Tutt, "if you're a big enough criminal you cease to be a +criminal at all. If you're going to be a crook, don't be a piker--it's +too risky. Grab everything in sight. Exterminate a whole nation, if +possible. Don't be a common garden highwayman or pirate; be a Napoleon +or a Willy Hohenzollern." + +"You have the idea," replied Mr. Tutt. "Crime is unsuccessful defiance +of the existing order of things. Once rebellion rises to the dignity of +revolution murder becomes execution and the murderers become +belligerents. Therefore, as all real progress involves a change in or +defiance of existing law, those who advocate progress are essentially +criminally minded, and if they attempt to secure progress by openly +refusing to obey the law they are actual criminals. Then if they +prevail, and from being in the minority come into power, they are taken +out of jail, banquets are given in their honor, and they are called +patriots and heroes. Hence the close connection between crime and +progress." + +Tutt scratched his chin doubtfully. + +"That sounds pretty good," he admitted, "but"--and he shook his +head--"there's something the matter with it. It doesn't work except in +the case of crimes involving personal rights and liberties. I see your +point that all progressives are criminals in the sense that they are +'agin the law' as it is, but--I also see the hole in your argument, +which is that the fact that all progressives are criminals doesn't make +all criminals progressive. Your proposition is only a half truth." + +"You're quite wrong about my theory being a half truth," retorted Mr. +Tutt. "It is fundamentally sound. The fellow who steals a razor or a few +dollars is regarded as a mean thief, but if he loots a trust company or +takes a million he's a financier. The criminal law, I maintain, is +administered for the purpose of protecting the strong from the weak, the +successful from the unsuccessful the rich from the poor. And, sir"--Mr. +Tutt here shook his fist at an imaginary jury--"the man who wears a red +necktie in violation of the taste of his community or eats peas with his +knife is just as much a criminal as a man who spits on the floor when +there's a law against it. Don't you agree with me?" + +"I do not!" replied Tutt. "But that makes no difference. Nevertheless +what you say about the criminal law being devised to protect the rich +from the poor interests me very much--very much indeed But I think +there's a flaw in that argument too, isn't there? Your proposition is +true only to the extent that the criminal law is invoked to protect +property rights--and not life and liberty. Naturally the laws that +protect property are chiefly of benefit to those who have it--the rich." + +"However that may be," declared Mr. Tutt fiercely, "I claim that the +criminal laws are administered, interpreted and construed in favor of +the rich as against the liberties of the poor, for the simple reason +that the administrators of the criminal law desire to curry favor with +the powers that be." + +"The moral of which all is," retorted the other, "that the law ought to +be very careful about locking up people." + +"At any rate those who have violated laws upon which there can be a +legitimate difference of opinion," agreed Mr. Tutt. + +"That's where we come in," said Tutt. "We make the difference--even if +there never was any before." + +Mr. Tutt chuckled. + +"We perform a dual service to society," he declared. "We prevent the law +from making mistakes and so keep it from falling into disrepute, and we +show up its weak points and thus enable it to be improved." + +"And incidentally we keep many a future statesman and prophet from going +to prison," said Tutt. "The name of the last one was Solomon +Rabinovitch--and he was charged with stealing a second-hand razor from a +colored person described in the papers as one Morris Cohen." + +How long this specious philosophic discussion would have continued is +problematical had it not been interrupted by the entry of a young +gentleman dressed with a somewhat ostentatious elegance, whose wizened +face bore an expression at once of vast good nature and of a deep and +subtle wisdom. + +It was clear that he held an intimate relationship to Tutt & Tutt from +the familiar way in which he returned their cordial, if casual, +salutations. + +"Well, here we are again," remarked Mr. Doon pleasantly, seating himself +upon the corner of Mr. Tutt's desk and spinning his bowler hat upon the +forefinger of his left hand. "The hospitals are empty. The Tombs is as +dry as a bone. Everybody's good and every day'll be Sunday by and by." + +"How about that man who stole a razor?" asked Tutt. + +"Discharged on the ground that the fact that he had a full beard created +a reasonable doubt," replied Doon. "Honestly there's nothing doing in my +line--unless you want a tramp case." + +"A tramp case!" exclaimed Tutt & Tutt. + +"I suppose you'd call it that," he answered blandly. "I don't think he +was a burglar. Anyhow he's in the Tombs now, shouting for a lawyer. I +listened to him and made a note of the case." + +Mr. Tutt pushed over the box of stogies and leaned back attentively. + +"You know the Hepplewhite house up on Fifth Avenue--that great stone +one with the driveway?" + +The Tutts nodded. + +"Well, it appears that the prisoner--our prospective client--was +snooping round looking for something to eat and found that the butler +had left the front door slightly ajar. Filled with a natural curiosity +to observe how the other half lived, he thrust his way cautiously in and +found himself in the main hall--hung with tapestry and lined with stands +of armor. No one was to be seen. Can't you imagine him standing there in +his rags--the Weary Willy of the comic supplements--gazing about him at +the _objets d'art_, the old masters, the onyx tables, the +statuary--wondering where the pantry was and whether the housekeeper +would be more likely to feed him or kick him out?" + +"Weren't any of the domestics about?" inquired Tutt. + +"Not one. They were all taking an afternoon off, except the third +assistant second man who was reading 'The Pilgrim's Progress' in the +servants' hall. To resume, our friend was not only very hungry, but very +tired. He had walked all the way from Yonkers, and he needed everything +from a Turkish bath to a manicuring. He had not been shaved for weeks. +His feet sank almost out of sight in the thick nap of the carpets. It +was quiet, warm, peaceful in there. A sense of relaxation stole over +him. He hated to go away, he says, and he meditated no wrong. But he +wanted to see what it was like upstairs. + +"So up he went. It was like the palace of 'The Sleeping Beauty.' +Everywhere his eyes were soothed by the sight of hothouse plants, marble +floors, priceless rugs, luxurious divans--" + +"Stop!" cried Tutt. "You are making me sleepy!" + +"Well, that's what it did to him. He wandered along the upper hall, +peeking into the different rooms, until finally he came to a beautiful +chamber finished entirely in pink silk. It had a pink rug--of silk; the +furniture was upholstered in pink silk, the walls were lined with pink +silk and in the middle of the room was a great big bed with a pink silk +coverlid and a canopy of the same. It seemed to him that that bed must +have been predestined for him. Without a thought for the morrow he +jumped into it, pulled the coverlid over his head and went fast asleep. + +"Meanwhile, at tea time Mrs. De Lancy Witherspoon arrived for the +week-end. Bibby, the butler, followed by Stocking, the second man, +bearing the hand luggage, escorted the guest to the Bouguereau Room, as +the pink-silk chamber is called." + +Mr. Bonnie Doon, carried away by his own powers of description, waved +his hand dramatically at the old leather couch against the side wall, +in which Weary Willy was supposed to be reclining. + +"Can't you see 'em?" he declaimed. "The haughty Bibby with nose in air, +preceding the great dame of fashion, enters the pink room and comes to +attention, 'This way, madam!' he declaims, and Mrs. Witherspoon sweeps +across the threshold." Bonnie Doon, picking up an imaginary skirt, +waddled round Mr. Tutt and approached the couch. Suddenly he started +back. + +"Oh, la, la!" he half shrieked, dancing about. "There is a man in the +bed!" + +Both Tutts stared hard at the couch as if fully expecting to see the +form of Weary Willy thereon. Bonnie Doon had a way of making things +appear very vivid. + +"And sure enough," he concluded, "there underneath the coverlid in the +middle of the bed was a huddled heap with a stubby beard projecting like +Excalibur from a pink silk lake!" + +"Excuse me," interrupted Tutt. "But may I ask what this is all about?" + +"Why, your new case, to be sure," grinned Bonnie, who, had he been +employed by any other firm, might have run the risk of being regarded as +an ambulance chaser. "To make a long and tragic story short, they sent +for the watchman, whistled for a policeman, telephoned for the hurry-up +wagon, and haled the sleeper away to prison--where he is now, waiting +to be tried." + +"Tried!" ejaculated Mr. Tutt. "What for?" + +"For crime, to be sure," answered Mr. Doon. + +"What crime?" + +"I don't know. They'll find one, of course." + +Mr. Tutt swiftly lowered his legs from the desk and brought his fist +down upon it with a bang. + +"Outrageous! What was I just telling you, Tutt!" he cried, a flush +coming into his wrinkled face. "This poor man is a victim of the +overzealousness which the officers of the law exhibit in protecting the +privileges and property of the rich. If John De Puyster Hepplewhite fell +asleep in somebody's vestibule the policeman on post would send him home +in a cab; but if a hungry tramp does the same thing he runs him in. If +John De Puyster Hepplewhite should be arrested for some crime they would +let him out on bail; while the tramp is imprisoned for weeks awaiting +trial, though under the law he is presumed to be innocent. Is he +presumed to be innocent? Not much! He is presumed to be guilty, +otherwise he would not be there. But what is he presumed to be guilty +of? That's what I want to know! Just because this poor man--hungry, +thirsty and weary--happened to select a bed belonging to John De Puyster +Hepplewhite to lie on he is thrown into prison, indicted by a grand +jury, and tried for felony! Ye gods! 'Sweet land of liberty!'" + +"Well, he hasn't been tried yet," replied Bonnie Doon. "If you feel that +way about it why don't you defend him?" + +"I will!" shouted Mr. Tutt, springing to his feet. "I'll defend him and +acquit him!" + +He seized his tall hat, placed it upon his head and strode rapidly +through the door. + +"He will too!" remarked Bonnie, winking at Tutt. + +"He thinks that tramp is either a statesman or a prophet!" mused Tutt, +his mind reverting to his partner's earlier remarks. + +"He won't think so after he's seen him," replied Mr. Doon. + +It sometimes happens that those who seek to establish great principles +and redress social evils involve others in an involuntary martyrdom far +from their desires. Mr. Tutt would have gone to the electric chair +rather than see the Hepplewhite Tramp, as he was popularly called by the +newspapers convicted of a crime, but the very fact that he had become +his legal champion interjected a new element into the situation, +particularly as O'Brien, Mr. Tutt's arch enemy in the district +attorney's office, had been placed in charge of the case. + +It would have been one thing to let Hans Schmidt--that was the tramp's +name--go, if after remaining in the Tombs until he had been forgotten by +the press he could have been unobtrusively hustled over the Bridge of +Sighs to freedom. Then there would have been no comeback. But with +Ephraim Tutt breathing fire and slaughter, accusing the police and +district attorney of being trucklers to the rich and great, and +oppressors of the poor--law breakers, in fact--O'Brien found himself in +the position of one having an elephant by the tail and unable to let go. + +In fact, it looked as if the case of the Hepplewhite Tramp might become +a political issue. That there was something of a comic side to it made +it all the worse. + +"Holy cats, boys!" snorted District Attorney Peckham to the circle of +disgruntled police officers and assistants gathered about him on the +occasion described by the reporters as his making a personal +investigation of the case, "Why in the name of common sense didn't you +simply boot the fellow into the street?" + +"I wish we had, counselor!" assented the captain of the Hepplewhite +precinct mournfully. "But we thought he was a burglar. I guess he was, +at that--and it was Mr. Hepplewhite's house." + +"I've heard that until I'm sick of it!" retorted Peckham. + +"One thing is sure--if we turn him out now Tutt will sue us all for +false arrest and put the whole administration on the bum," snarled +O'Brien. + +"But I didn't know the tramp would get Mr. Tutt to defend him," +expostulated the captain. "Anyhow, ain't it a crime to go to sleep in +another man's bed?" + +"If it ain't it ought to be!" declared his plain-clothes man +sententiously. "Can't you indict him for burglary?" + +"You can indict all day; the thing is to convict!" snapped Peckham. +"It's up to you, O'Brien, to square this business so that the law is +vindicated--somehow It must be a crime to go into a house on Fifth +Avenue and use it as a hotel. Why, you can't cross the street faster +than a walk these days without committing a crime. Everything's a +crime." + +"Sure thing," agreed the captain. "I never yet had any trouble finding a +crime to charge a man with, once I got the nippers on him." + +"That's so," interjected the plain-clothes man. "Did you ever know it +was a crime to mismanage a steam boiler? Well, it is." + +"Quite right," agreed Mr. Magnus, the indictment clerk. "The great +difficulty for the perfectly honest man nowadays is to avoid some act or +omission which the legislature has seen fit to make a crime without his +knowledge. Refilling a Sarsaparilla bottle, for instance, or getting up +a masquerade ball or going fishing or playing on Sunday or loitering +about a building to overhear what people are talking about inside--" + +"That's no crime," protested the captain scornfully. + +"Yes, it is too!" retorted Mr. Magnus, otherwise known to his fellows as +Caput, because of his supposed cerebral inflation. "Just like it is a +crime to have any kind of a show or procession on Sunday except a +funeral, in which case it's a crime to make a disbursing noise at it." + +"What's a disbursing noise?" demanded O'Brien. + +"I don't know," admitted Magnus. "But that's the law anyway. You can't +make a disbursing noise at a funeral on Sunday." + +"Oh, hell!" ejaculated the captain. "Come to think of it, it's a crime +to spit. What man is safe?" + +"It occurs to me," continued Mr. Magnus thoughtfully, "that it is a +crime under the law to build a house on another man's land; now I should +say that there was a close analogy between doing that and sleeping in +his bed." + +"Hear! Hear!" commented O'Brien. "Caput Magnus, otherwise known as Big +Head, there is no doubt but that your fertile brain can easily devise a +way out of our present difficulty." + +"Well, I've no time to waste on tramp cases," remarked District +Attorney Peckham. "I've something more important to attend to. Indict +this fellow and send him up quick. Charge him with everything in sight +and trust in the Lord. That's the only thing to be done. Don't bother me +about it, that's all!" + +Meantime Mr. Hepplewhite became more and more agitated. Entirely against +his will and, so far as he could see, without any fault of his own, he +suddenly found himself the center of a violent and acrimonious +controversy respecting the fundamental and sacred rights of freemen +which threatened to disrupt society and extinguish the supremacy of the +dominant local political organization. + +On the one hand he was acclaimed by the conservative pulpit and press as +a public-spirited citizen who had done exactly the right +thing--disinterestedly enforced the law regardless of his own +convenience and safety as a matter of principle and for the sake of the +community--a moral hero; on the other, though he was president of +several charitable organizations and at least one orphan asylum he was +execrated as a heartless brute, an oppressor of the poor, an octopus, a +soulless capitalist who fattened on the innocent and helpless and +who--Mr. Hepplewhite was a bachelor--probably if the truth could be +known lived a life of horrid depravity and crime. + +Indeed there was a man named Tutt, of whom Mr. Hepplewhite had never +before heard, who publicly declared that he, Tutt, would show him, +Hepplewhite, up for what he was and make him pay with his body and his +blood, to say nothing of his money, for what he had done and caused to +be done. And so Mr. Hepplewhite became even more agitated, until he +dreamed of this Tutt as an enormous bird like the fabled roc, with a +malignant face and a huge hooked beak that some day would nip him in the +abdomen and fly, croaking, away with him. Mrs. Witherspoon had returned +to Aiken, and after the first flood of commiserations from his friends +on Lists Numbers One, Two, Three and Four he felt neglected, lonely and +rather fearful. + +And then one morning something happened that upset his equanimity +entirely. He had just started out for a walk in the park when a flashy +person who looked like an actor walked impudently up to him and handed +him a piece of paper in which was wrapped a silver half dollar. In a +word Mr. Hepplewhite was subpoenaed and the nervous excitement attendant +upon that operation nearly caused his collapse. For he was thereby +commanded to appear before the Court of General Sessions of the Peace +upon the following Monday at ten a.m. as a witness in a criminal action +prosecuted by the People of the State of New York against Hans Schmidt. +Moreover, the paper was a dirty-brown color and bore the awful name of +Tutt. He returned immediately to the house and telephoned for Mr. +Edgerton, his lawyer, who at once jumped into a taxi on the corner of +Wall and Broad Streets and hurried uptown. + +"Edgerton," said Hepplewhite faintly as the lawyer entered his library, +"this whole unfortunate affair has almost made me sick. I had nothing to +do with the arrest of this man Schmidt. The police did everything. And +now I'm ordered to appear as a witness! Why, I hardly looked at the man. +I shouldn't know him if I saw him. Do I have to go to court?" + +Mr. Edgerton smiled genially in a manner which he thought would +encourage Mr. Hepplewhite. + +"I suppose you'll have to go to court. You can't help that, you know, if +you've been subpoenaed. But you can't testify to anything that I can +see. It's just a formality." + +"Formality!" groaned his client. "Well, I supposed the arrest was just a +formality." + +Mr. Edgerton smiled again rather unconvincingly. + +"Well, you see, you can't always tell what will happen when you once +start something," he began. + +"But I didn't start anything," answered Mr. Hepplewhite. "I had nothing +to say about it." + +At that moment Bibby appeared in the doorway. + +"Excuse me, sir," he said. "There is a young man outside who asked me to +tell you that he has a paper he wishes to serve on you--and would you +mind saving him the trouble of waiting for you to go out?" + +"Another!" gagged Mr. Hepplewhite. + +"Yes, sir! Thank you, sir," stammered Bibby. + +Mr. Hepplewhite looked inquiringly at Mr. Edgerton and rose feebly. + +"He'll get you sooner or later," declared the lawyer. "A man as well +known as you can't avoid process." + +Mr. Hepplewhite bit his lips and went out into the hall. + +Presently he returned carrying a legal-looking bunch of papers. + +"Well, what is it this time?" asked Edgerton jocosely. + +"It's a suit for false imprisonment for one hundred thousand dollars!" +choked Mr. Hepplewhite. + +Mr. Edgerton looked shocked. + +"Well, now you've got to convict him!" he declared. + +"Convict him?" retorted Mr. Hepplewhite. "I don't want to convict him. +I'd gladly give a hundred thousand dollars to get out of the--the--darn +thing!" + +Which was as near profanity as he had ever permitted himself to go. + + * * * * * + +Upon the following Monday Mr. Hepplewhite proceeded to court--flanked by +his distinguished counsel in frock coats and tall hats--simply because +he had been served with a dirty-brown subpoena by Tutt & Tutt; and his +distress was not lessened by the crowd of reporters who joined him at +the entrance of the Criminal Courts Building; or by the flashlight bomb +that was exploded in the corridor in order that the evening papers might +reproduce his picture on the front page. He had never been so much in +the public eye before, and he felt slightly defiled. For some curious +reason he had the feeling that he and not Schmidt was the actual +defendant charged with being guilty of something; nor was this +impression dispelled even by listening to the indictment by which the +Grand Jury charged Schmidt in eleven counts with burglary in the first, +second and third degrees and with the crime of entering his, +Hepplewhite's, house under circumstances not amounting to a burglary but +with intent to commit a felony, as follows: + +"Therefore, to wit, on the eleventh day of January in the year of our +Lord one thousand nine hundred and nineteen in the night-time of the +said day at the ward, city and county aforesaid the dwelling house of +one John De Puyster Hepplewhite there situate, feloniously and +burglariously did break into and enter there being then and there a +human being in said dwelling house, with intent to commit some crime +therein, to wit, the goods, chattels, and personal property of the said +John De Puyster Hepplewhite, then and there being found, then and there +feloniously and burglariously to steal, take and carry away one silver +tea service of the value of five hundred dollars and one pair of opera +glasses of the value of five dollars each with force and arms----" + +"But that silver tea service cost fifteen thousand dollars and weighs +eight hundred pounds!" whispered Mr. Hepplewhite. + +"Order in the court!" shouted Captain Phelan, pounding upon the oak rail +of the bar, and Mr. Hepplewhite subsided. + +Yet as he sat there between his lawyers listening to all the +extraordinary things that the Grand Jury evidently had believed Schmidt +intended to do, the suspicion began gradually to steal over him that +something was not entirely right somewhere. Why, it was ridiculous to +charge the man with trying to carry off a silver service weighing nearly +half a ton when he simply had gone to bed and fallen asleep. Still, +perhaps that was the law. + +However, when the assistant district attorney opened the People's case +to the jury Mr. Hepplewhite began to feel much more at ease. Indeed +O'Brien made it very plain that the defendant had been guilty of a very +grievous--he pronounced it "gree-vious"--offense in forcing his way into +another man's private house. It might or might not be burglary--that +would depend upon the testimony--but in any event it was a criminal, +illegal entry and he should ask for a conviction. A man's house was his +castle and--to quote from that most famous of orators and +statesmen--Edmund Burke--"the wind might enter, the rain might enter, +but the King of England might not enter!" Thus Schmidt could not enter +the house of Hepplewhite without making himself amenable to the law. + +Hepplewhite was filled with admiration for Mr. O'Brien, and his drooping +spirits reared their wilted heads as the prosecutor called Bibby to the +stand and elicited from him the salient features of the case. The jury +was vastly interested in the butler personally, as well as his account +rendered in the choicest cockney of how he had discovered Schmidt in his +master's bed. O'Brien bowed to Mr. Tutt and told him that he might +cross-examine. + +And then it was that Mr. Hepplewhite discovered why he had been haunted +by that mysterious feeling of guilt; for by some occult and subtle +method of suggestion on the part of Mr. Tutt, the case, instead of +being a trial of Schmidt, resolved itself into an attack upon Mr. +Hepplewhite and his retainers and upon the corrupt minions of the law +who had violated every principle of justice, decency and morality in +order to accomplish the unscrupulous purposes of a merciless +aristocrat--meaning him. With biting sarcasm, Mr. Tutt forced from the +writhing Bibby the admission that the prisoner was sound asleep in the +pink silk fastnesses of the Bouguereau Room when he was discovered that +he made no attempt to escape, that he did not assault anybody and that +he had appeared comatose from exhaustion; that there was no sign of a +break anywhere, and that the pair of opera glasses "worth five dollars +_apiece_"--Tutt invited the court's attention to this ingenuous +phraseology of Mr. Caput Magnus, as a literary curiosity--were a figment +of the imagination. + +In a word Mr. Tutt rolled Bibby up and threw him away, while his master +shuddered at the open disclosure of his trusted major-domo's vulgarity, +mendacity and general lack of sportsmanship. Somehow all at once the +case began to break up and go all to pot. The jury got laughing at +Bibby, the footmen and the cops as Mr. Tutt painted for their +edification the scene following the arrival of Mrs. Witherspoon, when +Schmidt was discovered asleep, as Mr. Tutt put it, like Goldilocks in +the Little, Small, Wee Bear's bed. + +Stocking was the next witness, and he fared no better than had Bibby. +O'Brien, catching the judge's eye, made a wry face and imperceptibly +lowered his left lid--on the side away from the jury, thus officially +indicating that, of course, the case was a lemon but that there was +nothing that could be done except to try it out to the bitter end. + +Then he rose and called out unexpectedly: "Mr. John De Puyster +Hepplewhite--take the stand!" + +It was entirely unexpected. No one had suggested that he would be called +for the prosecution. Possibly O'Brien was actuated by a slight touch of +malice; possibly he wanted to be able, if the case was lost, to accuse +Hepplewhite of losing it on his own testimony. But at any rate he +certainly had no anticipation of what the ultimate consequence of his +act would be. + +Mr. Hepplewhite suddenly felt as though his entire intestinal mechanism +had been removed. But he had no time to take counsel of his fears. +Everybody in the courtroom turned with one accord and looked at him. He +rose, feeling as one who dreams; that he is naked in the midst of a +multitude. He shrank back hesitating, but hostile hands reached out and +pushed him forward. Cringing, he slunk to the witness chair, and for the +first time faced the sardonic eyes of the terrible Tutt, his adversary +who looked scornfully from Hepplewhite to the jury and then from the +jury back to Hepplewhite as if to say: "Look at him! Call you this a +man?" + +"You are the Mr. Hepplewhite who has been referred to in the testimony +as the owner of the house in which the defendant was found?" inquired +O'Brien. + +"Yes--yes," answered Mr. Hepplewhite deprecatingly. + +"The first witness--Bibby--is in your employ?" + +"Yes--yes." + +"Did you have a silver tea set of the value of--er--at least five +hundred dollars in the house?" + +"It was worth fifteen thousand," corrected Mr. Hepplewhite. + +"Oh! Now, have you been served by the defendant's attorneys with a +summons and complaint in an action for false arrest in which damages are +claimed in the sum of one hundred thousand dollars?" + +"I object!" shouted Mr. Tutt. "It is wholly irrelevant." + +"I think it shows the importance of the result of this trial to the +witness," argued O'Brien perfunctorily. "It shows this case isn't any +joke--even if some people seem to think it is." + +"Objection sustained," ruled the court. "The question is irrelevant. The +jury is supposed to know that every case is important to those +concerned--to the defendant as well as to those who charge him with +crime." + +O'Brien bowed. + +"That's all. You may examine, Mr. Tutt." + +The old lawyer slowly unfolded his tall frame and gazed quizzically down +upon the shivering Hepplewhite. + +"You have been sued by my client for one hundred thousand dollars, +haven't you?" he demanded. + +"Object!" shot out O'Brien. + +"Overruled," snapped the court. "It is a proper question for +cross-examination. It may show motive." + +Mr. Hepplewhite sat helplessly until the shooting was over. + +"Answer the question!" suddenly shouted Mr. Tutt. + +"But I thought--" he began. + +"Don't think!" retorted the court sarcastically. "The time to think has +gone by. Answer!" + +"I don't know what the question is," stammered Mr. Hepplewhite, +thoroughly frightened. + +"Lord! Lord!" groaned O'Brien in plain hearing of the jury. + +Mr. Tutt sighed sympathetically in mock resignation. + +"My dear sir," he began in icy tones, "when you had my client arrested +and charged with being a burglar, had you made any personal inquiry as +to the facts?" + +"I didn't have him arrested!" protested the witness. + +"You deny that you ordered Bibby to charge the defendant with burglary?" +roared Mr. Tutt. "Take care! You know there is such a crime as perjury, +do you not?" + +"No--I mean yes," stuttered Mr. Hepplewhite abjectly. "That is, I've +heard about perjury--but the police attended to everything for me." + +"Aha!" cried Mr. Tutt, snorting angrily like the war horse depicted in +the Book of Job. "The police 'attended' to my client for you, did they? +What do you mean--for you? Did you pay them for their little attention?" + +"I always send them something on Christmas," said Mr. Hepplewhite. "Just +like the postmen." + +Mr. Tutt looked significantly at the jury, while a titter ran round the +court room. + +"Well," he continued with patient irony, "what we wish to know is +whether these friends of yours whom you so kindly remember at Christmas +dragged the helpless man away from your house, threw him into jail and +charged him with burglary by your authority?" + +"I didn't think anything about it," asserted Hepplewhite "Really I +didn't. I assumed that they knew what to do under such circumstances. I +didn't suppose they needed any authority from me." + +Mr. Tutt eyed sideways the twelve jurymen. + +"Trying to get out of it, are you? Attempting to avoid responsibility? +Are you thinking of what your position will be if the defendant is +acquitted--with an action against you for one hundred thousand dollars?" + +Ashamed, terrified, humiliated, Mr. Hepplewhite almost burst into tears. +He had suffered a complete moral disintegration--did not know where to +turn for help or sympathy. The whole world seemed to have risen against +him. He opened his mouth to reply, but the words would not come. He +looked appealingly at the judge, but the judge coldly ignored him. The +whole room seemed crowded with a multitude of leering eyes. Why had God +made him a rich man? Why was he compelled to suffer those terrible +indignities? He was not responsible for what had been done--why then, +was he being treated so abominably? + +"I don't want this man punished!" he suddenly broke out in fervent +expostulation. "I have nothing against him. I don't believe he intended +to do any wrong. And I hope the jury will acquit him!" + +"Oho!" whistled Mr. Tutt exultantly, while O'Brien gazed at Hepplewhite +in stupefaction. _Was_ this a man? + +"So you admit that the charge against my client is without foundation?" +insisted Mr. Tutt. + +Hepplewhite nodded weakly. + +"I don't know rightly what the charge is--but I don't think he meant any +harm," he faltered. + +"Then why did you have the police put him under arrest and hale him +away?" challenged Mr. Tutt ferociously. + +"I supposed they had to--if he came into my house," said Mr. +Hepplewhite. Then he added shamefacedly: "I know it sounds silly--but +frankly I did not know that I had anything to say in the matter. If your +client has been injured by my fault or mistake I will gladly reimburse +him as handsomely as you wish." + +O'Brien gasped. Then he made a funnel of his hands and whispered toward +the bench: "Take it away, for heaven's sake!" + +"That is all!" remarked Mr. Tutt with deep sarcasm, making an elaborate +bow in the direction of Mr. Hepplewhite. "Thank you for your excellent +intentions!" + +A snicker followed Mr. Hepplewhite as he dragged himself back to his +seat among the spectators. + +He felt as though he had passed through a clothes wringer. Dimly he +heard Mr. Tutt addressing the court. + +"And I move, Your Honor," the lawyer was paying, "that you take the +counts for burglary in the first, second and third degrees away from the +jury on the ground that there has been a complete failure of proof that +my client broke into the house of this man Hepplewhite either by night +or by day, or that he assaulted anybody or stole anything there, or ever +intended to." + +"Motion granted," agreed the judge. "I quite agree with you, Mr. Tutt. +There is no evidence here of any breaking. In fact, the inferences are +all the other way." + +"I further move that you take from the consideration of the jury the +remaining count of illegally entering the house with intent to commit a +crime and direct the jury to acquit the defendant for lack of evidence," +continued Mr. Tutt. + +"But what was your client doing in the house?" inquired the judge. "He +had no particular business in it, had he?" + +"That does not make his presence a crime, Your Honor," retorted the +lawyer. "A man is not guilty of a felony who falls asleep on my haycock. +Why should he be if he falls asleep in my bed?" + +The judge smiled. + +"We have no illegal entry statute with respect to fields or meadows, Mr. +Tutt," he remarked good-naturedly. "No, I shall be obliged to let the +jury decide whether this defendant went into that house for an honest +or dishonest purpose. It is clearly a proper question for them to pass +upon. Proceed with your case." + +Now when, as in the case of the Hepplewhite Tramp, the chief witness for +the prosecution throws up his hands and offers to repay the defendant +for the wrong he has done him, naturally it is all over but the +shouting. + +"There is no need for me to call the defendant," Mr. Tutt told the +court, "in view of the admissions made by the last witness. I am ready +to proceed with the summing up." + +"As you deem wise," answered the judge. "Proceed then." + +Through a blur of sight and sound Mr. Hepplewhite dimly heard Mr. Tutt +addressing the jury and saw them lean forward to catch his every word. + +Beside him Mr. Edgerton was saying protestingly: "May I ask why you made +those fool statements on the witness stand?" + +"Because I didn't want an innocent man convicted," returned Mr. +Hepplewhite tartly. + +"Well, you'll get your wish!" sniffed his lawyer. "And you'll get soaked +for about twenty thousand dollars for false arrest!" + +"I don't care," retorted the client. "And what's more I hope Mr. Tutt +gets a substantial fee out of it. He strikes me as a lawyer who knows +his business!" + +The oldest and fattest court officers, men so old and fat that they +remembered the trial of Boss Tweed and the days when Delancey Nicoll was +the White Hope of the Brownstone Court House--declared Mr. Tutt's +summation was the greatest that ever they heard. For the shrewd old +lawyer had an artist's hand with which he played upon the keyboard of +the jury and knew just when to pull out the stops of the _vox humana_ of +pathos and the grand diapason of indignation and defiance. So he began +by tickling their sense of humor with an ironic description of afternoon +tea at Mr. Hepplewhite's, with Bibby and Stocking as chief actors, until +all twelve shook with suppressed laughter and the judge was forced to +hide his face behind the _Law Journal_; ridiculed the idea of a criminal +who wanted to commit a crime calmly going to sleep in a pink silk bed in +broad daylight; and then brought tears to their eyes as he pictured the +wretched homeless tramp, sick, footsore and starving, who, drawn by the +need of food and warmth to this silk nest of luxury, was clubbed, +arrested and jailed simply because he had violated the supposed sanctity +of a rich man's home. + +The jury watched him as intently as a dog watches a piece of meat held +over its nose. They smiled with him, they wept with him, they glared at +Mr. Hepplewhite and they gazed in a friendly way at Schmidt, whom Mr. +Tutt had bailed out just before the trial. The very stars in their +courses seemed warring for Tutt & Tutt. In the words of Phelan: "There +was nothing to it!" + +"Thank God," concluded Mr. Tutt eloquently, "that in this land of +liberty in which we are privileged to dwell no man can be convicted of a +crime except by a jury of his peers--a right sacred under our +Constitution and inherited from Magna Charta, that foundation stone of +English liberty, in which the barons forced King John to declare that +'No freeman shall be taken, or imprisoned, or disseized, or outlawed, or +exiled, or in any way harmed ... save by the lawful judgment of his +peers or by the law of the land.' + +"Had I the time I would demonstrate to you the arbitrary character of +our laws and the inequality with which they are administered. + +"But in this case the chief witness has already admitted the innocence +of the defendant. There is nothing more to be said. The prosecution has +cried '_Peccavi!_' I leave my client in your hands." + +He resumed his seat contentedly and wiped his forehead with his silk +handkerchief. The judge looked down at O'Brien with raised eyebrows. + +"I will leave the case to the jury on Your Honor's charge," remarked +the latter carelessly. + +"Gentlemen of the jury," began the judge, "the defendant is accused of +entering the house of Mr. Hepplewhite with the intent to commit a crime +therein--" + +Mr. Hepplewhite sat, his head upon his breast, for what seemed to him +several hours. He had but one thought--to escape. His ordeal had been +far worse than he had anticipated. But he had made a discovery. He had +suddenly realized that one cannot avoid one's duties to one's fellows by +leaving one's affairs to others--not even to the police. He perceived +that he had lived with his head stuck in the sand. He had tried to +escape from his responsibilities as a citizen by hiding behind the thick +walls of his stone mansion on Fifth Avenue. He made up his mind that he +would do differently if he ever had the chance. Meanwhile, was not the +jury ever going to set the poor man free? + +They had indeed remained out a surprisingly long time in order merely to +reach a verdict which was a mere formality. Ah! There they were! Mr. +Hepplewhite watched with palpitating heart while they straggled slowly +in. The clerk made the ordinary perfunctory inquiry as to what their +verdict was. Mr. Hepplewhite did not hear what the foreman said in +reply, but he saw both the Tutts and O'Brien start from their seats and +heard a loud murmur rise throughout the court room. + +"What's that!" cried the clerk in astonished tones. "What did you say, +Mister Foreman?" + +"I said that we find the defendant guilty," replied the foreman calmly. + +Mr. Tutt stared incredulously at the twelve traitors who had betrayed +him. + +"Never mind, Mr. Tutt," whispered Number Six confidentially. "You did +the best you could. Your argument was fine--grand--but nobody could ever +make us believe that your client went into that house for any purpose +except to steal whatever he could lay his hands on. Besides, it wasn't +Mr. Hepplewhite's fault. He means well. And anyhow a nut like that has +got to be protected against himself." + +He might have enlightened Mr. Tutt further upon the psychology of the +situation had not the judge at that moment ordered the prisoner +arraigned at the bar. + +"Have you ever been convicted before?" asked His Honor sharply. + +"Sure," replied the Hepplewhite Tramp carelessly. "I've done three or +four bits, I'm a burglar. But you can't give me more than a year for +illegal entry." + +"That is quite true," admitted His Honor stiffly. "And it isn't half +enough!" He hesitated. "Perhaps under the circumstances you'll tell us +what you were doing in Mr. Hepplewhite's bed?" + +"Oh, I don't mind," returned the defendant with the superior air of one +who has put something over. "When I heard the guy in the knee breeches +coming up the stairs I just dove for the slats and played I was asleep." + +Leaving the courthouse Mr. Tutt encountered Bonnie Doon. + +"Young man," he remarked severely, "you assured me that fellow was only +a harmless tramp!" + +"Well," answered Bonnie, "that's what he said." + +"He says now he's a burglar," retorted Mr. Tutt wrathfully. "I don't +believe he knows what he is. Did you ever hear of such an outrageous +verdict? With not a scrap of evidence to support it?" + +Bonnie lit a cigarette doubtfully. + +"Oh, I don't know," he muttered. "The jury seems to have sized him up +rather better than we did." + +"Jury!" growled Mr. Tutt, rolling his eyes heavenward. "'Sweet land of +liberty!'" + + + + +Lallapaloosa Limited + + + + "Ethics: The doctrine of man's duty in respect to + himself and the rights of others." + --CENTURY DICTIONARY. + + "I don't say that all these people couldn't be squared; + but it is right to tell you that I shouldn't be sufficiently + degraded in my own estimation unless I was insulted + with a very considerable bribe." + --POOH-BAH. + +"I've been all over those securities," Miss Wiggin informed Mr. Tutt as +he entered the office one morning, "and not a single one of them is +listed on the Stock Exchange." + +"What securities are those?" asked her employer, hanging his tall hat on +the antiquated mahogany coat tree in the corner opposite the screen that +ambushed the washing apparatus. "I don't remember any securities," he +remarked as he applied a match to the off end of a particularly green +and vicious-looking stogy. + +"Why, of course you do, Mr. Tutt!" insisted Miss Wiggin. "Don't you +remember those great piles of bonds and stocks that Doctor Barrows left +here with you to keep for him?" + +"Oh, those!" Mr. Tutt smiled inscrutably. "Mr. Barrows is not a +physician," he corrected her, running his eye over the General Sessions +calendar. "He's only a 'doc'--that is to say, one who doctors. You know +you can doctor a lot of things besides the human anatomy. No, I guess +they're not listed on the Stock Exchange or anywhere else." + +"Well, here's a schedule I made of them--Miss Sondheim typed it--and +their total face value is seventeen million eight hundred thousand +dollars. I tried to find out all I could, but none of the firms on Wall +Street had ever heard of any of them--excepting of one that was traded +in on the curb up to within a few weeks. There's Great Lakes and +Canadian Southern Railway Company," she went on, "Chicago Water Front +and Terminal Company, Great Geyser Texan Petroleum and Llano Estacado +Land Company--dozens and dozens of them, and not one has an office or, +so far as I can find out, any tangible existence--but the one I spoke +of." + +"Which is this great exception?" queried Mr. Tutt absently as he +searched through the _Law Journal_ for the case he was going to try that +afternoon. "You said one of them had been dealt in on the curb? You +astonish me!" + +"It's got a funny name," she answered. "It almost sounds as if they +meant it for a joke--Horse's Neck Extension." + +"I guess they meant it for a joke all right--on the public," chuckled +her employer. "How many shares are there?" + +"A hundred thousand," she answered. + +"Jumping Jehoshaphat!" ejaculated Mr. Tutt. "How on earth did old Doc +manage to get hold of them?" + +"It sold for only ten cents a share!" replied Miss Wiggin. "That would +mean ten thousand dollars--" + +"If Doc paid for it," supplemented Mr. Tutt. "Which he probably didn't. +What's it selling for now?" + +"It isn't selling at all." + +Mr. Tutt pressed the button that summoned Willie. + +"When you haven't anything better to do," he said to her, "why don't you +go round and see what has become of--of--Horse's Neck Extension?" + +"I will," assented Miss Wiggin. "It makes me feel rich just to talk +about such things. I just love it." + +"Many a slick crook has taken advantage of just that kind of feeling," +mused Mr. Tutt. "There are two things that women--particularly trained +nurses--seem to like better than anything else in the world--babies and +stock certificates." + +Then upon the arrival of the recalcitrant William he gathered up his +papers and took down his hat from the tree. + +"I wish you'd let me get your hat ironed, Mr. Tutt," remarked Miss +Wiggin. "It would cost you only fifty cents." + +"That's all you know about it, my dear," he answered. "More likely it +would cost me a hundred thousand dollars." + + * * * * * + +Mr. Tobias Greenbaum, of Scherer, Hunn, Greenbaum & Beck, carefully +placed his cigar where it would not char his Italian Renaissance desk +and smoothed out the list which Mr. Elderberry, the secretary of The +Horse's Neck Extension Copper Mining Company, handed to him. The list +was typed on thin sheets; of foolscap and contained the names of +stockholders, but as it had lain rolled up in the bottom of Mr. +Elderberry's desk for five years without being disturbed it was inclined +to resist the gentle pressure of Mr. Greenbaum's fingers. + +Mr. Greenbaum glanced sharply round the plate-glass lake that separated +him from the other directors of Horse's Neck, rather as if he had +detected his associates in a crime. + +"Isaacs says," he announced in an arrogant, almost insulting tone, +though below the surface he was an entirely genial person, "that the new +vein in the Amphalula runs into the west drift of Horse's Neck almost to +where we quit work in Number Nine five years ago." + +"If it does it will make it a bonanza property," emphatically declared +his partner, Mr. Scherer, a dolichocephalous person with very black hair +and thin bluish cheeks. "It's a pity we didn't buy it all in at ten +cents a share." + +"We did!" retorted Greenbaum. "All that could be shaken out. We've got +all the stock that hasn't gravitated to the cemeteries." + +"Even if the Amphalula vein doesn't run into it it will come near +enough to make Horse's Neck worth dollars per share. It's a +heads-I-win-tails-you-lose proposition," commented Mr. Hunn dryly. "Who +controls Amphalula?" + +"We do," snapped Greenbaum. + +"Then it's a cinch," returned Hunn mildly. "Shake out the sleepers, +reorganize, and sell or hold as seems most advisable later on." + +Mr. Elderberry cleared his throat tentatively. + +"If you gentlemen will pardon me--I have been considering this matter +for some little time," he hazarded. Mr. Elderberry was not only the +professional salaried secretary of Horse's Neck but was also treasurer +of the Amphalula, and general factotum, representative and interlocking +director for Scherer, Hunn, Greenbaum & Beck in their various mining +enterprises, combining in his person almost as many offices as, Pooh-Bah +in "The Mikado." Though he could not have claimed to serve as "First +Lord of the Treasury, Lord Chief Justice, Commander-in-Chief, Lord High +Admiral, Master of the Buck Hounds, Groom of the Back Stairs, Archbishop +of Titipu and Lord Mayor, both acting and elect, all rolled into one," +he could with entire modesty have admitted the soft impeachment of being +simultaneously treasurer of Amphalula, vice-president of Hooligan Gulch +and Red Water, secretary of Horse's Neck, Holy Jo, Gargoyle Extension, +Cowhide Number Five, Consolidated Bimetallic, Nevada Mastodon, Leaping +Frog, Orelady Mine, Why Marry and Sol's Cliff Buttress, and president of +Blimp Consolidated. + +All these various properties were either owned or controlled by Scherer, +Hunn, Greenbaum & Beck and had been acquired with the use of the same +original capital in various entirely legal ways, which at the present +moment are irrelevant. The firm was a strictly honorable business house, +from both their own point of view and that of the Street. Everything +they did was with and by the advice of counsel. Yet not one of these +active-minded gentlemen, including Mr. Greenbaum, the dolichocephalous +Scherer and the acephalous Hunn, had ever done a stroke of productive +work or contributed anything toward the common weal. In fact, distress +to somebody in some form, and usually to a large number of persons, +inevitably followed whatever deal they undertook, since their business +was speculating in mining properties and unloading the bad ones upon an +unsuspecting public which Scherer, Hunn, Greenbaum & Beck had permitted +to deceive itself. + +Thus, when Greenbaum called upon Mr. Elderberry for advice, it savored +strongly of Koko's consulting Pooh-Bah and was sometimes almost as +confusing, for just as Pooh-Bah on these occasions was won't to reply, +"Certainly. In which of my capacities? As First Lord of the Treasury, +Lord Chamberlain, Attorney-General, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Privy +Purse or Private Secretary?" so the financial and corporate Elderberry +might equally well ask: "Exactly. But are you seeking my advice as +secretary of Horse's Neck, of Holy Jo, of Cowhide Number Five, or as +vice-president of Hooligan Gulch and Red Water, treasurer of Amphalula +or president of Blimp Consolidated?" + +Just now it was, of course, obvious that he was addressing the company +in his capacity of secretary of Horse's Neck. + +"It goes without saying, gentlemen, that this property is pretty nearly +down and out. You will recall that most of the insiders sold out on the +tail of the Goldfield Boom and waited for the market to sag until we +could buy in again. The mines are full of water, work was abandoned over +four years ago, and the property is practically defunct. The original +capitalization was ten million shares at one dollar a share. We own or +control at least four million shares, for which we paid ten to fifteen +cents, while we had sold our original holdings for one dollar sixty to +one dollar ninety-five a share. While Horse's Neck represents a handsome +profit--in my opinion"--he cleared his throat again as if deprecating +the vulgarity of his phrase--"it is good for another whirl." + +"You say it's full of water?" inquired Hunn. + +"It will cost about fifty thousand dollars to pump out the mines and a +hundred thousand to repair the machinery. Then there's quite an +indebtedness--about seventy-five thousand; and tax liens--another fifty. +Half a million dollars would put Horse's Neck on the map, and if the +Amphalula vein crosses the property it will be worth ten millions. If it +doesn't, the chance that it is going to will make a market for the +stock." + +Mr. Elderberry swept with a bland inquiring eye the shore of the glassy +sea about which his associates were gathered. + +"I've been over the ground," announced Greenbaum "and it's a good +gamble. We want Horse's Neck for ourselves--at any rate until we are +confident that it's a real lemon. Half a million will do it. I'll +personally put up a hundred thousand." + +"How are you going to get rid of the fifty thousand other stockholders?" +asked Mr. Beck dubiously "We don't want them trailing along with us." + +"I propose," answered Mr. Elderberry brightly, in his capacity as chief +conspirator for Scherer, Hunn, _et al._, "that we organize a new +corporation to be called 'Lallapaloosa Limited' and capitalize it at a +million dollars--one million shares at a dollar a share. Then we will +execute a contract between Horse's Neck and Lallapaloosa by the terms of +which the old bankrupt corporation will sell to the new corporation all +its assets for one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars. We +underwrite the stock of Lallapaloosa at fifty cents a share, thus +supplying the new corporation with the funds with which to purchase the +properties of the old. In a word we shall get Horse's Neck for a hundred +and twenty-five thousand and have three hundred and seventy-five +thousand left out of what we subscribe to underwrite the stock to put +it on its feet." + +"That's all right," debated Hunn. "But how about the other stockholders +in Horse's Neck that Beck referred to? Where do they come in?" + +"I've thought of that," returned Elderberry. "Of course you can't just +squeeze 'em out entirely. That wouldn't be legal. They must be given the +chance to subscribe at par to the stock of the new corporation on the +basis of one share in the new for every ten they hold in the old; or, as +Horse's Neck is a Delaware corporation, to have their old stock +appraised under the laws of Delaware. In point of fact, they've all +written off their holdings in Horse's Neck as a total loss years ago and +you couldn't drag 'em into putting in any new money. They'll simply let +it go--forfeit their stock in Horse's Neck and be wiped out because they +were not willing to go in and reorganize the property with us." + +"They would if they knew about Amphalula," remarked Beck. + +"Well, they don't!" snapped Greenbaum, "and we're under no obligations +to tell 'em. They can infer what they like from the fact that Horse's +Neck has been selling for ten cents a share for the last three years." + +"Is that right, Chippingham?" inquired Beck of the attorney who was in +attendance. "I mean--is it legal?" + +"Perfectly legal," replied Mr. Chippingham conclusively. "A corporation +has a perfect right to dispose of its entire assets for a proper +consideration and if any minority stockholder feels aggrieved he can +take the matter to the Delaware courts and get his equity assessed. +Besides, everybody is treated alike--all the stockholders in Horse's +Neck can subscribe pro rata for Lallapaloosa." + +"Only they won't," grinned Scherer. + +"And so, as they are wiped out--the new corporation--that is us--in fact +gets their equity, just as much as if they had deeded it to us." + +"That is, we get for nothing about one-half the value of the property," +agreed Elderberry. "Now, I've been over the list and I don't think +you'll hear a peep from any of them." + + "He's got 'em on the list--he's got 'em on the list; + And they'll none of 'em be missed--they'll none of 'em be missed!" + +hummed Mr. Beck. "It looks good to me! I'll take a hundred thousand." + +"Mr. Chippingham has the papers drawn already," continued Elderberry. +"Of course you've got to give the old stockholders notice, but we can +rush the thing through and before anybody wakes up the thing will be +done. Then they can holler all they want." + +"Well, I'll come in," announced Hunn complacently. + +"So will I," echoed Scherer. "And the firm can underwrite the last +hundred thousand, and that will clean it up." + +"Is it all right for us to underwrite the stock ourselves at half +price?" inquired Mr. Beck. "I mean--is it legal?" + +"Sure!" reiterated Mr. Chippingham. "Somebody's got to underwrite it; +why not us?" + +"Move we adjourn," said Mr. Greenbaum. "Elderberry--the usual." + +Mr. Elderberry removed from his change pocket five glittering gold +pieces and slid one across the glass sheet to each director. + +"Second motion. Carried! All up--seventh inning!" smiled Mr. Scherer; +and the directors, pocketing their gold pieces, arose. + +If, as it has been defined, ethics consists of a "system of principles +and rules concerning moral obligations and regard for the rights of +others," it may be interesting to speculate as to whether or not these +gentlemen had any or not, and, if so, what it may have been. But in +considering this somewhat nice question it should be borne in mind that +Messrs. Scherer, Hunn, Greenbaum & Beck were bankers of standing, and +were advised by a firm of attorneys of the highest reputation. On its +face, and as it was about to be represented to the stockholders of +Horse's Neck, the proposition appeared fair enough. + +The circular, shortly after sent out to all the names upon the list, +stated succinctly that financial and labor conditions had been such that +it had been found impossible to operate the mine profitably for several +years, that it had depreciated greatly in value owing to the water which +had accumulated in its lower levels, that it had exhausted its surplus, +that a heavy indebtedness had accumulated, that the corporation's +outstanding notes had been protested and that the property would be sold +under foreclosure unless money was immediately raised to pay them, the +interest due and taxes; that half a million dollars was needed to put +the property in operation and that there was no way to secure it, as +nobody was willing to loan money to a bankrupt mining concern. That +under these circumstances no practical method had been proposed except +to organize a new corporation capitalized at one million instead of ten, +to the stock of which each shareholder in Horse's Neck might subscribe +in proportion to his holdings, at par, and to which the assets of the +old corporation should be transferred practically for its debts. That +this, in a word, was the only way to save the situation and possibly +make a go of a bad business, and that it was a gamble in which the old +stockholders had a right, up to a certain date, to participate if they +saw fit. Those that did not would find their stock in Horse's Neck +entirely valueless as it would have no assets left which had not been +transferred to Lallapaloosa. Stockholders who were dissatisfied could +protest against the enabling resolution to be offered at the annual +meeting of the stockholders of Horse's Neck to be held the following +week at Wilmington, Delaware, and could avail themselves of the right to +have their equity assessed under the laws of Delaware, but as the +liabilities practically equaled the present value of the property that +equity would naturally be highly problematical. + +Now, as a matter of morals or of law the only thing that made the +proposed reorganization unethical or inequitable was the single trifling +fact that those responsible for it were the only ones who knew of the +existence and proximity of the Amphalula vein. When a mining company, a +railroad, an oil well or any other enterprise is down and out it is only +fair that the majority stockholders, who are obliged to protect their +investment, should have the right to call upon the rest to come forward +and do their share or else drop out. A minority stockholder cannot +appeal to any canon of fair play whereby he should be entitled to sit +back and let the majority take all the risks and then claim his share of +the profits. + +The imponderable element of injustice in the situation consisted in the +suppression of a fact which the directors concealed but concerning +which, however, they made no representation, false or otherwise. They +were going to risk half a million dollars of their own money and they +wanted the whole gamble for themselves. They sincerely felt that nobody +else was entitled to take that risk with them. Once they had floated +Horse's Neck they had come to look upon it as their own private affair. +The minority had no rights which they, the majority, were bound to +respect. The minority were nothing but a lot of piking gamblers, anyway, +who bought or sold for a rise or fall of a few cents. They knew nothing +of the property and cared less for its real value. They were merely +traders and if they lost they forgot it or tried to. On the other hand +Scherer, Hunn, Greenbaum & Beck were promoters, who contributed +something to the economic advancement of the nation. + + * * * * * + +"Regarding my hat, which you suggested this morning should be pressed at +a cost of fifty cents," remarked Mr. Tutt to Miss Wiggin when he +returned to the office upon the adjournment of court in the afternoon +and replaced that ancient object in its accustomed resting-place +--"regarding that precious hat of mine"--he eyed it affectionately +--"I can only say that I would as soon send myself to a dry-cleaning +establishment as to permit its profanation by the iron of a +haberdasher." + +Miss Wiggin laughed lightly. + +"That doesn't explain your cryptic statement that it would probably cost +you a hundred thousand dollars," she replied. "Still--" + +Mr. Tutt turned suddenly upon his heel and held her with an upraised +hand, the bony wrist of which was encircled, after an intervening space +of some five inches, by a frayed cuff confined with a black onyx button +the size of a quarter. + +"Behold," he cried in the deep resonant voice that he used in addressing +juries at the climax of a peroration, "the integuments of my +personality--the ancient habiliments of an honorable profession--the +panoply of the legal warrior. Here, my corslet"--he touched his dingy +waistcoat with his left hand; "my greaves"--he brushed the baggy legs of +his pantaloons; "my halberd"--he raised his old mahogany cane with its +knot of yellow ivory; "my casque"--he indicated his ruffled stove-pipe +"Arrayed in these I am Mr. Ephraim Tutt, attorney and counselor at +law--the senior partner in Tutt & Tutt--a respected member of the bar +duly accredited and authorized to practise before the Supreme Court of +the State of New York, the Court of Appeals, the District Court of the +United States, the Circuit Court of Appeals, the Supreme Court of the +United States, the Court of Claims--" + +"--the Police Court and the Coroner's Court," concluded Miss Wiggin, +making him a mock curtsy. + +"Without these indicia of my profession and my individuality I should be +like David without his sling or Samson without his hair. I should be +merely Tutt, a criminal lawyer--one of a multitude--regarded perhaps as +a shyster. But in these robes of my high office I am a high priest of +the law; just as you, my dear girl, are one of its many devoted and +worthy priestesses. Can you imagine me going to court in a bowler hat or +arguing to the jury in a cutaway coat or bobtail business suit? Can you +picture Ephraim Tutt with his hair cut short or in an Ascot tie, any +more than you can envisage him in riding breeches or wearing lilacs? No! +There is but one Mr. Tutt, and these are his only garments. He who +steals my hat may steal trash, but without it I should be like a +disembodied spirit unable to return to my earthly dwelling-place. + +"A paltry hundred thousand? + +"Nay, without my hat--my helmet!--I should be valueless to myself and +everybody else; so estimate my worth and you can assay the value of my +hat. What am I worth in your opinion?" + +And then Miss Wiggin, having glanced cautiously if quickly round, made a +most astonishing declaration. + +"Just about a million times more than anybody else in the whole world, +you old dear!" she whispered and rising upon her toes she kissed his +wrinkled cheek. + +"Dear me! You really mustn't do that!" gasped Mr. Tutt. + +"Well," she retorted, "you can discharge me if you like. But first sit +down, light a cigar and let me tell you something." + +Mr. Tutt did as he was bid, chuckling. + +"Well," said Miss Wiggin, "there is such a thing as Horse's Neck +Extension after all!" + +"Um--you don't say?" he answered, struggling to make his stogy draw. + +"And it has an office with about a hundred other corporations of various +kinds--most of them with names that sound like the zoo--Yellow Wildcat, +Jumping Leapfrog, and that sort of thing. It seems Horse's Neck is +played out and they are going to reorganize it--" + +"Who are?" demanded her employer, suddenly sitting erect. + +"Scherer, Hunn, Greenbaum & Beck." + +"The dickens they are!" he ejaculated. "That bunch of pirates? Not if I +know it!" + +"Why not?" + +"Reorganize! Reorganize? Reorganization is my middle name!" cried Mr. +Tutt. "So Scherer, Hunn, Greenbaum & Beck are going to reorganize +something, are they? Let 'em try! Not so long as I've got my hat!" + +"This is all very enigmatical to me," replied Miss Wiggin. "But then, +I'm only a woman. Aren't they all right? Why shouldn't they reorganize a +mine if it's exhausted?" + +"If it's exhausted why do they want to reorganize it?" he demanded, +climbing to his feet. "Let me tell you something, Minerva! All my life +I've been fighting against tyranny--the tyranny of the law, the tyranny +of power, the tyranny of money." + +He drew fiercely on his stogy, which being desiccated flared like a +Roman candle. + +"You don't need to tell me what this plan of reorganization is; because +they wouldn't propose one unless it was going to benefit them in some +way, and the only way it can be made to benefit them is at the expense +of the other stockholders. _Quod erat demonstrandum_." + +Mr. Tutt seemed to have become distended somehow and to have spread over +the entire wall surface of his office like the genie which the +fisherman innocently permitted to escape from the bottle. + +"There isn't one reorganization scheme in a hundred that isn't crooked +somewhere." + +"According to that, if a business is unsuccessful it ought to be allowed +to go to pot for fear that somebody might make a profit in putting it on +its feet," she countered. "I think you're a violent, irascible, +prejudiced old man!" + +"All the same," he retorted, "show me a reorganization scheme and I'll +show you a flimflam! What's this one? Bet you anything you like it's as +crooked as a ram's horn. I don't have to hear about it. Don't want to +read the plan. But I'll bust it--higher than Hades. See if I don't!" + +He spat the remaining filaments of his stogy from the window and fished +out another. + +"How do we come into it, anyhow?" he demanded. + +"Doctor--I mean Mister Barrows," replied Miss Wiggin. + +"Oh, yes. Of course. Well, you send for him to come down here and sign +the papers." + +"What papers?" + +"The complaint and order to show cause." + +"But there isn't any." + +"There will be, all right, by the time he gets here." + +Miss Wiggin looked first puzzled and then pained. + +"I don't understand," she said rather stiffly. "Do you mean that the +firm of Tutt & Tutt is going to engage in the enterprise of trying to +break up a plan of reorganization without knowing what it is? Won't you +lay us all open to the accusation of being strikers?" + +Mr. Tutt's ordinarily brown complexion became slightly tinged with +purple. + +"Let the court decide!" he cried hotly. "You say Scherer, Hunn, +Greenbaum & Beck are proposing to reorganize a mining company? You admit +we hold some of the stock? Well--as the natural-born and perennial +champion of the outraged minority--I'm going to attack it, and bust it, +and raise heck with it--on general principles. I'm going to throw that +damned old hat of mine into the ring, my child, and play hell with +everything." + +And with a cluck Mr. Tutt leaned over, produced a dingy bottle wrapped +in a coat of many colors and poured himself out a glass of malt extract. + + * * * * * + +When Mr. Greenbaum was summoned to the telephone and informed by Mr. +Elderberry in disgruntled tones that somebody had just served upon him +an order to show cause why the proposed reorganization of Horse's Neck +should not be set aside and enjoined, he not only became instantly +annoyed but highly excited. + +"What!" he almost screamed. + +"I'll read it to you, if you don't believe it!" said Mr. Elderberry. + +"'United States District Court, Southern District of New York, Edward V. +Barrows, Complainant against Horse's Neck Extension Mining Company, +Defendant. + +"'Upon the subpoena herein and the complaint duly verified the +nineteenth day of February, 1919, and the affidavit of Ephraim Tutt +and--'" + +"Who in hell is Tutt?" shouted Greenbaum, interrupting. + +"I don't know," retorted Elderberry; "or Barrows either." + +"Well, skip all the legal rot and get to the point," directed Greenbaum. + +"'Ordered--ordered, that the defendant, Horse's Neck Extension Mining +Company, show cause at a stated term to be held in and for--'" + +"I said to cut the legal rot!" + +"Um--um--'why an injunction order should not be issued herein pending +the trial of this action and enjoining the defendant from disposing of +its assets and for the appointment of a receiver of the assets of the +defendant corporation; and why the complainant should not have such +other, further and different relief as may be equitable.'" + +There was a long pause during which Mr. Elderberry was under a +convincing delusion that he could actually hear the thoughts that were +rattling round in Mr. Greenbaum's brain. + +"You there?" he inquired presently. + +"Oh, yes, I'm here!" retorted Greenbaum. "This is the devil of a note! +Have you spoken to Chippingham?" + +"Yes." + +"What does he say?" + +"He says it's awkward. They have got hold somewhere of one of our old +circulars of 1914 in which the property is described as worth about ten +million dollars--that was during the boom, you remember--and they claim +we are selling it to ourselves for less than one million and that on its +face it's a fraud on the minority stockholders who can't afford to buy +stock in the new corporation--as of course it would be if the mine was +really worth ten million or anything like it." + +"Did we really ever get out any circular like that?" demanded Greenbaum +in a protesting voice. "I don't recall any." + +"That was when we were making a market for the stock," Elderberry +reminded him. "We couldn't say enough. Honestly, to look at the thing +now is enough to make you sick!" + +"Well, it's just a hold-up--that's what it is. Some crook like this +Tutt or this Barrows has found out about Amphalula and is bringing a +strike suit. You'll have to call a meeting right away. I'd like to +strangle all these shyster lawyers!" + +And it never occurred to Mr. Greenbaum that the possible existence of +the Amphalula vein was what in fact made the order to show cause +justifiable--his actual ground of complaint being that anybody should, +as he assumed, have found out about it in defiance of his plans. + + * * * * * + +"Yeronner," said Attendant Mike Horan as he helped Judge Pollak into his +black bombazine gown in his chambers in the old Post-Office Building on +the morning of the return day, "there's a great bunch out there in the +court room waitin' for ye, an' no mistake!" + +"Indeed!" remarked His Honor. "And who are they? What is the case?" + +"Hanged if I know," answered Mike, snipping a piece of fluff off his +judgeship's shoulder. "There's a white-bearded old guy, two or three +swell gents with tall hats, Counselor Tutt and an attorney named +Chippingham, besides that pretty Miss Wiggin; and they ain't speakin' +none to one another, neither." + +"It must be that mining-reorganization case," answered the judge. "Well, +it's time to go in." + +They walked down the dirty marble corridor and entered the court room, +while the clerk rapped on the railing. + +"Hear ye! Hear ye! Hear ye! All persons having any business to do with +the District Court of the United States draw near, give your attention +and you will be heard," he intoned with unctuous authority. + +The "bunch" rose and made obeisance. + +"Good morning," said the judge pleasantly, sitting down with a side +switch of the bombazine. "Barrows against the--er--er--Horse's Neck +Mining Company. Do you represent the complainant, Mr. Tutt?" + +"I do," answered Mr. Tutt with great dignity. "Your Honor, this is a +motion for an order to show cause why an injunction _pendente lite_ +should not issue restraining the sale of the assets, of this corporation +to another in fraud of its minority stockholders--and for a receiver. My +client, an aged man living upon his farm in the northern part of the +state, is the owner of one hundred thousand shares in the Horse's Neck +Mining Company of the par value of one hundred thousand dollars. He has +owned these securities for many years. They represent his entire +capital. He is a bona fide stockholder--" + +"May I be pardoned for interrupting?" sneered Chippingham, springing to +his feet. "I think the court should be informed at the outset that this +man, Barrows, is a notorious ex-convict." + +Judge Pollak raised his eyebrows. + +"This is an outrage!" thundered Mr. Tutt, his form rising ceilingward. +"My client--like all of us--has had his misfortunes, but they are +happily a thing of the past; he has the same rights as if he were an +archbishop, the president of a university or--a judge of this honorable +court." + +"We are sitting in equity," remarked His Honor. "The question of _bona +fides_ is a vital one. _Is_ the complainant an ex-convict?" + +"This is the complainant, sir," cried Mr. Tutt, indicating old Doc, now +for the first time in his life smartly arrayed in a new checked suit, +red tie, patent-leather shoes and suède gloves, and with his beard +neatly trimmed. "This is the unfortunate man whose honest savings of a +lifetime are being wrested from him by an unscrupulous group of +manipulators who--in my opinion--are more deserving of confinement +behind prison walls than he ever was." + +The gentlemen with the tall hats bit their lips and showed signs of +poorly suppressed agitation. + +"But _is_ your client an ex-convict, Mr. Tutt?" repeated the judge +quietly. + +"Yes, Your Honor, he is." + +"When and how did he become possessed of his stock?" + +Mr. Tutt turned to Doc with an air of ineffectually striving to master +his righteous indignation. + +"Tell the court, Mr. Barrows," he cried, "in your own words." + +Doc Barrows wonderingly rose. + +"If you please, sir," he began, "it's quite a long story. You see, I was +the owner of all the stock of The Chicago Water Front and Terminal +Company--there was a flaw in the title deed which I can explain to you +privately if you wish--and when I was--er--visiting--up on the Hudson--I +met a man there who was the owner of a hundred thousand shares of +Horse's Neck, and we agreed to exchange." + +The judge tried to hide a slight smile. + +"I see," he replied pleasantly. "And what was the man's name?" + +"Oscar Bloom, sir." + +The gentlemen with the tall hats exchanged agitated glances. + +"Do you know how he got his stock?" + +"No, sir." + +"That is all. Go on, Mr. Tutt." + +Doc sat down while Mr. Tutt again unhooked his lank form. + +"To resume where I was interrupted, Your Honor, the directors +controlling a majority of the stock of this corporation, the capital of +which is ten millions of dollars, have made a contract to sell all of +its properties to another corporation, organized by themselves and +capitalized for one million, for the sum of one hundred and twenty-five +thousand dollars! + +"It is true that in their plan of reorganization they offer to permit +any stockholder in the old corporation to subscribe for stock in the new +at par--thus at first glance placing all upon what seems to be an +equality; but any stockholder who does not see fit to subscribe or +cannot afford to do so is wiped out, for there will be nothing left in +the way of assets in Horse's Neck after the transfer is completed. + +"Now these gentlemen have underwritten the stock in the new Lallapaloosa +Company at fifty cents upon the dollar, and if this nefarious deal is +permitted to go through they will thus acquire a property worth ten +millions for five hundred thousand dollars, of which they will use only +one hundred and twenty-five thousand in payment of old indebtedness. In +effect, they confiscate the equity of all the minority stockholders in +Horse's Neck who cannot afford to subscribe for stock in Lallapaloosa." +He turned upon the uncomfortable tall hats with an arraigning eye. + +"In the criminal courts, Your Honor, such a conspiracy would be +properly described as grand larceny; in Wall Street perchance it may be +viewed as high finance. But so long as there are courts of equity such a +wrong upon a helpless stockholder will not go unrebuked. Have I made +myself clear to Your Honor?" + +Judge Pollak looked interested. He was a man famous for his protection +of helpless minorities and his court had been selected by Mr. Tutt on +this account. + +"If the facts are as you state them, Mr. Tutt," he answered seriously, +"the plan on its face would seem to be inequitable. If the property is +worth ten million the consideration is palpably inadequate. Your +client's equity, worth on that basis at least one hundred thousand +dollars, would be entirely destroyed without any redress." + +"Your Honor," burst out Mr. Chippingham, whose bald head had been +bobbing about in excited contiguity with the tall hats, "this is a most +misleading statement. The assets of Horse's Neck aren't worth a hundred +thousand dollars. And if any of the minority don't want to come into the +reorganization--and I assure Your Honor that we would welcome their +participation--they can have their equity appraised under the laws of +Delaware and the finding becomes a lien on the assets even after they +have been transferred." + +"What relief does that give a man like Mr. Barrows?" shouted Mr. Tutt. +"He can't afford to go down to Wilmington with a carload of books and a +corps of experts to prove the value of Horse's Neck. It would cost him +more than his stock is worth!" + +"That remedy is not exclusive, in any event," declared the judge. "If +this complainant is going to be defrauded I will enjoin this contract +_pendente lite_ and appoint a receiver." + +"Your Honor!" protested Chippingham in great agony. "It is not the fact +that this mine is worth ten million. It isn't worth at the most more +than one hundred thousand. It is, full of water, the machinery is rusted +and falling to pieces and the workings are practically exhausted. The +only way to rehabilitate this property is for everybody to come in and +put up enough money by subscribing to the stock of the new corporation +to pump it out, buy new engines and start producing again. Is it fair to +the majority, who are willing to go on, put up more money, and make an +attempt to save the property, to have this complainant--an ex-convict +who never paid a cent for his stock, dug up from heaven knows +where--enjoin their contract and throw the corporation into the hands of +a receiver? This is nothing but a strike suit. I repeat--a strike suit!" + +He glowered breathless at his adversary. + +"Oh! Oh!" groaned Mr. Tutt in horrified tones. + +"Gentlemen! Gentlemen!" expostulated the court. "This will not do!" + +"I beg pardon--of the court," stammered Mr. Chippingham. + +"Your Honor," mourned Mr. Tutt, "I have practised here for thirty years +and this is the first time I have ever been insulted in open court. A +strike suit? I hold in my hand"--he waved it threateningly at the tall +hats--"a circular issued by these directors less than five years ago, in +which they give the itemized value of this property as ten million +dollars. Shortly after that circular was issued the stock sold in the +open market at one dollar and ninety cents a share. In two years it sank +to ten cents a share. Will a little water, a little rust, a little +trouble with labor reduce the value of a great property like this from +ten millions of dollars to one hundred thousand--one per cent of its +appraised value? Either"--he fixed Chippingham with an exultant and +terrifying glance--"they were lying then or they are lying now!" + +"Let me look at that circular," directed Judge Pollak. He took it from +Mr. Tutt's eager hand, glanced through it and turned sharply upon the +quaking Chippingham. + +"How long have you been attorney for Scherer, Hunn, Greenbaum & Beck?" + +"Twelve years, Your Honor." + +"Who is Wilson W. Elderberry?" + +"He is the secretary of the Horse's Neck Extension, Your Honor." + +"Is he in court?" + +From a distant corner Mr. Elderberry bashfully rose. + +"Come here!" ordered the court. And the Pooh-Bah of the +Scherer-Hunn-Greenbaum-Beck enterprises came cringing to the bar. + +"Did you sign this circular in 1914?" demanded Judge Pollak. + +"Yes, Your Honor." + +"Were the statements contained in it true?" + +Elderberry squirmed. + +"Ye-es, Your Honor. That is--they were to the best of my knowledge and +belief. I was, of course, obliged to take what information was at +hand--and--er--and--" + +"Did you sign the other circular, issued last month, to the effect that +the mine was practically valueless?" + +"Yes, sir." Elderberry studiously examined the moldings on the cornice +of the judge's canopy. + +"Um!" remarked the court significantly. + +There was a flurry among the tall hats. Then Mr. Greenbaum sprang to his +feet. + +"If you please, Your Honor," he announced, staccato, "we entirely +disavow Mr. Elderberry's circular of 1914. It was issued without our +knowledge or authority. It is no evidence that the mine was worth ten +millions or any other amount at that time." + +"Oh! Oh!" choked Mr. Tutt, while Miss Wiggin giggled delightedly into +her brief case. + +Judge Pollak bent upon Mr. Greenbaum a withering glance. + +"Did your firm sell any of its holdings in Horse's Neck after the +issuance of that circular?" + +Greenbaum hesitated. He would have liked to wring that judge's neck. + +"Why--how do I know? We may have." + +"_Did_ you?" + +"Say 'yes,' for God's sake," hissed Chippingham "or you'll land in the +pen!" + +"I am informed that we did," answered Greenbaum defiantly. "That is, I +don't _say_ we did. Very likely we did. Our books would show. But I +repeat--we disavow this circular and we deny any responsibility for this +man, Elderberry." + +This man, Elderberry, who for twelve long years had writhed under the +biting lash of his employer's tongue, hating him with a hatred known +only to those in subordinate positions who are bribed to suffer the +"whips and scorns of time, the oppressor's wrong, the proud man's +contumely," quivered and saw red. He was going to be made the goat! +They expected him to take all the responsibility and give them a clean +slate! The nerve of it! To hell with them! Suddenly he began to cry, +shockingly, with deep stertorous suspirations. + +"No--you won't!" he hiccuped. "You shan't lay the blame on me! I'll tell +the truth, I will! I won't stand for it! Your Honor, they want to +reorganize Horse's Neck because they think there's a vein in Amphalula +that crosses one of the old workings and that it'll make the property +worth millions and millions." + +Utter silence descended upon the court room--silence broken only by the +slow ticktack of the self-winding clock on the rear wall and the whine +of the electric cars on Park Row. One of the tall hats crept quietly to +the door and vanished. The others sat like images. + +Then the court said very quietly: "I will adjourn this matter for one +week. I need not point out that what has occurred has a very grave +interpretation. Adjourn court!" + + * * * * * + +Old Doc Barrows, the two Tutts and Miss Wiggin were sitting in Mr. +Tutt's office an hour later when Willie announced that Mr. Tobias +Greenbaum was outside and would like an interview. + +"Send him in!" directed Mr. Tutt, winking at Miss Wiggin. + +Mr. Greenbaum entered, frowning and without salutation, while Doc +partially rose, moved by the acquired instinct of disciplinary +politeness, then changed his mind and sat down again. + +"See here," snarled Greenbaum. "You sure have made a most awful hash of +this business. I don't want to argue about it. We could go ahead and +beat you, but Pollak is prejudiced and will probably give you your +injunction and appoint a receiver. If he does, that will knock the whole +property higher than a kite. Nobody would ever buy stock in it or even +finance it. Now how much do you want to call off your suit?" + +"Have a stogy?" asked Mr. Tutt politely. + +"Nope." + +"We want exactly one hundred thousand dollars." + +Greenbaum laughed derisively. + +"A hundred thousand fiddlesticks! This old jailbird swindled another +crook, Bloom--" + +"Oh, Bloom was a crook too, was he?" chuckled Mr. Tutt. "He worked for +your firm, didn't he?" + +"That's nothing to do with it!" retorted Greenbaum angrily. "Your +swindling client traded some bum stock in a fake corporation for Bloom's +stock, which he received for bona fide services--" + +"Like Elderberry's?" inquired Tutt innocently. + +"Your man never paid a cent for his holdings. That alone would throw +him out of court. The mine isn't worth a cent without the Amphalula +vein. We're taking a big chance. You've got us down and we've got to +pay; but we'll pay only ten thousand dollars--that's final." + +"I ain't any more of a swindler than you be!" said Doc with plaintive +indignation. + +"What do you wish to do, Mr. Barrows?" asked Mr. Tutt, turning to him +deferentially. + +"I leave it entirely to you, Mr. Tutt. It's your stock; I gave it all to +you months ago." + +"Then," answered Mr. Tutt with fine scorn, "I shall tell this miserable +cheating rogue and rascal either to pay you a hundred thousand dollars +or go to hell." + +Mr. Tobias Greenbaum clenched his fists and cast a black glance upon the +group. + +"You can wreck this corporation if you choose, you bunch of dirty +blackmailers, but you'll get not a cent more than ten thousand. For the +last time, will you take it or not?" + +Mr. Tutt rose and pointed toward the door. + +"Kindly remove yourself before I call the police," he said coldly. "I +advise the firm of Scherer, Hunn, Greenbaum & Beck to retain criminal +counsel. Your ten thousand may come in handy for that purpose." + +Mr. Tobias Greenbaum went. + +"And now, Miss Wiggin, how about a cup of tea?" said Mr. Tutt. + +The firm of Tutt & Tutt claimed to be the only law firm in the city of +New York which still maintained the historic English custom of having +tea at five o'clock. Whether the claim had any foundation or not the tea +was none the less an institution, undoubtedly generating a friendly, +sociable atmosphere throughout the office; and now Willie pulled aside +the screen in the corner and disclosed the gate-leg table over which +Miss Wiggin exercised her daily prerogative. Soon the room was filled +with the comfortable odor of Pekoe, of muffins toasted upon an electric +heater, of cigarettes and stogies. Yet there was, and had been ever +since their conversation about the hat, a certain restraint between Miss +Wiggin and Mr. Tutt, rising presumably out of her suggestion that his +course savored of blackmail, however justified it had afterward turned +out to be. + +"My, isn't this nice!" murmured Doc, trying unsuccessfully to eat a +muffin, drink his tea and do justice to a stogy at the same time. "It's +so homy now, isn't it?" + +"Doc," answered Mr. Tutt, "did you really want that ten thousand?" + +"Me?" repeated Doc vaguely. "Why, I told you I gave that stock to you +long ago. It isn't mine any longer. Besides, I don't want any money. +I'm perfectly happy as I am." + +Mr. Tutt laughed genially. + +"Oh, well," he said, "it's no matter who owns it. Elderberry just +telephoned me that he had received a telegram from the Amphalula that +the vein had definitely run out. It's all over--including the shouting." + +"Elderberry telephone you?" queried Miss Wiggin in astonishment. + +"Yes, Elderberry. You see, he's done, he says, with Scherer, Hunn, +Greenbaum & Beck. Wants to turn state's evidence and put 'em all in +jail. I've said I'd help him." + +"Then why didn't you take the ten thousand and call it quits while the +getting was good?" demanded his partner icily. + +"Because I knew I'd never get the ten anyway," replied Mr. Tutt. +"Greenbaum would have learned about the vein on his return to the +office." + +"Well, I must be getting along back to Pottsville!" mumbled Doc. "This +has been a very pleasant trip--very pleasant; and quite--quite--exciting. +I--" + +"What I'd like to know, Mr. Tutt," interrupted Miss Wiggin, "is how you +justify your course in this matter. When you attempted to block this +proposed reorganization you knew nothing about the Elderberry circular +of 1914 valuing the property at ten million, or of the Amphalula vein. +On its face you were attempting to wreck a perfectly honest piece of +financiering, and unless it was a strike suit--which I hope and pray it +wasn't--" + +"Strike suit!" protested Mr. Tutt with a slight twinkle in his eye. "How +can you suggest such a thing! Didn't the events demonstrate the wisdom +of my judgment?" + +"But you didn't know what was going to happen when you began your suit!" +she argued firmly. "I hate to say it, but I should think that if +everything had not come out just as it has your motives might easily +have been misconstrued." + +"It was a matter of principle with me, my dear," declared Mr. Tutt +solemnly. "Just to show there's no ill feeling, won't you give me +another cup of tea?" + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TUTT AND MR. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at <a href = "https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: Tutt and Mr. Tutt</p> +<p>Author: Arthur Train</p> +<p>Release Date: December 12, 2003 [eBook #10440]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: iso-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TUTT AND MR. TUTT***</p> +<p> </p> +<center> + <h3>E-text prepared by Steven desJardins<br /> + and Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders</h3> + </center> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full"> +<p> </p> +<h1>TUTT AND MR. TUTT</h1> +<center> +<h2>By Arthur Train </h2> +</center> +<center> +<b>1919</b> +</center> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<hr> + +<a name="TOC"><!-- TOC --></a> +<h2> + CONTENTS +</h2> + +<center><b> +<a href="#HUMAN">THE HUMAN ELEMENT</a><br> +<br> +<a href="#MOCK">MOCK HEN AND MOCK TURTLE</a><br> +<br> +<a href="#SAMUEL">SAMUEL AND DELILAH</a><br> +<br> +<a href="#ANDREW">THE DOG ANDREW</a><br> +<br> +<a href="#WILE">WILE <i>Versus</i> GUILE</a><br> +<br> +<a href="#TRAMP">HEPPLEWHITE TRAMP</a><br> +<br> +<a href="#LALLAPALOOSA">LALLAPALOOSA LIMITED</a><br> +</b></center> +<p> </p> +<hr> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<a name="HUMAN"><!-- HUMAN --></a> +<h2> +The Human Element +</h2> +<p> </p> +<blockquote><p> +Although men flatter themselves with their great actions, +they are not so often the result of great design as of +chance.—LA ROCHEFOUCAULD. +</p></blockquote> +<p> +"He says he killed him, and that's all there is about it!" said Tutt to +Mr. Tutt. "What are you going to do with a fellow like that?" The junior +partner of the celebrated firm of Tutt & Tutt, attorneys and counselors +at law, thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his yellow checked +breeches and, balancing himself upon the heels of his patent-leather +boots, gazed in a distressed, respectfully inquiring manner at his +distinguished associate. +</p> +<p> +"Yes," he repeated plaintively. "He don't make any bones about it at +all. 'Sure, I killed him!' says he. 'And I'd kill him again, the ——!' +I prefer not to quote his exact language. I've just come from the Tombs +and had quite a talk with Serafino in the counsel room, with a +gum-chewing keeper sitting in the corner watching me for fear I'd slip +his prisoner a saw file or a shotgun or a barrel of poison. I'm all in! +These murder cases drive me to drink, Mr. Tutt. I don't mind grand +larceny, forgery, assault or even manslaughter—but murder gets my goat! +And when you have a crazy Italian for a client who says he's glad he did +it and would like to do it again—please excuse me! It isn't law; it's +suicide!" +</p> +<p> +He drew out a silk handkerchief ornamented with the colors of the +Allies, and wiped his forehead despairingly. +</p> +<p> +"Oh," remarked Mr. Tutt with entire good nature. "He's glad he did it +and he's quite willing to be hanged!" +</p> +<p> +"That's it in a nutshell!" replied Tutt. +</p> +<p> +The senior partner of Tutt & Tutt ran his bony fingers through the lank +gray locks over his left eye and tilted ceilingward the stogy between +his thin lips. Then he leaned back in his antique swivel chair, locked +his hands behind his head, elevated his long legs luxuriously, and +crossed his feet upon the fourth volume of the American and English +Encyclopedia of Law, which lay open upon the desk at Champerty and +Maintenance. Even in this inelegant and relaxed posture he somehow +managed to maintain the air of picturesque dignity which always made his +tall, ungainly figure noticeable in any courtroom. Indubitably Mr. +Ephraim Tutt suggested a past generation, the suggestion being +accentuated by a slight pedantry of diction a trifle out of character +with the rushing age in which he saw fit to practise his time-honored +profession. "Cheer up, Tutt," said he, pushing a box of stogies toward +his partner with the toe of his congress boot. "Have a weed?" +</p> +<p> +Since in the office of Tutt & Tutt such an invitation like those of +royalty, was equivalent to a command, Tutt acquiesced. +</p> +<p> +"Thank you, Mr. Tutt," said Tutt, looking about vaguely for a match. +</p> +<p> +"That conscienceless brat of a Willie steals 'em all," growled Mr. Tutt. +"Ring the bell." +</p> +<p> +Tutt obeyed. He was a short, brisk little man with a pronounced +abdominal convexity, and he maintained toward his superior, though but a +few years his junior, a mingled attitude of awe, admiration and +affection such as a dickey bird might adopt toward a distinguished owl. +</p> +<p> +This attitude was shared by the entire office force. Inside the ground +glass of the outer door Ephraim Tutt was king. To Tutt the opinion of +Mr. Tutt upon any subject whatsoever was law, even if the courts might +have held to the contrary. To Tutt he was the eternal fount of wisdom, +culture and morality. Yet until Mr. Tutt finally elucidated his views +Tutt did not hesitate to hold conditional if temporary opinions of his +own. Briefly their relations were symbolized by the circumstance that +while Tutt always addressed his senior partner as "Mr. Tutt," the latter +accosted him simply as "Tutt." In a word there was only one Mr. Tutt in +the firm of Tutt & Tutt. +</p> +<p> +But so far as that went there was only one Tutt. On the theory that a +lily cannot be painted, the estate of one seemingly was as dignified as +that of the other. At any rate there never was and never had been any +confusion or ambiguity arising out of the matter since the day, twenty +years before, when Tutt had visited Mr. Tutt's law office in search of +employment. Mr. Tutt was just rising into fame as a police-court lawyer. +Tutt had only recently been admitted to the bar, having abandoned his +native city of Bangor, Maine, for the metropolis. +</p> +<p> +"And may I ask why you should come to me?" Mr. Tutt had demanded +severely from behind the stogy, which even at that early date had been +as much a part of his facial anatomy as his long ruminative nose. "Why +the devil should you come to me? I am nobody, sir—nobody! In this great +city certainly there are thousands far more qualified than I to further +your professional and financial advancement." +</p> +<p> +"Because," answered the inspired Tutt with modesty, "I feel that with +you I should be associated with a good name." +</p> +<p> +That had settled the matter. They bore no relationship to one another, +but they were the only Tutts in the city and there seemed to be a +certain propriety in their hanging together. Neither had regretted it +for a moment, and as the years passed they became indispensable to each +other. They were the necessary component parts of a harmonious legal +whole. Mr. Tutt was the brains and the voice, while Tutt was the eyes +and legs of a combination that at intervals—rare ones, it must be +confessed—made the law tremble, sometimes in fear and more often with +joy. +</p> +<p> +At first, speaking figuratively, Tutt merely carried Mr. Tutt's +bag—rode on his coat tails, as it were; but as time went on his +activity, ingenuity and industry made him indispensable and led to a +junior partnership. Tutt prepared the cases for Mr. Tutt to try. Both +were well versed in the law if they were not profound lawyers, but as +the origin of the firm was humble, their practise was of a miscellaneous +character. +</p> +<p> +"Never turn down a case," was Tutt's motto. +</p> +<p> +"Our duty as sworn officers of the judicial branch of the Government +renders it incumbent upon us to perform whatever services our clients' +exigencies demand," was Mr. Tutt's way of putting it. +</p> +<p> +In the end it amounted to exactly the same thing. As a result, in +addition to their own clientele, other members of the bar who found +themselves encumbered with matters which for one reason or another they +preferred not to handle formed the habit of turning them over to Tutt & +Tutt. A never-ending stream of peculiar cases flowed through the office, +each leaving behind it some residuum of golden dust, however small. The +stately or, as an unkind observer might have put it, the ramshackly form +of the senior partner was a constant figure in all the courts, from that +of the coroner on the one hand to the appellate tribunals upon the +other. It was immaterial to him what the case was about—whether it +dealt with the "next eventual estate" or the damages for a dog bite—so +long as he was paid and Tutt prepared it. Hence Tutt & Tutt prospered. +And as the law, like any other profession requires jacks-of-all-trades, +the firm acquired a certain peculiar professional standing of its own, +and enjoyed the good will of the bar as a whole. +</p> +<p> +They had the reputation of being sound lawyers if not overafflicted with +a sense of professional dignity, whose word was better than their bond, +yet who, faithful to their clients' interests knew no mercy and gave no +quarter. They took and pressed cases which other lawyers dared not touch +lest they should be defiled—and nobody seemed to think any the less of +them for so doing. They raised points that made the refinements of the +ancient schoolmen seem blunt in comparison. No respecters of persons, +they harried the rich and taunted the powerful, and would have as soon +jailed a bishop or a judge as a pickpocket if he deserved it. Between +them they knew more kinds of law than most of their professional +brethren, and as Mr. Tutt was a bookworm and a seeker after legal and +other lore their dusty old library was full of hidden treasures, which +on frequent occasions were unearthed to entertain the jury or delight +the bench. They were loyal friends, fearsome enemies, high chargers, and +maintained their unique position in spite of the fact that at one time +or another they had run close to the shadowy line which divides the +ethical from that which is not. Yet Mr. Tutt had brought disbarment +proceedings against many lawyers in his time and—what is more—had them +disbarred. +</p> +<p> +"Leave old Tutt alone," was held sage advice, and when other lawyers +desired to entertain the judiciary they were apt to invite Mr. Tutt to +be of the party. And Tutt gloried in the glories of Mr. Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"That's it!" repeated Tutt as he lit his stogy, which flared up like a +burning bush, the cub of a Willie having foraged successfully in the +outer office for a match. "He's willing to be hanged or damned or +anything else just for the sake of putting a bullet through the other +fellow!" +</p> +<p> +"What was the name of the unfortunate deceased?" +</p> +<p> +"Tomasso Crocedoro—a barber." +</p> +<p> +"That is almost a defense in itself," mused Mr. Tutt. "Anyhow, if I've +got to defend Angelo for shooting Tomasso you might as well give me a +short scenario of the melodrama. By the way, are we retained or assigned +by the court?" +</p> +<p> +"Assigned," chirped Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"So that all we'll get out of it is about enough to keep me in stogies +for a couple of months!" +</p> +<p> +"And—if he's convicted, as of course he will be—a good chance of +losing our reputation as successful trial counsel. Why not beg off?" +</p> +<p> +"Let me hear the story first," answered Mr. Tutt. "Angelo sounds like a +good sport. I have a mild affection for him already." +</p> +<p> +He reached into the lower compartment of his desk and lifted out a +tumbler and a bottle of malt extract, which he placed carefully at his +elbow. Then he leaned back again expectantly. +</p> +<p> +"It is a simple and naive story," began Tutt, seating himself in the +chair reserved for paying clients—that is to say, one which did not +have the two front legs sawed off an inch or so in order to make +lingering uncomfortable. "A plain, unvarnished tale. Our client is one +who makes an honest living by blacking shoes near the entrance to the +Brooklyn Bridge. He is one of several hundred original Tonys who conduct +shoe-shining emporiums." +</p> +<p> +"Emporia," corrected his partner, pouring out a tumbler of malt extract. +</p> +<p> +"He formed an attachment for a certain young lady," went on Tutt, +undisturbed, "who had previously had some sort of love affair with +Crocedoro, as a result of which her social standing had become slightly +impaired. In a word Tomasso jilted her. Angelo saw, pitied and loved +her, took her for better or for worse, and married her." +</p> +<p> +"For which," interjected Mr. Tutt, "he is entitled to everyone's +respect." +</p> +<p> +"Quite so!" agreed Tutt. "Now Tomasso, though not willing to marry the +girl himself, seems to have resented the idea of having anyone else do +so, and accordingly seized every opportunity which presented itself to +twit Angelo about the matter." +</p> +<p> +"Dog in the manger, so to speak," nodded Mr. Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"He not only jeered at Angelo for marrying Rosalina but he began to +hang about his discarded mistress again and scoff at her choice of a +husband. But Rosalina gave him the cold shoulder, with the result that +he became more and more insulting to Angelo. Finally one day our client +made up his mind not to stand it any longer, secured a revolver, sought +out Tomasso in his barber shop and put a bullet through his head. Now +however much you may sympathize with Angelo as a man and a husband there +isn't the slightest doubt that he killed Tomasso with every kind of +deliberation and premeditation." +</p> +<p> +"If the case is as you say," replied Mr. Tutt, replacing the bottle and +tumbler within the lower drawer and flicking a stogy ash from his +waistcoat, "the honorable justice who handed it to us is no friend of +ours." +</p> +<p> +"He isn't," assented his partner. "It was Babson and he hates Italians. +Moreover, he stated in open court that he proposed to try the case +himself next Monday and that we must be ready without fail." +</p> +<p> +"So Babson did that to us!" growled Mr. Tutt. "Just like him. He'll pack +the jury and charge our innocent Angelo into the middle of hades." +</p> +<p> +"And O'Brien is the assistant district attorney in charge of the +prosecution," mildly added Tutt. "But what can we do? We're assigned, +we've got a guilty client, and we've got to defend him." +</p> +<p> +"Have you set Bonnie Doon looking up witnesses?" asked Mr. Tutt. "I +thought I saw him outside during the forenoon." +</p> +<p> +"Yes," replied Tutt. "But Bonnie says it's the toughest case he ever had +to handle in which to find any witnesses for the defense. There aren't +any. Besides, the girl bought the gun and gave it to Angelo the same +day." +</p> +<p> +"How do you know that?" demanded Mr. Tutt, frowning. +</p> +<p> +"Because she told me so herself," said Tutt. "She's outside if you want +to see her." +</p> +<p> +"I might as well give her what you call 'the once over,'" replied the +senior partner. +</p> +<p> +Tutt retired and presently returned half leading, half pushing a +shrinking young Italian woman, shabbily dressed but with the features of +one of Raphael's madonnas. She wore no hat and her hands and finger +nails were far from clean, but from the folds of her black shawl her +neck rose like a column of slightly discolored Carrara marble, upon +which her head with its coils of heavy hair was poised with the grace of +a sulky empress. +</p> +<p> +"Come in, my child, and sit down," said Mr. Tutt kindly. "No, not in +that one; in that one." He indicated the chair previously occupied by +his junior. "You can leave us, Tutt. I want to talk to this young lady +alone." +</p> +<p> +The girl sat sullenly with averted face, showing in her attitude her +instinctive feeling that all officers of the law, no matter upon which +side they were supposed to be, were one and all engaged in a mysterious +conspiracy of which she and her unfortunate Angelo were the victims. A +few words from the old lawyer and she began to feel more confidence, +however. No one, in fact, could help but realize at first glance Mr. +Tutt's warmth of heart. The lines of his sunken cheeks if left to +themselves automatically tended to draw together into a whimsical smile, +and it required a positive act of will upon his part to adopt the stern +and relentless look with which he was wont to glower down upon some +unfortunate witness in cross-examination. +</p> +<p> +Inside Mr. Tutt was a benign and rather mellow old fellow, with a dry +sense of humor and a very keen knowledge of his fellow men. He made a +good deal of money, but not having any wife or child upon which to +lavish it he spent it all either on books or surreptitiously in quixotic +gifts to friends or strangers whom he either secretly admired or whom he +believed to be in need of money. There were vague traditions in the +office of presents of bizarre and quite impossible clothes made to +office boys and stenographers; of ex-convicts reoutfitted and sent +rejoicing to foreign parts; of tramps gorged to repletion and then +pumped dry of their adventures in Mr. Tutt's comfortable, dingy old +library; of a fur coat suddenly clapped upon the rounded shoulders of +old Scraggs, the antiquated scrivener in the accountant's cage in the +outer office, whose alcoholic career, his employer alleged, was marked +by a trail of empty rum kegs, each one flying the white flag of +surrender. +</p> +<p> +And yet old Ephraim Tutt could on occasion be cold as chiseled steel, +and as hard. Any appeal from a child, a woman or an outcast always met +with his ready response; but for the rich, successful and those in power +he seemed to entertain a deep and enduring grudge. He would burn the +midnight oil with equal zest to block a crooked deal on the part of a +wealthy corporation or to devise a means to extricate some no less +crooked rascal from the clutches of the law, provided that the rascal +seemed the victim of hard luck, inheritance or environment. His +weather-beaten conscience was as elastic as his heart. Indeed when under +the expansive influence of a sufficient quantity of malt extract or +ancient brandy from the cellaret on his library desk he had sometimes +been heard to enunciate the theory that there was very little difference +between the people in jail and those who were not. +</p> +<p> +He would work weeks without compensation to argue the case of some +guilty rogue before the Court of Appeals, in order, as he said, to +"settle the law," when his only real object was to get the miserable +fellow out of jail and send him back to his wife and children. He went +through life with a twinkling eye and a quizzical smile, and when he did +wrong he did it—if such a thing is possible—in a way to make people +better. He was a dangerous adversary and judges were afraid of him, not +because he ever tricked or deceived them but because of the audacity and +novelty of his arguments which left them speechless. He had the +assurance that usually comes with age and with a lifelong knowledge of +human nature, yet apparently he had always been possessed of it. +</p> +<p> +Once a judge having assigned him to look out for the interests of a +lawyerless prisoner suggested that he take his new client into the +adjoining jury room and give him the best advice he could. Mr. Tutt was +gone so long that the judge became weary, and to find out what had +become of him sent an officer, who found the lawyer reading a newspaper +beside an open window, but no sign of the prisoner. In great excitement +the officer reported the situation to the judge, who ordered Mr. Tutt to +the bar. +</p> +<p> +"What has become of the prisoner?" demanded His Honor. +</p> +<p> +"I do not know," replied the lawyer calmly. "The window was open and I +suspect that he used it as a means of exit." +</p> +<p> +"Are you not aware that you are a party to an escape—a crime?" hotly +challenged the judge. +</p> +<p> +"I most respectfully deny the charge," returned Mr. Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"I told you to take the prisoner into that room and give him the best +advice you could." +</p> +<p> +"I did!" interjected the lawyer. +</p> +<p> +"Ah!" exclaimed the judge. "You admit it! What advice did you give him?" +</p> +<p> +"The law does not permit me to state that," answered Mr. Tutt in his +most dignified tones. "That is a privileged communication from the +inviolate obligation to preserve which only my client can release me—I +cannot betray a sacred trust. Yet I might quote Cervantes and remind +Your Honor that 'Fortune leaves always some door open to come at a +remedy!'" +</p> +<p> +Now as he gazed at the tear-stained cheeks of the girl-wife whose +husband had committed murder in defense of her self-respect, he vowed +that so far as he was able he would fight to save him. The more +desperate the case the more desperate her need of him—the greater the +duty and the greater his honor if successful. +</p> +<p> +"Believe that I am your friend, my dear!" he assured her. "You and I +must work together to set Angelo free." +</p> +<p> +"It's no use," she returned less defiantly. "He done it. He won't deny +it." +</p> +<p> +"But he is entitled to his defense," urged Mr. Tutt quietly. +</p> +<p> +"He won't make no defense." +</p> +<p> +"We must make one for him." +</p> +<p> +"There ain't none. He just went and killed him." +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt shrugged his shoulders. +</p> +<p> +"There is always a defense," he answered with conviction. "Anyhow we +can't let him be convicted without making an effort. Will they be able +to prove where he got the pistol?" +</p> +<p> +"He didn't get the pistol," retorted the girl with a glint in her black +eyes. "I got it. I'd ha' shot him myself if he hadn't. I said I was +goin' to, but he wouldn't let me." +</p> +<p> +"Dear, dear!" sighed Mr. Tutt. "What a case! Both of you trying to see +which could get hanged first!" +</p> +<hr> +<p> +The inevitable day of Angelo's trial came. Upon the bench the Honorable +Mr. Justice Babson glowered down upon the cowering defendant flanked by +his distinguished counsel, Tutt & Tutt, and upon the two hundred good +and true talesmen who, "all other business laid aside," had been dragged +from the comfort of their homes and the important affairs of their +various livelihoods to pass upon the merits of the issue duly joined +between The People of the State of New York and Angelo Serafino, +charged with murder. +</p> +<p> +One by one as his name was called each took his seat in the witness +chair upon the <i>voir dire</i> and perjured himself like a gentleman in +order to escape from service, shyly confessing to an ineradicable +prejudice against the entire Italian race and this defendant in +particular, and to an antipathy against capital punishment which, so +each unhesitatingly averred, would render him utterly incapable of +satisfactorily performing his functions if selected as a juryman. Hardly +one, however, but was routed by the Machiavellian Babson. Hardly one, +however ingenious his excuse—whether about to be married or immediately +become a father, whether engaged in a business deal involving millions +which required his instant and personal attention whether in the last +stages of illness or obligated to be present at the bedside of a dying +wife—but was browbeaten into helplessness and ordered back to take his +place amidst the waiting throng of recalcitrant citizens so disinclined +to do their part in elevating that system of trial by jury the failure +of which at other times they so loudly condemned. +</p> +<p> +This trifling preliminary having been concluded, the few jurymen who had +managed to wriggle through the judicial sieve were allowed to withdraw, +the balance of the calendar was adjourned, those spectators who were +standing up were ordered to sit down and those already sitting down were +ordered to sit somewhere else, the prisoners in the rear of the room +were sent back to the Tombs to await their fate upon some later day, the +reporters gathered rapaciously about the table just behind the +defendant, a corpulent Ganymede in the person of an aged court officer +bore tremblingly an opaque glass of yellow drinking water to the bench, +O'Brien the prosecutor blew his nose with a fanfare of trumpets, Mr. +Tutt smiled an ingratiating smile which seemed to clasp the whole world +to his bosom—and the real battle commenced; a game in which every card +in the pack had been stacked against the prisoner by an unscrupulous +pair of officials whose only aim was to maintain their record of +convictions of "murder in the first" and who laid their plans with +ingenuity and carried them out with skill and enthusiasm to habitual +success. +</p> +<p> +They were a grand little pair of convictors, were Babson and O'Brien, +and woe unto that man who was brought before them. It was even alleged +by the impious that when Babson was in doubt what to do or what O'Brien +wanted him to do the latter communicated the information to his +conspirator upon the bench by a system of preconcerted signals. But +indeed no such system was necessary, for the judge's part in the drama +was merely to sustain his colleague's objections and overrule those of +his opponent, after which he himself delivered the <i>coup de grace</i> with +unerring insight and accuracy. When Babson got through charging a jury +the latter had always in fact been instructed in brutal and sneering +tones to convict the defendant or forever after to regard themselves as +disloyal citizens, oath violators and outcasts though the stenographic +record of his remarks would have led the reader thereof to suppose that +this same judge was a conscientious, tender-hearted merciful lover of +humanity, whose sensitive soul quivered at the mere thought of a prison +cell, and who meticulously sought to surround the defendant with every +protection the law could interpose against the imputation of guilt. +</p> +<p> +He was, as Tutt put it, "a dangerous old cuss." O'Brien was even worse. +He was a bull-necked, bullet-headed, pugnosed young ruffian with beery +eyes, who had an insatiable ambition and a still greater conceit, but +who had devised a blundering, innocent, helpless way of conducting +himself before a jury that deceived them into believing that his +inexperience required their help and his disinterestedness their loyal +support. Both of them were apparently fair-minded, honest public +servants; both in reality were subtly disingenuous to a degree beyond +ordinary comprehension, for years of practise had made them sensitive to +every whimsy of emotion and taught them how to play upon the psychology +of the jury as the careless zephyr softly draws its melody from the +aeolian harp. In a word they were a precious pair of crooks, who for +their own petty selfish ends played fast and loose with liberty, life +and death. +</p> +<p> +Both of them hated Mr. Tutt, who had more than once made them ridiculous +before the jury and shown them up before the Court of Appeals, and the +old lawyer recognized well the fact that these two legal wolves were in +revenge planning to tear him and his helpless client to pieces, having +first deliberately selected him as a victim and assigned him to +officiate at a ceremony which, however just so far as its consummation +might be concerned, was nothing less in its conduct than judicial +murder. Now they were laughing at him in their sleeves, for Mr. Tutt +enjoyed the reputation of never having defended a client who had been +convicted of murder, and that spotless reputation was about to be +annihilated forever. +</p> +<p> +Though the defense had thirty peremptory challenges Mr. Tutt well knew +that Babson would sustain the prosecutor's objections for bias until the +jury box would contain the twelve automata personally selected by +O'Brien in advance from what Tutt called "the army of the gibbet." Yet +the old war horse outwardly maintained a calm and genial exterior, +betraying none of the apprehension which in fact existed beneath his +mask of professional composure. The court officer rapped sharply for +silence. +</p> +<p> +"Are you quite ready to proceed with the case?" inquired the judge with +a courtesy in which was ill concealed a leer of triumph. +</p> +<p> +"Yes, Your Honor," responded Mr. Tutt in velvet tones. +</p> +<p> +"Call the first talesman!" +</p> +<p> +The fight was on, the professional duel between traditional enemies, in +which the stake—a human life—was in truth the thing of least concern, +had begun. Yet no casual observer would have suspected the actual +significance of what was going on or the part that envy, malice, +uncharitableness, greed, selfishness and ambition were playing in it. He +would have seen merely a partially filled courtroom flooded with +sunshine from high windows, an attentive and dignified judge in a black +silk robe sitting upon a dais below which a white-haired clerk drew +little slips of paper from a wheel and summoned jurymen to a service +which outwardly bore no suggestion of a tragedy. +</p> +<p> +He would have seen a somewhat unprepossessing assistant district +attorney lounging in front of the jury box, taking apparently no great +interest in the proceedings, and a worried-looking young Italian sitting +at the prisoner's table between a rubicund little man with a round red +face and a tall, grave, longish-haired lawyer with a frame not unlike +that of Abraham Lincoln, over whose wrinkled face played from time to +time the suggestion of a smile. Behind a balustrade were the reporters, +scribbling on rough sheets of yellow paper. Then came rows of benches, +upon the first of which, as near the jury box as possible, sat Rosalina +in a new bombazine dress and wearing a large imitation gold cross +furnished for the occasion out of the legal property room of Tutt & +Tutt. Occasionally she sobbed softly. The bulk of the spectators +consisted of rejected talesmen, witnesses, law clerks, professional +court loafers and women seeking emotional sensations which they had not +the courage or the means to satisfy otherwise. The courtroom was +comparatively quiet, the silence broken only by the droning voice of the +clerk and the lazy interplay of question and answer between talesman and +lawyer. +</p> +<p> +Yet beneath the humdrum, casual, almost indifferent manner in which the +proceedings seemed to be conducted each side was watching every move +made by the other with the tension of a tiger ready to spring upon its +prey. Babson and O'Brien were engaged in forcing upon the defense a jury +composed entirely of case-hardened convictors, while Tutt & Tutt were +fighting desperately to secure one so heterogeneous in character that +they could hope for a disagreement. +</p> +<p> +By recess thirty-seven talesmen had been examined without a foreman +having been selected, and Mr. Tutt had exhausted twenty-nine of his +thirty challenges, as against three for the prosecution. The court +reconvened and a new talesman was called, resembling in appearance a +professional hangman who for relaxation leaned toward the execution of +Italians. Mr. Tutt examined him for bias and every known form of +incompetency, but in vain—then challenged peremptorily. Thirty +challenges! He looked on Tutt with slightly raised eyebrows. +</p> +<p> +"Patrick Henry Walsh—to the witness chair, please, Mr. Walsh!" called +the clerk, drawing another slip from the box. +</p> +<p> +Mr. Walsh rose and came forward heavily, while Tutt & Tutt trembled. He +was the one man they were afraid of—an old-timer celebrated as a +bulwark of the prosecution, who could always be safely counted upon to +uphold the arms of the law, who regarded with reverence all officials +connected with the administration of justice, and from whose +composition all human emotions had been carefully excluded by the +Creator. He was a square-jawed, severe, heavily built person, with a +long relentless upper lip, cheeks ruddy from the open air; engaged in +the contracting business; and he had a brogue that would have charmed a +mavis off a tree. Mr. Tutt looked hopelessly at Tutt. +</p> +<p> +Babson and O'Brien had won. +</p> +<p> +Once more Mr. Tutt struggled against his fate. Was Mr. Walsh sure he had +no prejudices against Italians or foreigners generally? Quite. Did he +know anyone connected with the case? No. Had he any objection to the +infliction of capital punishment? None whatever. The defense had +exhausted all its challenges. Mr. Tutt turned to the prospective foreman +with an endearing smile. +</p> +<p> +"Mr. Walsh," said he in caressing tones, "you are precisely the type of +man in whom I feel the utmost confidence in submitting the fate of my +client. I believe that you will make an ideal foreman I hardly need to +ask you whether you will accord the defendant the benefit of every +reasonable doubt, and if you have such a doubt will acquit him." +</p> +<p> +Mr. Walsh gazed suspiciously at Mr. Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"Sure," he responded dryly, "Oi'll give him the benefit o' the doubt, +but if Oi think he's guilty Oi'll convict him." +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt shivered. +</p> +<p> +"Of course! Of course! That would be your duty! You are entirely +satisfactory, Mr. Walsh!" +</p> +<p> +"Mr. Walsh is more than satisfactory to the prosecution!" intoned +O'Brien. +</p> +<p> +"Be sworn, Mr. Walsh," directed the clerk; and the filling of the jury +box in the memorable case of People versus Serafino was begun. +</p> +<p> +"That chap doesn't like us," whispered Mr. Tutt to Tutt. "I laid it on a +bit too thick." +</p> +<p> +In fact, Mr. Walsh had already entered upon friendly relations with Mr. +O'Brien, and as the latter helped him arrange a place for his hat and +coat the foreman cast a look tinged with malevolence at the defendant +and his counsel, as if to say "You can't fool me. I know the kind of +tricks you fellows are all up to." +</p> +<p> +O'Brien could not repress a grin. The clerk drew forth another name. +</p> +<p> +"Mr. Tompkins—will you take the chair?" +</p> +<p> +Swiftly the jury was impaneled. O'Brien challenged everybody who did not +suit his fancy, while Tutt & Tutt sat helpless. +</p> +<p> +Ten minutes and the clerk called the roll, beginning with Mr. Walsh, and +they were solemnly sworn a true verdict to find, and settled themselves +to the task. +</p> +<p> +The mills of the gods had begun to grind, and Angelo was being dragged +to his fate as inexorably and as surely, with about as much chance of +escape, as a log that is being drawn slowly toward a buzz saw. +</p> +<p> +"You may open the case, Mr. O'Brien," announced Judge Babson, leaning +back and wiping his glasses. +</p> +<p> +Then surreptitiously he began to read his mail as his fellow conspirator +undertook to tell the jury what it was all about. One by one the +witnesses were called—the coroner's physician, the policeman who had +arrested Angelo outside the barber shop with the smoking pistol in his +hand, the assistant barber who had seen the shooting, the customer who +was being shaved. Each drove a spike into poor Angelo's legal coffin. +Mr. Tutt could not shake them. This evidence was plain. He had come into +the shop, accused Crocedoro of making his wife's life unbearable +and—shot him. +</p> +<p> +Yet Mr. Tutt did not lose any of his equanimity. With the tips of his +long fingers held lightly together in front of him, and swaying slightly +backward and forward upon the balls of his feet, he smiled benignly down +upon the customer and the barber's assistant as if these witnesses were +merely unfortunate in not being able to disclose to the jury all the +facts. His manner indicated that a mysterious and untold tragedy lay +behind what they had heard, a tragedy pregnant with primordial vital +passions, involving the most sacred of human relationships, which when +known would rouse the spirit of chivalry of the entire panel. +</p> +<p> +On cross-examination the barber testified that Angelo had said: "You +maka small of my wife long enough!" +</p> +<p> +"Ah!" murmured Mr. Tutt, waving an arm in the direction of Rosalina. Did +the witness recognize the defendant's young wife? The jury showed +interest and examined the sobbing Rosalina with approval. Yes, the +witness recognized her. Did the witness know to what incident or +incidents the defendant had referred by his remark—what the deceased +Crocedoro had done to Rosalina—if anything? No, the witness did not. +Mr. Tutt looked significantly at the row of faces in the jury box. +</p> +<p> +Then leaning forward he asked significantly: "Did you see Crocedoro +threaten the defendant with his razor?" +</p> +<p> +"I object!" shouted O'Brien, springing to his feet. "The question is +improper. There is no suggestion that Crocedoro did anything. The +defendant can testify to that if he wants to!" +</p> +<p> +"Oh, let him answer!" drawled the judge. +</p> +<p> +"No—" began the witness. +</p> +<p> +"Ah!" cried Mr. Tutt. "You did not see Crocedoro threaten the defendant +with his razor! That will do!" +</p> +<p> +But forewarned by this trifling experience, Mr. O'Brien induced the +customer, the next witness, to swear that Crocedoro had not in fact made +any move whatever with his razor toward Angelo, who had deliberately +raised his pistol and shot him. +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt rose to the cross-examination with the same urbanity as before. +Where was the witness standing? The witness said he wasn't standing. +Well, where was he sitting, then? In the chair. +</p> +<p> +"Ah!" exclaimed Mr. Tutt triumphantly. "Then you had your back to the +shooting!" +</p> +<p> +In a moment O'Brien had the witness practically rescued by the +explanation that he had seen the whole thing in the glass in front of +him. The firm of Tutt & Tutt uttered in chorus a groan of outraged +incredulity. Several jurymen were seen to wrinkle their foreheads in +meditation. Mr. Tutt had sown a tiny—infinitesimally tiny, to be +sure—seed of doubt, not as to the killing at all but as to the complete +veracity of the witness. +</p> +<p> +And then O'Brien made his coup. +</p> +<p> +"Rosalina Serafino—take the witness stand!" he ordered. +</p> +<p> +He would get from her own lips the admission that she bought the pistol +and gave it to Angelo! +</p> +<p> +But with an outburst of indignation that would have done credit to the +elder Booth Mr. Tutt was immediately on his feet protesting against the +outrage, the barbarity, the heartlessness, the illegality of making a +wife testify against her husband! His eyes flashed, his disordered locks +waved in picturesque synchronization with his impassioned gestures +Rosalina, her beautiful golden cross rising and falling hysterically +upon her bosom, took her seat in the witness chair like a frightened, +furtive creature of the woods, gazed for one brief instant upon the +twelve men in the jury box with those great black eyes of hers, and then +with burning cheeks buried her face in her handkerchief. +</p> +<p> +"I protest against this piece of cruelty!" cried Mr. Tutt in a voice +vibrating with indignation. "This is worthy of the Inquisition. Will not +even the cross upon her breast protect her from being compelled to +reveal those secrets that are sacred to wife and motherhood? Can the law +thus indirectly tear the seal of confidence from the Confessional? Mr. +O'Brien, you go too far! There are some things that even you—brilliant +as you are—may not trifle with." +</p> +<p> +A juryman nodded. The eleven others, being more intelligent, failed to +understand what he was talking about. +</p> +<p> +"Mr. Tutt's objection is sound—if he wishes to press it," remarked the +judge satirically. "You may step down, madam. The law will not compel a +wife to testify against her husband. Have you any more witnesses, Mister +District Attorney?" +</p> +<p> +"The People rest," said Mr. O'Brien. "The case is with the defense." +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt rose with solemnity. +</p> +<p> +"The court will, I suppose, grant me a moment or two to confer with my +client?" he inquired. Babson bowed and the jury saw the lawyer lean +across the defendant and engage his partner in what seemed to be a +weighty deliberation. +</p> +<p> +"I killa him! I say so!" muttered Angelo feebly to Mr. Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"Shut up, you fool!" hissed Tutt, grabbing him by the leg. "Keep still +or I'll wring your neck." +</p> +<p> +"If I could reach that old crook up on the bench I would twist his +nose," remarked Mr. Tutt to Tutt with an air of consulting him about the +Year Books. "And as for that criminal O'Brien, I'll get him yet!" +</p> +<p> +With great dignity Mr. Tutt then rose and again addressed the court: +</p> +<p> +"We have decided under all the circumstances of this most extraordinary +case, Your Honor, not to put in any defense. I shall not call the +defendant—" +</p> +<p> +"I killa him—" began Angelo, breaking loose from Tutt and struggling +to his feet. It was a horrible movement. But Tutt clapped his hand over +Angelo's mouth and forced him back into his seat. +</p> +<p> +"The defense rests," said Mr. Tutt, ignoring the interruption. "So far +as we are concerned the case is closed." +</p> +<p> +"Both sides rest!" snapped Babson. "How long do you want to sum up?" +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt looked at the clock, which pointed to three. The regular hour +of adjournment was at four. Delay was everything in a case like this. A +juryman might die suddenly overnight or fall grievously ill; or some +legal accident might occur which would necessitate declaring a mistrial. +There is, always hope in a criminal case so long as the verdict has not +actually been returned and the jury polled and discharged. If possible +he must drag his summing up over until the following day. Something +might happen. +</p> +<p> +"About two hours, Your Honor," he replied. +</p> +<p> +The jury stirred impatiently. It was clear that they regarded a two-hour +speech from him under the circumstances as an imposition. But Babson +wished to preserve the fiction of impartiality. +</p> +<p> +"Very well," said he. "You may sum up until four-thirty, and have half +an hour more to-morrow morning. See that the doors are closed, Captain +Phelan. We do not want any interruption while the summations are going +on." +</p> +<p> +"All out that's goin' out! Everybody out that's got no business, with +the court!" bellowed Captain Phelan. +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt with an ominous heightening of the pulse realized that the real +ordeal was at last at hand, for the closing of the case had wrought in +the old lawyer an instant metamorphosis. With the words "The defense +rests" every suggestion of the mountebank, the actor or the shyster had +vanished. The awful responsibility under which he labored; the +overwhelming and damning evidence against his client; the terrible +consequences of the least mistake that he might make; the fact that only +the sword of his ability, and his alone, stood between Angelo and a +hideous death by fire in the electric chair—sobered and chastened him. +Had he been a praying man in that moment he would have prayed—but he +was not. +</p> +<p> +For his client was foredoomed—foredoomed not only by justice but also +by trickery and guile—and was being driven slowly but surely towards +the judicial shambles. For what had he succeeded in adducing in his +behalf? Nothing but the purely apocryphal speculation that the dead +barber might have threatened Angelo with his razor and that the +witnesses might possibly have drawn somewhat upon their imaginations in +giving the details of their testimony. A sorry defense! Indeed, no +defense at all. All the sorrier in that he had not even been able to get +before the jury the purely sentimental excuses for the homicide, for he +could only do this by calling Rosalina to the stand, which would have +enabled the prosecution to cross-examine her in regard to the purchase +of the pistol and the delivery of it to her husband—the strongest +evidence of premeditation. Yet he must find some argument, some plea, +some thread of reason upon which the jury might hang a disagreement or a +verdict in a lesser degree. +</p> +<p> +With a shuffling of feet the last of the crowd pushed through the big +oak doors and they were closed and locked. An officer brought a corroded +tumbler of brackish water and placed it in front of Mr. Tutt. The judge +leaned forward with malicious courtesy. The jury settled themselves and +turned toward the lawyer attentively yet defiantly, hardening their +hearts already against his expected appeals to sentiment. O'Brien, +ostentatiously producing a cigarette, lounged out through the side door +leading to the jury room and prison cells. The clerk began copying his +records. The clock ticked loudly. +</p> +<p> +And Mr. Tutt rose and began going through the empty formality of +attempting to discuss the evidence in such a way as to excuse or +palliate Angelo's crime. For Angelo's guilt of murder in the first +degree was so plain that it had never for one moment been in the +slightest doubt. Whatever might be said for his act from the point of +view of human emotion only made his motive and responsibility under the +statues all the clearer. There was not even the unwritten law to appeal +to. Yet there was fundamentally a genuine defense, a defense that could +not be urged even by innuendo: the defense that no accused ought to be +convicted upon any evidence whatever, no matter how conclusive in a +trial conducted with essential though wholly concealed unfairness. +</p> +<p> +Such was the case of Angelo. No one could demonstrate it, no one could +with safety even hint at it; any charge that the court was anything but +impartial would prove a boomerang to the defense; and yet the facts +remained that the whole proceeding from start to finish had been +conducted unfairly and with illegality, that the jury had been duped and +deceived, and that the pretense that the guilty Angelo had been given an +impartial trial was a farce. Every word of the court had been an +accusation, a sneer, an acceptance of the defendant's guilt as a matter +of course, an abuse far more subversive of our theory of government than +the mere acquittal of a single criminal, for it struck at the very +foundations of that liberty which the fathers had sought the shores of +the unknown continent to gain. +</p> +<p> +Unmistakably the proceedings had been conducted throughout upon the +theory that the defendant must prove his innocence and that presumably +he was a guilty man; and this as well as his own impression that the +evidence was conclusive the judge had subtly conveyed to the jury in his +tone of speaking, his ironical manner and his facial expression. Guilty +or not Angelo was being railroaded. That was the real defense—the +defense that could never be established even in any higher court, except +perhaps in the highest court of all, which is not of earth. +</p> +<p> +And so Mr. Tutt, boiling with suppressed indignation weighed down with +the sense of his responsibility, fully realizing his inability to say +anything based on the evidence in behalf of his client, feeling twenty +years older than he had during the verbal duel of the actual +cross-examination, rose with a genial smile upon his puckered old face +and with a careless air almost of gaiety, which seemed to indicate the +utmost confidence and determination, and with a graceful compliment to +his arch enemy upon the bench and the yellow dog who had hunted with +him, assured the jury that the defendant had had the fairest of fair +trials and that he, Mr. Tutt, would now proceed to demonstrate to their +satisfaction his client's entire innocence; nay, would show them that he +was a man not only guiltless of any wrong-doing but worthy of their +hearty commendation. +</p> +<p> +With jokes not too unseemly for the occasion he overcame their +preliminary distrust and put them in a good humor. He gave a historical +dissertation upon the law governing homicide, on the constitutional +rights of American citizens, on the laws of naturalization, marriage, +and the domestic relations; waxed eloquent over Italy and the Italian +character, mentioned Cavour, Garibaldi and Mazzini in a way to imply +that Angelo was their lineal descendant; and quoted from D'Annunzio back +to Horace, Cicero and Plautus. +</p> +<p> +"Bunk! Nothing but bunk!" muttered Tutt, studying the twelve faces +before him. "And they all know it!" +</p> +<p> +But Mr. Tutt was nothing if not interesting. These prosaic citizens of +New York County, these saloon and hotel keepers, these contractors, +insurance agents and salesmen were learning something of history, of +philosophy, of art and beauty. They liked it. They felt they were +hearing something worth while, as indeed they were, and they forgot all +about Angelo and the unfortunate Crocedoro in their admiration for Mr. +Tutt, who had lifted them out of the dingy sordid courtroom into the +sunlight of the Golden Age. And as he led them through Greek and Roman +literature, through the early English poets, through Shakespeare and the +King James version, down to John Galsworthy and Rupert Brooke, he +brought something that was noble, fine and sweet into their grubby +materialistic lives; and at the same time the hand of the clock crept +steadily on until he and it reached Château-Thierry and half past four +together. +</p> +<p> +"Bang!" went Babson's gavel just as Mr. Tutt was leading Mr. Walsh, Mr. +Tompkins and the others through the winding paths of the Argonne forests +with tin helmets on their heads in the struggle for liberty. +</p> +<p> +"You may conclude your address in the morning, Mr. Tutt," said the judge +with supreme unction. "Adjourn court!" +</p> +<hr> +<p> +Gray depression weighed down Mr. Tutt's soul as he trudged homeward. He +had made a good speech, but it had had absolutely nothing to do with the +case, which the jury would perceive as soon as they thought it over. It +was a confession of defeat. Angelo would be convicted of murder in the +first degree and electrocuted, Rosalina would be a widow, and somehow he +would be in a measure responsible for it. The tragedy of human life +appalled him. He felt very old, as old as the dead-and-gone authors from +whom he had quoted with such remarkable facility. He belonged with them; +he was too old to practise his profession. +</p> +<p> +"Law, Mis' Tutt," expostulated Miranda, his ancient negro handmaiden, as +he pushed away the chop and mashed potato, and even his glass of claret, +untasted, in his old-fashioned dining room on West Twenty-third Street, +"you ain't got no appetite at all! You's sick, Mis' Tutt." +</p> +<p> +"No, no, Miranda!" he replied weakly. "I'm just getting old." +</p> +<p> +"You's mighty spry for an old man yit," she protested. "You kin make dem +lawyer men hop mighty high when you tries. Heh, heh! I reckon dey ain't +got nuffin' on my Mistah Tutt!" +</p> +<p> +Upstairs in his library Mr. Tutt strode up and down before the empty +grate, smoking stogy after stogy, trying to collect his thoughts and +devise something to say upon the morrow, but all his ideas had flown. +There wasn't anything to say. Yet he swore Angelo should not be offered +up as a victim upon the altar of unscrupulous ambition. The hours passed +and the old banjo clock above the mantel wheezed eleven, twelve; then +one, two. Still he paced up and down, up and down in a sort of trance. +The air of the library, blue with the smoke of countless stogies, +stifled and suffocated him. Moreover he discovered that he was hungry. +He descended to the pantry and salvaged a piece of pie, then unchained +the front door and stepped forth into the soft October night. +</p> +<p> +A full moon hung over the deserted streets of the sleeping city. In +divers places, widely scattered, the twelve good and true men were +snoring snugly in bed. To-morrow they would send Angelo to his death +without a quiver. He shuddered, striding on, he knew not whither, into +the night. His brain no longer worked. He had become a peripatetic +automaton self-dedicated to nocturnal perambulation. +</p> +<p> +With his pockets bulging with stogies and one glowing like a headlight +in advance of him he wandered in a sort of coma up Tenth Avenue, crossed +to the Riverside Drive, mounted Morningside Heights, descended again +through the rustling alleys of Central Park, and found himself at Fifth +Avenue and Fifty-ninth Street just as the dawn was paling the electric +lamps to a sickly yellow and the trees were casting strange unwonted +shadows in the wrong direction. He was utterly exhausted. He looked +eagerly for some place to sit down, but the doors of the hotels were +dark and tightly closed and it was too cold to remain without moving in +the open air. +</p> +<p> +Down Fifth Avenue he trudged, intending to go home and snatch a few +hours' sleep before court should open, but each block seemed miles in +length. Presently he approached the cathedral, whose twin spires were +tinted with reddish gold. The sky had become a bright blue. Suddenly all +the street lamps went out. He told himself that he had never realized +before the beauty of those two towers reaching up toward eternity, +typifying man's aspiration for the spiritual. He remembered having heard +that a cathedral was never closed, and looking toward the door he +perceived that it was open. With utmost difficulty he climbed the steps +and entered its dark shadows. A faint light emanated from the tops of +the stained-glass windows. Down below a candle burned on either side of +the altar while a flickering gleam shone from the red cup in the +sanctuary lamp. Worn out, drugged for lack of sleep, faint for want of +food, old Mr. Tutt sank down upon one of the rear seats by the door, and +resting his head upon his arms on the back of the bench in front of him +fell fast asleep. +</p> +<p> +He dreamed of a legal heaven, of a great wooden throne upon which sat +Babson in a black robe and below him twelve red-faced angels in a double +row with harps in their hands, chanting: "Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!" An +organ was playing somewhere, and there was a great noise of footsteps. +Then a bell twinkled and he raised his head and saw that the chancel was +full of lights and white-robed priests. It was broad daylight. Horrified +he looked at his watch, to find that it was ten minutes after ten. His +joints creaked as he pulled himself to his feet and his eyes were half +closed as he staggered down the steps and hailed a taxi. +</p> +<p> +"Criminal Courts Building—side door. And drive like hell!" he muttered +to the driver. +</p> +<p> +He reached it just as Judge Babson and his attendant were coming into +the courtroom and the crowd were making obeisance. Everybody else was in +his proper place. +</p> +<p> +"You may proceed, Mr. Tutt," said the judge after the roll of the jury +had been called. +</p> +<p> +But Mr. Tutt was in a daze, in no condition to think or speak. There was +a curious rustling in his ears and his sight was somewhat blurred. The +atmosphere of the courtroom seemed to him cold and hostile; the jury sat +with averted faces. He rose feebly and cleared his throat. +</p> +<p> +"Gentlemen of the jury," he began, "I—I think I covered everything I +had to say yesterday afternoon. I can only beseech you to realize the +full extent of your great responsibility and remind you that if you +entertain a reasonable doubt upon the evidence you are sworn to give the +benefit of it to the defendant." +</p> +<p> +He sank back in his chair and covered his eyes with his hands, while a +murmur ran along the benches of the courtroom. The old man had +collapsed—tough luck—the defendant was cooked! Swiftly O'Brien leaped +to his feet. There had been no defense. The case was as plain as a +pike-staff. There was only one thing for the jury to do—return a +verdict of murder in the first. It would not be pleasant, but that made +no difference! He read them the statute, applied it to the facts, and +shook his fist in their faces. They must convict—and convict of only +one thing—and nothing else—murder in the first degree. They gazed at +him like silly sheep, nodding their heads, doing everything but bleat. +</p> +<p> +Then Babson cleared his decks and rising in dignity expounded the law to +the sheep in a rich mellow voice, in which he impressed upon them the +necessity of preserving the integrity of the jury system and the +sanctity of human life. He pronounced an obituary of great beauty upon +the deceased barber—who could not, as he pointed out, speak for +himself, owing to the fact that he was in his grave. He venomously +excoriated the defendant who had deliberately planned to kill an +unarmed man peacefully conducting himself in his place of business, and +expressed the utmost confidence that he could rely upon the jury, whose +character he well knew, to perform their full duty no matter how +disagreeable that duty might be. The sheep nodded. +</p> +<p> +"You may retire, gentlemen." +</p> +<p> +Babson looked down at Mr. Tutt with a significant gleam in his eye. He +had driven in the knife to the hilt and twisted it round and round. +Angelo had almost as much chance as the proverbial celluloid cat. Mr. +Tutt felt actually sick. He did not look at the jury as they went out. +They would not be long—and he could hardly face the thought of their +return. Never in his long experience had he found himself in such a +desperate situation. Heretofore there had always been some argument, +some construction of the facts upon which he could make an appeal, +however fallacious or illogical. +</p> +<p> +He leaned back and closed his eyes. The judge was chatting with O'Brien, +the court officers were betting with the reporters as to the length of +time in which it would take the twelve to agree upon a verdict of murder +in the first. The funeral rites were all concluded except for the final +commitment of the corpse to mother earth. +</p> +<p> +And then without warning Angelo suddenly rose and addressed the court in +a defiant shriek. +</p> +<p> +"I killa that man!" he cried wildly. "He maka small of my wife! He no +good! He bad egg! I killa him once—I killa him again!" +</p> +<p> +"So!" exclaimed Babson with biting sarcasm. "You want to make a +confession? You hope for mercy, do you? Well, Mr. Tutt, what do you wish +to do under the circumstances? Shall I recall the jury and reopen the +case by consent?" +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt rose trembling to his feet. +</p> +<p> +"The case is closed, Your Honor," he replied. "I will consent to a +mistrial and offer a plea of guilty of manslaughter. I cannot agree to +reopen the case. I cannot let the defendant go upon the stand." +</p> +<p> +The spectators and reporters were pressing forward to the bar, anxious +lest they should lose a single word of the colloquy. Angelo remained +standing, looking eagerly at O'Brien, who returned his gaze with a grin +like that of a hyena. +</p> +<p> +"I killa him!" Angelo repeated. "You killa me if you want." +</p> +<p> +"Sit down!" thundered the judge. "Enough of this! The law does not +permit me to accept a plea to murder in the first degree, and my +conscience and my sense of duty to the public will permit me to accept +no other. I will go to my chambers to await the verdict of the jury. +Take the prisoner downstairs to the prison pen." +</p> +<p> +He swept from the bench in his silken robes. Angelo was led away. The +crowd in the courtroom slowly dispersed. Mr. Tutt, escorted by Tutt, +went out in the corridor to smoke. +</p> +<p> +"Ye got a raw deal, counselor," remarked Captain Phelan, amiably +accepting a stogy. "Nothing but an act of Providence c'd save that +Eyetalian from the chair. An' him guilty at that!" +</p> +<p> +An hour passed; then another. At half after four a rumor flew along the +corridors that the jury in the Serafino case had reached a verdict and +were coming in. A messenger scurried to the judge's chambers. Phelan +descended the iron stairs to bring up the prisoner, while Tutt to +prevent a scene invented an excuse by which he lured Rosalina to the +first floor of the building. The crowd suddenly reassembled out of +nowhere and poured into the courtroom. The reporters gathered +expectantly round their table. The judge entered, his robes, gathered in +one hand. +</p> +<p> +"Bring in the jury," he said sharply. "Arraign the prisoner at the bar." +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt took his place beside his client at the railing, while the +jury, carrying their coats and hats, filed slowly in. Their faces were +set and relentless. They looked neither to the right nor to the left. +O'Brien sauntered over and seated himself nonchalantly with his back to +the court, studying their faces. Yes, he told himself, they were a +regular set of hangmen—he couldn't have picked a tougher bunch if he'd +had his choice of the whole panel. +</p> +<p> +The clerk called the roll, and Messrs. Walsh, Tompkins, <i>et al.</i>, stated +that they were all present. +</p> +<p> +"Gentlemen of the jury, have you agreed upon a verdict?" inquired the +clerk. +</p> +<p> +"We have!" replied Mr. Walsh sternly. +</p> +<p> +"How say you? Do you find the defendant guilty or not guilty?" +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt gripped the balustrade in front of him with one hand and put +his other arm round Angelo. He felt that now in truth murder was being +done. +</p> +<p> +"We find the defendant not guilty," said Mr. Walsh defiantly. +</p> +<p> +There was a momentary silence of incredulity. Then Babson and O'Brien +shouted simultaneously: "What!" +</p> +<p> +"We find the defendant not guilty," repeated Mr. Walsh stubbornly. +</p> +<p> +"I demand that the jury be polled!" cried the crestfallen O'Brien, his +face crimson. +</p> +<p> +And then the twelve reiterated severally that that was their verdict and +that they hearkened unto it as it stood recorded and that they were +entirely satisfied with it. +</p> +<p> +"You are discharged!" said Babson in icy tones. "Strike the names of +these men from the list of jurors—as incompetent. Haven't you any other +charge on which you can try this defendant?" +</p> +<p> +"No, Your Honor," answered O'Brien grimly. "He didn't take the stand, so +we can't try him for perjury; and there isn't any other indictment +against him." +</p> +<p> +Judge Babson turned ferociously upon Mr. Tutt: +</p> +<p> +"This acquittal is a blot upon the administration of criminal justice; a +disgrace to the city! It is an unconscionable verdict; a reflection upon +the intelligence of the jury! The defendant is discharged. This court is +adjourned." +</p> +<p> +The crowd surged round Angelo and bore him away, bewildered. The judge +and prosecutor hurried from the room. Alone Mr. Tutt stood at the bar, +trying to grasp the full meaning of what had occurred. +</p> +<p> +He no longer felt tired; he experienced an exultation such as he had +never known before. Some miracle had happened! What was it? +</p> +<p> +Unexpectedly the lawyer felt a rough warm hand clasped over his own upon +the rail and heard the voice of Mr. Walsh with its rich brogue saying: +"At first we couldn't see that there was much to be said for your side +of the case, Mr. Tutt; but when Oi stepped into the cathedral on me way +down to court this morning and spied you prayin' there for guidance I +knew you wouldn't be defendin' him unless he was innocent, and so we +decided to give him the benefit of the doubt." +</p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<a name="MOCK"><!-- MOCK --></a> +<h2> +Mock Hen and Mock Turtle +</h2> +<p> </p> +<blockquote><p> +"Oh, East is East and West is West, and never the +twain shall meet."—BALLAD OF EAST AND WEST. +</p></blockquote> +<blockquote><p> +"But the law of the jungle is jungle law only, and the +law of the pack is only for the pack."—OTHER SAYINGS OF SHERE KHAN. +</p></blockquote> +<p> +A half turn from the clattering hubbub of Chatham Square and you are in +Chinatown, slipping, within ten feet, through an invisible wall, from +the glitter of the gin palace and the pawn-shop to the sinister shadows +of irregular streets and blind alleys, where yellow men pad swiftly +along greasy asphalt beneath windows glinting with ivory, bronze and +lacquer; through which float the scents of aloes and of incense and all +the subtle suggestion of the East. +</p> +<p> +No one better than the Chink himself realizes the commercial value of +the taboo, the bizarre and the unclean. Nightly the rubber-neck car +swinging gayly with lanterns stops before the imitation joss house, the +spurious opium joint and tortuous passage to the fake fan-tan and faro +game, with a farewell call at Hong Joy Fah's Oriental restaurant and the +well-stocked novelty store of Wing, Hen & Co. The visitors see what they +expect to see, for the Chinaman always gives his public exactly what it +wants. +</p> +<p> +But a dollar does not show you Chinatown. To some the ivories will +always be but crudely carven bone, the jades the potter's sham, the musk +and aloes the product of a soap factory, the joss but a cigar-store +Indian, and the Oriental dainties of Hong Fah the scrappings of a Yankee +grocery store. Yet behind the shoddy tinsel of Doyers and Pell Streets, +as behind Alice's looking-glass, there is another Chinatown—a strange, +inhuman, Oriental world, not necessarily of trapdoors and stifled +screams, but one moved by influences undreamed of in our banal +philosophies. Hearken then to the story of the avenging of Wah Sing. +</p> +<pre> + <i>'Tis a tale was undoubtedly true + In the reign of the Emperor Hwang</i>. +</pre> +<p> +In the murky cellar of a Pell Street tenement seventeen Chinamen sat +cross-legged in a circle round an octagonal teakwood table. To an +Occidental they would have appeared to differ in no detail except that +of a varying degree of fatness. An oil lamp flickered before a joss near +by, and the place reeked with the odor of starch, sweat, tobacco, rice +whisky and the incense that rose ceilingward in thin, shaking columns +from two bowls of Tibetan soapstone. An obese Chinaman with a walnutlike +countenance in which cunning and melancholy were equally commingled was +speaking monotonously through long, rat-tailed mustaches, while the +others listened with impassive decorum. It was a special meeting of the +Hip Leong Tong, held in their private clubrooms at the Great Shanghai +Tea Company, and conducted according to rule. +</p> +<p> +"Therefore," said Wong Get, "as a matter of honor it is necessary that +our brother be avenged and that no chances be taken. A much too long +time has already elapsed. I have written the letter and will read it." +</p> +<p> +He fumbled in his sleeve and drew forth a roll of brown paper covered +with heavy Chinese characters unwinding it from a strip of bamboo. +</p> +<blockquote><p> +<i>To the Honorable Members of the On Gee Tong:</i> +</p><p> +Whereas it has pleased you to take the life of our beloved +friend and relative Wah Sing, it is with greatest courtesy +and the utmost regret that we inform you that it is +necessary for us likewise to remove one of your esteemed +society, and that we shall proceed thereto without delay. +</p><p> +Due warning being thus honorably given I subscribe +myself with profound appreciation, +</p><p> +For the Hip Leong Tong, +</p><p> +WONG GET. +</p></blockquote> +<p> +He ceased reading and there was a perfunctory grunt of approval from +round the circle. Then he turned to the official soothsayer and directed +him to ascertain whether the time were propitious. The latter tossed +into the air a handful of painted ivory sticks, carefully studied their +arrangement when fallen, and nodded gravely. +</p> +<p> +"The omens are favorable, O honorable one!" +</p> +<p> +"Then there is nothing left but the choice of our representatives," +continued Wong Get. "Pass the fateful box, O Fong Hen." +</p> +<p> +Fong Hen, a slender young Chinaman, the official slipper, or messenger, +of the society, rose and, lifting a lacquered gold box from the table, +passed it solemnly to each member. +</p> +<p> +"This time there will be four," said Wong Get. +</p> +<p> +Each in turn averted his eyes and removed from the box a small sliver of +ivory. At the conclusion of the ceremony the four who had drawn red +tokens rose. Wong Get addressed them. +</p> +<p> +"Mock Hen, Mock Ding, Long Get, Sui Sing—to you it is confided to +avenge the murder of our brother Wah Sing. Fail not in your purpose!" +</p> +<p> +And the four answered unemotionally: "Those to whom it is confided will +not fail." +</p> +<p> +Then pivoting silently upon their heels they passed out of the cellar. +</p> +<p> +Wong Get glanced round the table. +</p> +<p> +"If there is no further business the society will disperse after the +customary refreshment." +</p> +<p> +Fong Hen placed thirteen tiny glasses upon the table and filled them +with rice whisky scented with aniseed and a dash of powdered ginger. At +a signal from Wong Get the thirteen Chinamen lifted the glasses and +drank. +</p> +<p> +"The meeting is adjourned," said he. +</p> +<hr> +<p> +Eighty years before, in a Cantonese rabbit warren two yellow men had +fought over a white woman, and one had killed the other. They had +belonged to different societies, or tongs. The associates of the +murdered man had avenged his death by slitting the throat of one of the +members of the other organization, and these in turn had retaliated thus +establishing a vendetta which became part and parcel of the lives of +certain families, as naturally and unavoidably as birth, love and death. +As regularly as the solstice they alternated in picking each other off. +Branches of the Hip Leong and On Gee tongs sprang up in San Francisco +and New York—and the feud was transferred with them to Chatham Square, +a feud imposing a sacred obligation rooted in blood, honor and religion +upon every member, who rather than fail to carry it out would have +knotted a yellow silken cord under his left ear and swung himself gently +off a table into eternal sleep. +</p> +<p> +Young Mock Hen, one of the four avengers, had created a distinct place +for himself in Chinatown by making a careful study of New York +psychology. He was a good-looking Chink, smooth-faced, tall and supple; +he knew very well how to capitalize his attractiveness. By day he +attended Columbia University as a special student in applied +electricity, keeping a convenient eye meanwhile on three coolies whom he +employed to run The College Laundry on Morningside Heights. By night he +vicariously operated a chop-suey palace on Seventh Avenue, where +congregated the worst elements of the Tenderloin. But his heart was in +the gambling den which he maintained in Doyers Street, and where anyone +who knew the knock could have a shell of hop for the asking, once Mock +had given him the once-over through the little sliding panel. +</p> +<p> +Mock was a Christian Chinaman. That is to say, purely for business +reasons—for what he got out of it and the standing that it gave him—he +attended the Rising Star Mission and also frequented Hudson House, the +social settlement where Miss Fanny Duryea taught him to play ping-pong +and other exciting parlor games, and read to him from books adapted to +an American child of ten. He was a great favorite at both places, for he +was sweet-tempered and wore an expression of heaven-born innocence. He +had even been to church with Miss Duryea, temporarily absenting himself +for that purpose of a Sunday morning from the steam-heated flat +where—unknown to her, of course—he lived with his white wife, Emma +Pratt, a lady of highly miscellaneous antecedents. +</p> +<p> +Except when engaged in transacting legal or oilier business with the +municipal, sociologic or religious world—at which times his vocabulary +consisted only of the most rudimentary pidgin—Mock spoke a fluent and +even vernacular English learned at night school. Incidentally he was the +head of the syndicate which controlled and dispensed the loo, faro, +fan-tan and other gambling privileges of Chinatown. +</p> +<hr> +<p> +Detective Mooney, of the Second, detailed to make good District Attorney +Peckham's boast that there had never been so little trouble with the +foreign element since the administration—of which he was an +ornament—came into office, saw Quong Lee emerge from his doorway in +Doyers Street just before four o'clock the following Thursday and slip +silently along under the shadow of the eaves toward Ah Fong's +grocery—and instantly sensed something peculiar in the Chink's walk. +</p> +<p> +"Hello, Quong!" he called, interposing himself. "Where you goin'?" +</p> +<p> +Quong paused with a deprecating gesture of widely spread open palms. +</p> +<p> +"'Lo yourself!" replied blandly. "Me go buy li'l' glocery." +</p> +<p> +Mooney ran his hands over the rotund body, frisking him for a possible +forty-four. +</p> +<p> +"For the love of Mike!" he exclaimed, tearing open Quong's blouse. "What +sort of an undershirt is that?" Quong grinned broadly as the detective +lifted the suit of double-chain mail which swayed heavily under his blue +blouse from his shoulders to his knees. +</p> +<p> +"So-ho!" continued the plain-clothes man. "Trouble brewin', eh?" +</p> +<p> +He knew already that something was doing in the tongs from his +lobby-gow, Wing Foo. +</p> +<p> +"Must weigh eighty pounds!" he whistled. "I'd like to see the pill that +would go through that!" It was, in fact, a medieval corselet of finest +steel mesh, capable of turning an elephant bullet. +</p> +<p> +"Go'long!" ordered Mooney finally. "I guess you're safe!" +</p> +<p> +He turned back in the direction of Chatham Square, while Quong resumed +his tortoiselike perambulation toward Ah Fong's. Pell and Doyers Streets +were deserted save for an Italian woman carrying a baby, and were +pervaded by an unnatural and suspicious silence. Most of the shutters on +the lower windows were down. Ah Fong's subsequent story of what happened +was simple, and briefly to the effect that Quong, having entered his +shop and priced various litchi nuts and pickled starfruit, had purchased +some powdered lizard and, with the package in his left hand, had opened +the door to go out. As he stood there with his right hand upon the knob +and facing the afternoon sun four shadows fell aslant the window and a +man whom he positively identified as Sui Sing emptied a bag of +powder—afterward proved to be red pepper—upon Quong's face; then +another, Long Get, made a thrust at him with a knife, the effect of +which he did not observe, as almost at the same instant Mock Hen felled +him with a blow upon the head with an iron bar, while a fourth, Mock +Ding, fired four shots at his crumpling body with a revolver one of +which glanced off and fractured a very costly Chien Lung vase and ruined +four boxes of mandarin-blossom tea. In his excitement he ducked behind +the counter, and when sufficiently revived he crawled forth to find what +had once been Quong lying across the threshold, the murderers gone, and +the Italian woman prostrate and shrieking with a hip splintered by a +stray bullet. On the sidewalk outside the window lay the remnants of the +bag of pepper, a knife broken short off at the handle, a heavy bar of +soft iron slightly bent, and a partially emptied forty-four-caliber +revolver. Quong's suit of mail had effectually protected him from the +knife thrust and the revolver shots, but his skull was crushed beyond +repair. Thus was the murder of Wah Sing avenged in due and proper form. +</p> +<p> +Detective Mooney, distant not more than two hundred feet, rushed back to +the corner at the sound of the first shot—just in time to catch a side +glimpse of Mock Hen as he raced across Pell Street and disappeared into +the cellar of the Great Shanghai Tea Company. The Italian woman was +filling the air with her outcries, but the detective did not pause in +his hurtling pursuit. He was too late, however. The cellar door +withstood all his efforts to break it open. +</p> +<p> +Bull Neck Burke, the wrestler, who tied Zabisko once on the stage of the +old Grand Opera House in 1913, had been promenading with Mollie Malone, +of the Champagne Girls and Gay Burlesquers Company. Both heard the +fusillade and saw Mock—a streak of flying blue—pass within a few feet +of them. +</p> +<p> +"God!" ejaculated Mollie. "Sure as shootin', that's Mock Hen—and he's +murdered somebody!" +</p> +<p> +"It's Mock all right!" agreed Bull Neck. "That puts us in as witnesses +or strike me!" And he looked at his watch—four one. +</p> +<p> +"Here, Burke, put your shoulder to this!" shouted Mooney from the cellar +steps. "Now then!" +</p> +<p> +The two of them threw their combined weight against it, the lock flew +open and they fell forward into the darkness. Three doors leading in +different directions met the glare of Mooney's match. But the fugitive +had a start of at least four minutes, which was three and a half more +than he required. +</p> +<hr> +<p> +Mock Hen took the left-hand of the three doors and crept along a passage +opening into an empty opium parlor back of the Hip Leong clubroom. +</p> +<p> +Diving beneath one of the bunks he inserted his body between the lower +planking at the back and the cellar wall, wormed his way some twelve +feet, raised a trap and emerged into a tunnel by means of which and +others he eventually reached the end of the block and the rooms of his +friend Hong Sue. +</p> +<p> +Here he changed from the Oriental costume according to Chinese etiquette +necessary to the homicide, into a nobby suit of American clothes, put on +a false mustache, and walked boldly down Park Row, while just behind +him Doyers and Pell Streets swarmed with bluecoats and excited +citizenry. +</p> +<p> +Hudson House, the social settlement presided over by Miss Fanny and +affected for business reasons by Mock Hen, was a mile and a half away. +But Mock took his time. Twenty-five full minutes elapsed before he +leisurely climbed the steps and slipped into the big reading room. There +was no one there and Mock deftly turned back the hand of the automatic +clock over the platform to three-fifty-five. Then he began to whistle. +Presently Miss Fanny entered from the rear room, her face lighting with +pleasure at the sight of her pet convert. +</p> +<p> +"Good afternoon, Mock Hen! You are early to-day." +</p> +<p> +Mock took her hand and stroked it affectionately. +</p> +<p> +"I go Fulton Mark' buy li'l' terrapin. Stop in on way to see dear Miss +Fan'." +</p> +<p> +They stood thus for a moment, and while they did so the clock struck +four. +</p> +<p> +"I go now!" said Mock suddenly. "Four o'clock already." +</p> +<p> +"It's early," answered Miss Fanny. "Won't you stay a little while?" +</p> +<p> +"I go now," he repeated with resolution. "Good-by li'l' teacher!" +</p> +<p> +She watched until his lithe figure passed through the door, and +presently returned to the back room. Mock waited outside until she had +disappeared. +</p> +<p> +Then he changed back the clock. +</p> +<hr> +<p> +"We've got you, you blarsted heathen!" cried Mooney hoarsely as he and +two others from the Central Office threw themselves upon Mock Hen on the +landing outside the door of his flat. "Look out, Murtha. Pipe that thing +under his arm!" +</p> +<p> +"It's a bloody turtle!" gasped Murtha, shuddering +</p> +<p> +"What's the matter, boys?" inquired Mock. "Leggo my arm, can't yer? +What'd yer want, anyway?" +</p> +<p> +"We want you, you yellow skunk!" retorted Mooney. "Open that door! +Lively now!" +</p> +<p> +"Sure!" answered Mock amiably. "Come on in! What's bitin' yer?" +</p> +<p> +He unlocked the door and threw it open. +</p> +<p> +"Take a chair," he invited them. "Have a cigar? You there, Emma?" +</p> +<p> +Emma Pratt, clad in a wrapper and lying on the big double brass bedstead +in the rear room, raised herself on one elbow. +</p> +<p> +"Yep!" she called through the passage. "Got the bird?" +</p> +<p> +Mock looked at Murtha, who was carrying the terrapin. +</p> +<p> +"Sure!" he called back. "Sit down, boys. What'd yer want? Can't yer +tell a feller?" +</p> +<p> +"We want you for croaking Quong Lee!" snapped Mooney. "Where have you +been?" +</p> +<p> +"Fulton Market—and Hudson House. I left here quarter of four. I haven't +seen Quong Lee. Where was he killed?" +</p> +<p> +Mooney laughed sardonically. +</p> +<p> +"That'll do for you, Mock! Your alibi ain't worth a damn this time. I +saw you myself." +</p> +<p> +"You saw someone else," Mock assured him politely. "I haven't been in +Chinatown." +</p> +<p> +"Say, what yer doin' wit' my Chink?" demanded Emma, appearing in the +doorway. "He was sittin' here wit' me all the afternoon, until about +just before four I sent him over to Fulton Market to buy a bird. Who's +been croaked, eh?" +</p> +<p> +"Aw, cut it out, Emma!" replied Mooney. "That old stuff won't go here. +Your Chink's goin' to the chair. Murtha, look through the place while we +put Mock in the wagon. Hell!" he added under his breath. "Won't this +make Peckham sick!" +</p> +<hr> +<p> +Mr. Ephraim Tutt just finished his morning mail when he was informed +that Mr. Wong Get desired an interview. Though the old lawyer did not +formally represent the Hip Leong Tong he was frequently retained by its +individual members, who held him in high esteem, for they had always +found him loyal to their interests and as much a stickler for honor as +themselves. Moreover, between him and Wong Get there existed a curious +sympathy as if in some previous state of existence Wong Get might have +been Mr. Tutt, and Mr. Tutt Wong Get. Perhaps, however, it was merely +because both were rather weary, sad and worldly wise. +</p> +<p> +Wong Get did not come alone. He was accompanied by two other Hip Leongs, +the three forming the law committee appointed to retain the best +available counsel to defend Mock Hen. In his expansive frock coat and +bowler hat Wong might easily have excited mirth had it not been for the +extreme dignity of his demeanor. They were there, he stated, to request +Mr. Tutt to protect the interests of Mock Hen, and they were prepared to +pay a cash retainer and sign a written contract binding themselves to a +balance—so much if Mock should be convicted; so much if acquitted; so +much if he should die in the course of the trial without having been +either convicted or acquitted. It was, said Wong Get gently, a matter of +grave importance and they would be glad to give Mr. Tutt time to think +it over and decide upon his terms. Suppose, then, that they should +return at noon? With this understanding, accordingly, they departed. +</p> +<p> +"There's no point in skinning a Chink just because he is a Chink," said +the junior Tutt when his partner had explained the situation to him. +"But it isn't the highest-class practise and they ought to pay well." +</p> +<p> +"What do you call well?" inquired Mr. Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, a thousand dollars down, a couple more if he's convicted, and five +altogether if he's acquitted." +</p> +<p> +"Do you think they can raise that amount of money?" +</p> +<p> +"I think so," answered Tutt. "It might be a good deal for an individual +Chink to cough up on his own account, but this is a coöperative affair. +Mock Hen didn't kill Quong Lee to get anything out of it for himself, +but to save the face of his society." +</p> +<p> +"He didn't kill him at all!" declared Mr. Tutt, hardly moving a muscle +of his face. +</p> +<p> +"Well, you know what I mean!" said Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"He wasn't there," insisted Mr. Tutt. "He was way over in Fulton Market +buying a terrapin." +</p> +<p> +"That is what, if I were district attorney, I should call a Mock Hen +with a mockturtle defense!" grunted Tutt. +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt chuckled. +</p> +<p> +"I shall have to get that off myself at the beginning of the case, or it +might convict him," he remarked. "But he wasn't there—unless the jury +find that he was." +</p> +<p> +"In which case he will—or shall—have been there—whatever the verb +is," agreed Tutt. "Anyhow they'll tax every laundry and chop-suey palace +from the Bronx to the Battery to pay us." +</p> +<p> +"I'd hate to take our fee in bird's-nest soup, shark's fin, +bamboo-shoots salad and ya ko main," mused Mr. Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"Or in ivory chopsticks, oolong tea, imitation jade, litchi nuts and +preserved leeches!" groaned Tutt. "Be sure and get the thousand down; it +may be all the cash we'll ever see!" +</p> +<p> +Promptly at twelve the law committee of the Hip Leong Tong returned to +the office of Tutt & Tutt. With them came a venerable Chinaman in native +costume, his wrinkled face as inscrutable as that of a snapping turtle. +The others took chairs, but this high dignitary preferred to sit upon +his heels on the floor, creating something of the impression of an +ancient slant-eyed Buddha. +</p> +<p> +Wong Get translated for his benefit the arrangement proposed by Mr. +Tutt, after which there was a long pause while His Eminence remained +immovable, without even the flicker of an eyelid. Then he delivered +himself in an interminable series of gargles and gurgles, supplemented +by a few cough-like hisses, while Wong Get translated with rapid +dexterity, running verbally in and out among his words like a carriage +dog between the wheels of a vehicle. +</p> +<p> +It was, declared Buddha, an affair of great moment touching upon and +appertaining to the private honor of the Duck, the Wong, the Fong, the +Long, the Sui and various other families, both in America and China. The +life of one of their members was at stake. Their face required that the +proceedings should be as dignified as possible. The price named by Mr. +Tutt was quite inadequate. +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt, repressing a smile, passed a box of stogies. What amount, he +inquired through Wong Get, would satisfy the face of the Duck family? A +somewhat lengthy discussion ensued. Then Buddha rendered his decision. +</p> +<p> +The honor of the Ducks, Longs and Fongs would not be satisfied unless +Mr. Tutt received five thousand dollars down, five more if Mock Hen was +convicted, three more if he died before the conclusion of the trial, and +twenty thousand if he was acquitted. +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt, assuming an equal impassivity, pondered upon the matter for +about an inch of stogy and then informed the committee that the terms +were eminently satisfactory. Buddha thereupon removed from the folds of +his tunic a gigantic roll of soiled bills of all denominations and +carefully counting out five thousand dollars placed it upon the table. +</p> +<p> +"H'm!" remarked Tutt when he learned of the proceeding. "<i>His</i> face is +<i>our</i> fortune!" +</p> +<hr> +<p> +"Look here," expostulated District Attorney Peckham in his office to Mr. +Tutt a month later. "What's the use of our both wasting a couple of +weeks trying a Chinaman who is bound to be convicted? Your time's too +valuable for that sort of thing, and so is mine. We've got three white +witnesses that saw him do it, and a couple of dozen Chinks besides. He +doesn't stand a chance; but just because he is a Chink, and to get the +case out of the way, I'll let you plead him to murder in the second +degree. What do you say?" +</p> +<p> +He tried to conceal his anxiety by nervously lighting a cigar. He would +have given a year's salary to have Mock Hen safely up the river, even on +a conviction for manslaughter in the third, for the newspapers were +making his life a burden with their constant references to the seeming +inability of the police department and district attorney's office to +prevent the recurrence of feud killings in the Chinatown districts. What +use was it, they demanded, to maintain the expensive machinery of +criminal justice if the tongs went gayly on shooting each other up and +incidentally taking the lives of innocent bystanders? Wasn't the law +intended to cover Chinamen as much as Italians, Poles, Greeks and +niggers? And now that one of these murdering Celestials had been caught +red-handed it was up to the D.A. to go to it, convict him, and send him +to the chair! They did not express themselves precisely that way, but +that was the gist of it. But Peckham knew that it was one thing to catch +a Chinaman, even red-handed, and another to convict him. And so did Mr. +Tutt. +</p> +<p> +The old lawyer smiled blandly—after the fashion of the Hip Leong Tong. +Of course, he admitted, it would be much simpler to dispose of the case +as Mr. Peckham suggested, but his client was insistent upon his +innocence and seemed to have an excellent alibi. He regretted, +therefore, that he had no choice except to go to trial. +</p> +<p> +"Then," groaned Peckham, "we may as well take the winter for it. After +this there's going to be a closed season on Chinamen in New York City!" +</p> +<p> +Now though it was true that Mock Hen insisted upon his innocence, he had +not insisted upon it to Mr. Tutt, for the latter had not seen him. In +fact, the old lawyer, recognizing what the law did not, namely that a +system devised for the trial and punishment of Occidentals is totally +inadequate to cope with the Oriental, calmly went about his affairs, +intrusting to Mr. Bonnie Doon of his office the task of interviewing the +witnesses furnished by Wong Get. There was but one issue for the jury to +pass upon. Quong Lee was dead and his honorable soul was with his +illustrious ancestors. He had died from a single blow upon the head, +delivered with an iron bar, there present, to be in evidence, marked +"Exhibit A." Mock Hen was alleged to have done the deed. Had he? There +would be nothing for Mr. Tutt to do but to cross-examine the witnesses +and then call such as could testify to Mock's alibi. So he made no +preparation at all and dismissed the case from his mind. He had hardly +seen a dozen Chinamen in his life—outside of a laundry. +</p> +<hr> +<p> +On the morning set for the trial Mr. Tutt, having been delayed by an +accident in the Subway, entered the Criminal Courts Building only a +moment or two before the call of the calendar. Somewhat preoccupied, he +did not notice the numerous Chinamen who dawdled about the entrance or +the half dozen who crowded with him into the elevator, but when Pat the +elevator man called, "Second floor!—Part One to your right!—Part Two +to the left!" and he stepped out into the marble-floored corridor that +ran round the inside of the building, he was confronted with an unusual +and somewhat ominous spectacle. +</p> +<p> +The entire hallway on two sides of the building was lined with +Chinamen! They sat there motionless as blue-coated images, faces front, +their hands in their laps, their legs crossed beneath them. If anyone +appeared in the offing a couple of hundred pairs of glinting eyes +shifted automatically and followed him until he disappeared, but +otherwise no muscle quivered. +</p> +<p> +"Say," growled Hogan, Judge Bender's private attendant, who was the +first to run the gantlet, "those Chinks are enough to give you the +Willies! Their eyes scared me to death, sticking me through the back!" +</p> +<p> +Even dignified Judge Bender himself as he stalked along the hall, +preceded by two police officers, was not immune from a slight feeling of +uncanniness, and he instinctively drew his robe round his legs that it +might not come into contact with those curious slippers with felt soles +that protruded across the marble slabs. +</p> +<p> +"Eyes right!" They had picked him up the instant he stepped out of the +private elevator—the four hundred of them. If he turned and looked they +were seemingly not watching him, but if he dropped his glance they swung +back in a single moment and focused themselves upon him. And every one +of them probably had a gun hidden somewhere in his baggy pants! The +judge confessed to not liking these foreign homicide cases. You never +could tell what might happen or when somebody was going to get the death +sign. There was Judge Deasy—he had the whole front of his house blown +clean out by a bomb! That had been a close call! And these Chinks—with +their secret oaths and rituals—they'd think nothing at all of jabbing a +knife into you. He didn't fancy it at all and, as he hurried along, +supremely conscious of the deadly cumulative effect of those beady eyes, +he fancied it less and less. What was there to prevent one of them from +getting right up in court and putting a bullet through you? He shivered, +recalling the recent assassination of a judge upon the bench by a Hindu +whom he had sentenced. When he reached his robing room he sent for +Captain Phelan. +</p> +<p> +"See here, captain," he directed sharply, "I want you to keep all those +Chinamen out in the corridor; understand?" +</p> +<p> +"I've got to let some of 'em in, judge," urged Phelan. "You've got to +have an interpreter—and there's a Chinese lawyer associated with Tutt & +Tutt—and of course Mr. O'Brien has to have a couple of 'em so's he'll +know what's going on. Y' see, judge, the On Gee Tong is helping the +prosecution against the Hip Leongs, so both sides has to be more or less +represented." +</p> +<p> +"Well, make sure none of 'em is armed," ordered Judge Bender. "I don't +like these cases." +</p> +<p> +Now the judge, being recently elected and unfamiliar with the situation, +did not realize that nothing could have been farther from the Oriental +mind or intention than an attack upon the officers engaged in the +administration of local justice, whom they regarded merely as nuisances. +What these Chinamen supremely desired was to be allowed to settle their +own affairs in their own historic and traditional way—the way of the +revolver, the silken cord, the knife and the iron bar. Once enmeshed in +Anglo-Saxon juridical procedure, to be sure, they were not averse to +letting it run its course on the bare chance that it might automatically +accomplish their revenge. But they distrusted it, being brought up +according to a much more effective system—one which when it wanted to +punish anybody simply reached out, grabbed him by the pigtail, yanked +him to his knees and sliced off his head. This so-called American +justice was all talk—words, words, words! From their point of view +judges, jurymen and prosecutors were useless pawns in life's game of +chess. Perhaps they are! Who knows! +</p> +<p> +When Judge Bender entered the court room it was, in spite of his +injunction, full of blue blouses. A special panel of two hundred +talesmen filled the first half dozen rows of benches, the others being +occupied by witnesses both Chinese and white, policemen and the +miscellaneous human flotsam and jetsam that always manages somehow or +other to find its way to a murder trial. Inside the rail O'Brien, the +assistant district attorney, was busy in conversation with three cueless +Chinamen in American clothes. At the bar sat Mock Hen with Mr. Tutt +beside him, flanked by Wong Get, Tutt, Bonnie Doon and Buddha. +</p> +<p> +The judge beckoned Mr. Tutt and O'Brien to the front of the bench. +</p> +<p> +"Is there any chance of disposing of this case by a plea?" he inquired. +</p> +<p> +O'Brien looked expectantly at Mr. Tutt, who shook his head. The judge +shrugged his shoulders. +</p> +<p> +"Well, how long is it going to take?" +</p> +<p> +"About six weeks," answered the old lawyer quietly. +</p> +<p> +"What!" ejaculated judge and prosecutor in unison. +</p> +<p> +"A day or two less, perhaps," affirmed Mr. Tutt, "but, likely as not, +considerably longer." +</p> +<p> +"I shall cut it down as much as I can," announced the judge, appalled at +the prospect. "I shall not permit this trial to be dragged out +indefinitely." +</p> +<p> +"Nothing would please me better, Your Honor," said Mr. Tutt with the +shadow of a smile. "Shall we proceed to select the jury?" +</p> +<p> +The accuracy of Mr. Tutt's prophecy as to the probable length of the +trial was partially demonstrated when it developed that most of the +talesmen had a pronounced antipathy to Chinese murder cases, and a +deep-rooted prejudice against the race as a whole. In fact, a certain +subconscious influence affecting most of them was formulated by the +thirty-ninth talesman to be rejected, who, in a moment of resentment, +burst forth, "I don't mind trying decent American criminals, but I hold +it isn't any part of a citizen's duty to try Chinamen!" and was promptly +struck off the jury list. +</p> +<p> +"I say, chief," disgustedly declared O'Brien to Peckham at the noon +recess as they clinked glasses over the bar at Pont's, "you've handed me +a ripe, juicy Messina all right! I won't be able to get a jury. We've +been at it since ten o'clock and we haven't lured a single sucker into +the box!" +</p> +<p> +"What's the matter?" inquired the D.A. apprehensively. +</p> +<p> +"I can't quite make out," answered O'Brien. "But most of 'em seem to +have a sort of idea that to kill a Chinaman ain't a crime but a virtue!" +</p> +<p> +"Well, don't tell anybody," whispered Peckham, "but I'm somewhat of that +way of thinking myself. Set 'em up again, John!" +</p> +<p> +However, by invoking the utmost celerity a jury was at last selected and +sworn at the end of the nineteenth day of the trial. As a jury O'Brien +confidentially admitted to Peckham it wasn't much! But what could you +expect of a bunch who were willing to swear that they hadn't any +prejudice against a Chink and would as soon acquit him as a white man? +The truth was that they were all gentlemen who, having lost their jobs, +were willing to swear to anything that would bring them in two dollars a +day. The more days the better! And it is historic fact that during the +sixty-nine days of Mock Hen's prosecution not one of them protested at +being kept away from his wife and children, his business or his +pleasure. On the contrary they all slumbered peacefully from ten until +four—and when the trial ended, on the whole they rather regretted that +it was over, the only genuine opinion regarding the case being that the +Chinks were all as funny as hell and that Mr. Tutt was a bully old boy. +</p> +<p> +The evidence respecting the death of the unfortunate Quong Lee made +little impression upon them. Seemingly they regarded the story much as +they did that of Elisha and the bears or Bel and the dragon—as a sort +of apocryphal narrative which they were required to listen to, but in no +wise bound to believe. They were much interested in Quong's suit of +chain mail, however, and from time to time awoke to enjoy the various +verbal encounters between the judge and Mr. Tutt. As factors in the +proceedings they did not count, except to receive their two dollars per +diem, board, lodging and hack fare. +</p> +<p> +The trial of Mock Hen being conducted in a foreign language, the first +judicial step was the swearing of an interpreter. The On Gees had +promptly produced one, whom O'Brien told the court was a very learned +man; a graduate of the Imperial University at Peking, and a Son of the +Sacred Dragon. Be that as it may, he was not prepossessing in his +appearance and Mr. Tutt assured Judge Bender that far from being what +the district attorney pretended, the man was a well-known gambler, who +made his living largely by blackmail. He might be a son of a dragon or +he might not; anyway he was a son of Belial. An interpreter was the +conduit through which all the evidence must pass. If the official were +biased or corrupt the testimony would be distorted, colored or +suppressed. +</p> +<p> +Now he—Mr. Tutt—had an interpreter, the well-known Dr. Hong Su, +against whom nothing could be said, and upon whose fat head rested no +imputation of partiality; a graduate of Harvard, a writer of note, a— +</p> +<p> +O'Brien sprang to his feet: "My interpreter says your interpreter is an +opium smuggler, that he murdered his aunt in Hong Kong, that he isn't a +doctor at all, and that he never graduated from anything except a +chop-suey joint," he interjected. +</p> +<p> +"This is outrageous!" cried Mr. Tutt, palpably shocked at such language. +</p> +<p> +"Gentlemen! Gentlemen!" groaned Judge Bender. "What am I to do? I don't +know anything about these men. One looks to me about the same as the +other. The court has no time to inquire into their antecedents. They may +both be learned scholars or they may each be what the other says he +is—I don't know. But we've got to begin to try this case sometime." +</p> +<p> +It was finally agreed that in order that there might be no possible +question of partiality there should be two interpreters—one for the +prosecution and one for the defense. Both accordingly were sworn and the +first witness, Ah Fong, was called. +</p> +<p> +"Ask him if he understands the nature of an oath," directed O'Brien. +</p> +<p> +The interpreter for the state turned to Ah Fong and said something +sweetly to him in multitudinous words. +</p> +<p> +Instantly Doctor Su rose indignantly. The other interpreter was not +putting the question at all, but telling the witness what to say. +Moreover, the other interpreter belonged to the On Gee Tong. He stood +waving his arms and gobbling like an infuriated turkey while his +adversary replied in similar fashion. +</p> +<p> +"This won't do!" snapped the judge. "This trial will degenerate into +nothing but a cat fight if we are not careful." Then a bright idea +suggested itself to his Occidental mind. "Suppose I appoint an official +umpire to say which of the other two interpreters is correct—and let +them decide who he shall be?" +</p> +<p> +This proposition was received with grunts of satisfaction by the two +antagonists, who conferred together with astonishing amiability and +almost immediately conducted into the court room a tall, emaciated +Chinaman who they alleged was entirely satisfactory to both of them. He +was accordingly sworn as a third interpreter, and the trial began again. +</p> +<p> +It was observed that thereafter there was no dispute whatever regarding +the accuracy of the testimony, and as each interpreter was paid for his +services at the rate of ten dollars a day it was rumored that the whole +affair had been arranged by agreement between the two societies, which +divided the money, amounting to some eighteen hundred dollars, between +them. But, as O'Brien afterward asked Peckham, "How in thunder could you +tell?" +</p> +<p> +The court's troubles had, however, only begun. Ah Fong was a +whimsical-looking person, who gave an impression of desiring to make +himself generally agreeable. He was, of course, the star witness—if a +Chinaman can ever be a star witness—and presumably had been carefully +schooled as to the manner in which he should give his testimony. He and +he alone had seen the whole tragedy from beginning to end. He it was, if +anybody, who would tuck Mock Hen comfortably into his coffin. +</p> +<p> +The problem of the interpreters having been solved Fong settled himself +comfortably in the witness chair, crossed his hands upon his stomach and +looked complacently at Mock Hen. +</p> +<p> +"Well, now let's get along," adjured His Honor. "Swear the witness." +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt immediately rose. +</p> +<p> +"If the court please," said he, "I object to the swearing of the witness +unless it is made to appear that he will regard himself as bound by the +oath as administered. Now this man is a Chinaman. I should like to ask +him a preliminary question or two." +</p> +<p> +"That seems fair, Mr. O'Brien," agreed the court. "Do you see any reason +why Mr. Tutt shouldn't interrogate the witness?" +</p> +<p> +"Oh, let me qualify my own witness!" retorted O'Brien fretfully. "Ah +Fong, will you respect the oath to testify truthfully, about to be +administered to you?" +</p> +<p> +The interpreter delivered a broadside of Chinese at Ah Fong, who +listened attentively and replied at equal length. Then the interpreter +went at him again, and again Ah Fong affably responded. It was +interminable. +</p> +<p> +The two muttered and chortled at each other until O'Brien, losing +patience, jumped up and called out: "What's all this? Can't you ask him +a simple question and get a simple answer? This isn't a debating +society." +</p> +<p> +The interpreter held up his hand, indicating that the prosecutor should +have patience. +</p> +<p> +"<i>Ah-ya-ya-oo-aroo-yung-ung-loy-a-a-ya oo-chu-a-oy-ah-ohay-tching</i>!" he +concluded. +</p> +<p> +"<i>A-yah-oy-a-yoo-oy-ah-chuck-uh-ung-loy-oo-ayah-a-yoo-chung-chung-szt- +oo-aha-oy-ou-ungaroo—yah-yah-yah!</i>" replied Ah Fong. +</p> +<p> +"Thank heaven, that's over!" sighed O'Brien. +</p> +<p> +The interpreter drew himself up to his full height. +</p> +<p> +"He says yes," he declared dramatically. +</p> +<p> +"It's the longest yes I ever heard!" audibly remarked the foreman, who +was feeling his oats. +</p> +<p> +"Does not that satisfy you?" inquired the court of Mr. Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"I am sorry to say it does not!" replied the latter. "Mr. O'Brien has +simply asked whether he will keep his oath. His reply sheds no light on +whether his religious belief is such that it would obligate him to +respect an oath." +</p> +<p> +"Well, ask him yourself!" snorted O'Brien. +</p> +<p> +"Ah Fong, do you believe in any god?" inquired Mr. Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"He says yes," answered the interpreter after the usual interchange. +</p> +<p> +"What god do you believe in?" persisted Mr. Tutt. +</p> +<p> +Suddenly Ah Fong made answer without the intervention of the +interpreter. +</p> +<p> +"When I in this country," he replied complacently in English, "I b'lieve +Gees Clist; when I in China I b'lieve Chinese god." +</p> +<p> +"Does Your Honor hold that an obliging acquiescence in local theology +constitutes such a religious belief as to make this man's oath sacred?" +inquired Mr. Tutt. +</p> +<p> +The judge smiled. +</p> +<p> +"I don't see why not!" he declared. "There isn't any precedent as far as +I am aware. But he says he believes in the Deity. Isn't that enough?" +</p> +<p> +"Not unless he believes that the Deity will punish him if he breaks his +oath," answered Mr. Tutt. "Let me try him on that?" +</p> +<p> +"Ah Fong, do you think God will punish you if you tell a lie?" +</p> +<p> +Fong looked blank. The interpreter fired a few salvos. +</p> +<p> +"He says it makes a difference the kind of oath." +</p> +<p> +"Suppose it is a promise to tell the truth?" +</p> +<p> +"He says what kind of a promise?" +</p> +<p> +"A promise on the Bible," answered Mr. Tutt patiently. +</p> +<p> +"He says what god you mean!" countered the interpreter. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, any god!" roared Mr. Tutt. +</p> +<p> +The interpreter, after a long parley, made reply. +</p> +<p> +"Ah Fong says there is no binding oath except on a chicken's head." +</p> +<p> +Judge Bender, O'Brien and Mr. Tutt gazed at one another helplessly. +</p> +<p> +"Well, there you are!" exclaimed the lawyer. "Mr. O'Brien's oath wasn't +any oath at all! What kind of a chicken's head?" +</p> +<p> +"A white rooster." +</p> +<p> +"Quite so!" nodded Mr. Tutt. "Your Honor, I object to this witness being +sworn by any oath or in any form except on the head of a white rooster!" +</p> +<p> +"Well, I don't happen to have a white rooster about me!" remarked +O'Brien, while the jury rocked with glee. "Ask him if something else +won't do. A big book for instance?" +</p> +<p> +The interpreter put the question and then shook his head. According to +Ah Fong there was no virtue in books whatever, either large or small. On +some occasions an oath could be properly taken on a broken plate—also +white—but not in murder cases. It was chicken or nothing. +</p> +<p> +"Are you not willing to waive the formality of an oath, Mr. Tutt?" asked +the judge in slight impatience. +</p> +<p> +"And wave my client into the chair?" demanded the lawyer. "No, sir!" +</p> +<p> +"I don't see what we can do except to adjourn court until you can +procure the necessary poultry," announced Judge Bender. "Even then we +can't slaughter them in court. We'll have to find some suitable place!" +</p> +<p> +"Why not kill one rooster and swear all the witnesses at once?" +suggested Mr. Tutt in a moment of inspiration. +</p> +<hr> +<p> +"My God, chief!" exclaimed O'Brien at four o'clock. "There ain't a white +rooster to be had anywhere! Hens, yes! By the hundred! But roosters are +extinct! Tomorrow will be the twenty-first day of this prosecution and +not a witness sworn yet." +</p> +<p> +However, a poultryman was presently discovered who agreed simply for +what advertising there was in it to furnish a crate of white roosters, +a hatchet and a headsman's block, and to have them in the basement of +the building promptly at ten o'clock. +</p> +<p> +Accordingly, at that hour Judge Bender convened Part IX of the General +Sessions in the court room and then adjourned downstairs, where all the +prospective witnesses for the prosecution were lined up in a body and +told to raise their right hands. +</p> +<p> +Meantime Clerk McGuire was handed the hatchet, and approached the coop +with obvious misgivings. Ah Fong had already given a dubious approval to +the sex and quality of the fowls inside and naught remained but to +submit the proper oath and remove the head of the unfortunate victim. A +large crowd of policemen, witnesses, reporters, loafers, truckmen and +others drawn by the unusual character of the proceedings had assembled +and now proceeded without regard for the requirements of judicial +dignity to encourage McGuire in his capacity of executioner, by profane +shouts and jeers, to do his deadly deed. +</p> +<p> +But the clerk had had no experience with chickens and in bashfully +groping for the selected rooster allowed several other occupants of the +crate to escape. Instantly the air was filled with fluttering, squawking +fowls while fifty frenzied police officers and Chinamen attempted +vainly to reduce them to captivity again. In the midst of the mêlée +McGuire caught his rooster, and fearful lest it should escape him +managed somehow to decapitate it. The body, however, had been flopping +around spasmodically several seconds upon the floor before he realized +that the oath had not been administered, and his voice suddenly rose +above the pandemonium in an excited brogue. +</p> +<p> +"Hold up your hands, you! You do solemnly swear that in the case of The +People against Mock Hen you will tell the truth, the whole truth and +nothing but the truth so help you God!" +</p> +<p> +But the interpreter was at that moment engaged in clasping to his bosom +a struggling rooster and was totally unable to fulfill his functions. +Meantime the jury, highly edified at this illustration of the +administration of justice, gazed down upon the spectacle from the +stairs. +</p> +<p> +"This farce has gone far enough!" declared Judge Bender disgustedly. "We +will return to the court room. Put those roosters back where they +belong!" +</p> +<p> +Once more the participants ascended to Part IX and Ah Fong took his seat +in the witness chair. The interpreter's blouse was covered with +pin-feathers and one of his thumbs was bleeding profusely. +</p> +<p> +"Ask the witness if the oath that he has now taken will bind his +conscience?" directed the court. +</p> +<p> +Again the interpreter and Ah Fong held converse. +</p> +<p> +"He says," translated that official calmly, "that the chicken oath is +all right in China, but that it is no good in United States, and that +anyway the proper form of words was not used." +</p> +<p> +"Good Lord!" ejaculated O'Brien. "Where am I?" +</p> +<p> +"Me tell truth, all light," suddenly announced Ah Fong in English. "Go +ahead! Shoot!" And he smiled an inscrutable age-long Oriental smile. +</p> +<p> +The jury burst into laughter. +</p> +<p> +"He's stringing you!" the foreman kindly informed O'Brien, who cursed +silently. +</p> +<p> +"Go on, Mister District Attorney, examine the witness," directed the +judge. "I shall permit no further variations upon the established forms +of procedure." +</p> +<p> +Then at last and not until then—on the morning of the twenty-first +day—did Ah Fong tell his simple story and the jury for the first time +learn what it was all about. But by then they had entirely ceased to +care, being engrossed in watching Mr. Tutt at his daily amusement of +torturing O'Brien into a state of helpless exasperation. +</p> +<p> +Ah Fong gave his testimony with a clarity of detail that left nothing +to be desired, and he was corroborated in most respects by the Italian +woman, who identified Mock Hen as the Chinaman with the iron bar. Their +evidence was supplemented by that of Bull Neck Burke and Miss Malone, +who also were positive that they had seen Mock running from the scene of +the murder at exactly four-one o'clock. +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt hardly cross-examined Fong at all, but with Mr. Burke he +pursued very different tactics, speedily rousing the wrestler to such a +condition of fury that he was hardly articulate, for the old lawyer +gently hinted that Mr. Burke was inventing the whole story for the +purpose of assisting his friends in the On Gee Tong. +</p> +<p> +"But I tell yer I don't know no Chinks!" bellowed Burke, looking more +like a bull than ever. "This here Mock Hen run right by me. My goil saw +him too. I looked at me ticker to get the time!" +</p> +<p> +"Ah! Then you expected to be a witness for the On Gee Tong!" +</p> +<p> +"Naw! I tell yer I was walkin' wit' me goil!" +</p> +<p> +"What is the lady's name?" +</p> +<p> +"Miss Malone." +</p> +<p> +"What is her occupation?" +</p> +<p> +"She's a gay burlesquer." +</p> +<p> +"A gay burlesquer?" +</p> +<p> +"Sure—champagne goil and gay burlesquer." +</p> +<p> +"A champagne girl!" +</p> +<p> +"Dat's what I said." +</p> +<p> +"You mean that she is upon the stage?" +</p> +<p> +"Sure—dat's it!" +</p> +<p> +"Oh!" Mr. Tutt looked relieved. +</p> +<p> +"What had you and Miss Malone been doing that afternoon?" +</p> +<p> +"I told yer—walkin'." +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt coughed slightly. +</p> +<p> +"Is that all?" +</p> +<p> +"Say, watcha drivin' at?" +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt elevated his bushy eyebrows. +</p> +<p> +"How do you earn your living?" he demanded, changing his method of +attack. +</p> +<p> +Bull Neck allowed his head to sink still farther into the vast bulk of +his immense torso, strangely resembling, in this position, the fabled +anthropophagi whose heads are reputed thus to "grow beneath their +shoulders." +</p> +<p> +Then throwing out his jaw he announced proudly between set teeth: "I'm a +perfessor of physical sculture!" +</p> +<p> +The jury sniggered. Mr. Tutt appeared politely puzzled. +</p> +<p> +"A professor of what?" +</p> +<p> +"A perfessor of physical sculture!" repeated Bull Neck with great +satisfaction. +</p> +<p> +"Oh! A professor of physical sculpture!" exclaimed Mr. Tutt, light +breaking over his wrinkled countenance. "And what may that be?" +</p> +<p> +Bull Neck looked round disgustedly at the jury as if to say: "What +ignorance!" +</p> +<p> +"Trainin' an' developin' prominent people!" he explained. +</p> +<p> +"Um!" remarked Mr. Tutt. "Who invited you to testify in this case?" +</p> +<p> +"Mr. Mooney." +</p> +<p> +"Oh, you're a friend of Mooney's! That is all!" +</p> +<p> +Now it is apparent from these questions and answers that Mr. Burke had +testified to nothing to his discredit and had conducted himself as a +gentleman and a sportsman according to his best lights. Yet owing to the +subtle suggestions contained in Mr. Tutt's inflections and demeanor the +jury leaped unhesitatingly to the conclusion that here was a man so +ignorant and debased that if he were not deliberately lying he was being +made a cat's-paw by the police in the interest of the On Gee Tong. +</p> +<p> +Miss Malone fared even worse, for after a preliminary skirmish she +flatly refused to give Mr. Tutt or the jury any information whatever +regarding her past life, while Mooney, of course, labored from the +beginning to the end of his testimony under the curse of being a +policeman, one of that class whom most jurymen take pride in saying they +hold in natural distrust. In a word, the white witnesses to the +dastardly murder of Quong Lee created a general impression of +unreliability upon the minds of the jury, who wholly failed to realize +the somewhat obvious truth that the witnesses to a crime in Chinatown +will naturally if not inevitably be persons who either reside in or +frequent that locality. +</p> +<p> +Twenty-four days had now been consumed in the trial, and as yet no +Chinese witnesses except Ah Fong had been called. Now, however, they +appeared in cohorts. Though Mooney had sworn that the streets were +practically empty at the time of the homicide forty-one Chinese +witnesses swore positively that they had been within easy view, claiming +variously to have been behind doors, peeking through shutters, at upper +windows and even on the roofs. All had identified Mock Hen as the +murderer, and none of them had ever heard of either the On Gee or the +Hip Leong Tong! Mr. Tutt could not shake them upon cross-examination, +and O'Brien began to show signs of renewed confidence. Each testified to +substantially the same story and they occupied seventeen full days in +the telling, so that when the prosecution rested, forty-two days had +been consumed since the first talesman had been called. The trial had +sunk into a dull, unbroken monotony, as Mr. Tutt said, of the "vain +repetitions of the heathen." Yet the police and the district attorney +had done all that could reasonably have been expected of them. They were +simply confronted by the very obvious fact—a condition and not a +theory—that the legal processes of Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence are of +slight avail in dealing with people of another race. +</p> +<p> +Now it is possible that even had Mr. Tutt put in no defense whatever the +jury might have refused to convict, for there was a curious air of +unreality surrounding the whole affair. It all seemed somehow as +if—assuming that it had ever taken place at all—it had occurred in +some other world and in some other age. Perhaps under what might have +been practically a direction of the court a verdict of conviction might +have been returned—but it is doubtful. The more witnesses testified to +exactly the same thing in precisely the same words the less likely it +appeared to be. +</p> +<p> +But Mr. Tutt was taking no chances and, upon the forty-third day of the +trial, at a nod from the bench, he opened his case. Never had he been +more serious; never more persuasive. Abandoning every suggestion of +frivolity, he weighed the testimony of each white witness and pointed +out its obvious lack of probative value. Not one, he said, except the +Italian woman, had had more than a fleeting glance of the face of the +man now accused of the crime. Such an identification was useless. The +Chinamen were patently lying. They had not been there at all! Would any +member of the jury hang a dog, even a yellow one, on such testimony? Of +course not! Much less a human being. The people had called forty +witnesses to prove that Mock Hen had killed Quong Lee. It made no +difference. The On Gee could have just as easily produced four hundred. +Moreover, Mr. Tutt did a very daring thing. He pronounced all Chinese +testimony in an American court of justice as absolutely valueless, and +boasted that for every Chinaman who swore Mock Hen was guilty he would +bring forward two who would swear him innocent. +</p> +<p> +The thing was, as he had carefully explained to Bonnie Doon, to prove +that Mock was a good Chinaman and, if the jury did not believe that +there was any such animal, to convince them that it was possible. His +first task, however, was to polish off the Chinese testimony by calling +the witnesses who had been secured under the guidance of Wong Get. He +admitted afterward that in view of the exclusion law he had not supposed +there were so many Chinamen in the United States, for they crowded the +corridors and staircases of the Criminal Courts Building, arriving in +companies—the Wong family, the Mocks, the Fongs, the Lungs, the Sues, +and others of the sacred Hip Sing Society from near at hand and from +distant parts—from Brooklyn and Flatbush, from Flushing and Far +Rockaway, from Hackensack and Hoboken, from Trenton and Scranton, from +Buffalo and Saratoga, from Chicago and St. Louis, and each and every one +of them swore positively upon the severed neck of the whitest +rooster—the broken fragments of the whitest of porcelain plates—the +holiest of books—that he had been present in person at Fulton Market in +New York City at precisely four-fifteen o'clock in the afternoon and +assisted Mock Hen, the defendant, in selecting and purchasing a terrapin +for stew. +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt grinned at the jury and the jury grinned affectionately back at +Mr. Tutt. Indeed, after the length of time they had all been together +they had almost as much respect for him as for the judge upon the bench. +The whole court seemed to be a sort of Tutt Club, of which even O'Brien +was a member. +</p> +<p> +"Now," said Mr. Tutt, "I will call a few witnesses to show you what kind +of a man this is whom these highbinders accuse of the crime of murder!" +</p> +<p> +Mock, rolling his eyes heavenward, assumed an expression of infantile +helplessness and trust. +</p> +<p> +"Don't overdo it!" growled Tutt. "Just look kind of gentle." +</p> +<p> +So Mock looked as gentle as a suckling dove while two professors from +Columbia University, three of his landlords in his more reputable +business enterprises, the superintendent of the Rising Sun Mission, four +ex-police officers, a fireman, and an investigator for the Society for +the Suppression of Sin swore upon Holy Writ and with all sincerity that +Mock Hen was not only a person of the most excellent character and +reputation but a Christian and a gentleman. +</p> +<p> +And then Mr. Tutt played his trump card. +</p> +<p> +"I will call Miss Frances Duryea, of Hudson House," he announced. "Miss +Duryea, will you kindly take the witness chair?" +</p> +<p> +Miss Fanny modestly rose from her seat in the rear of the room and came +forward. No one could for an instant doubt the honesty and impartiality +of this devoted middle-aged woman, who, surrendering the comforts and +luxuries of her home uptown, to which she was well entitled by reason of +her age, was devoting herself to a life of service. If a woman like +that, thought the jury, was ready to vouch for Mock's good character, +why waste any more time on the case? But Miss Fanny was to do much more. +</p> +<p> +"Miss Duryea," began Mr. Tutt, "do you know the defendant?" +</p> +<p> +"Yes, sir; I do," she answered quietly. +</p> +<p> +"How long have you known him?" +</p> +<p> +"Six years." +</p> +<p> +"Do you know his reputation for peace and quiet?" +</p> +<p> +Miss Fanny half turned to the judge and then faced the jury. +</p> +<p> +"He is one of the sweetest characters I have ever known," she replied, +"and I have known many—" +</p> +<p> +"Oh, I object!" interrupted O'Brien. "This lady can't be permitted to +testify to anything like that. She must be limited by the rules of +evidence!" +</p> +<p> +With one movement the jury wheeled and glared at him. +</p> +<p> +"I guess this lady can say anything she wants!" declared the foreman +chivalrously. +</p> +<p> +O'Brien sank down in his seat. What was the use! +</p> +<p> +"Go on, please," gently directed Mr. Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"As I was saying, Mr. Mock Hen is a very remarkable character," +responded Miss Fanny. "He is devoted to the mission and to us at the +settlement. I would trust him absolutely in regard to anything." +</p> +<p> +"Thank you," said Mr. Tutt, smiling benignly. "Now, Miss Duryea, did you +see Mock Hen at any time on May sixth?" +</p> +<p> +Instantly the jury showed renewed signs of life. May sixth? That was +the day of the murder. +</p> +<p> +"I did," answered Miss Fanny with conviction. "He came to see me at +Hudson House in the afternoon and while we were talking the clock struck +four." +</p> +<p> +The jury looked at one another and nodded. +</p> +<p> +"Well, I guess that settles this case!" announced the foreman. +</p> +<p> +"Right!" echoed a talesman behind him. +</p> +<p> +"I object!" wailed O'Brien. "This is entirely improper!" +</p> +<p> +"Quite so!" ruled Judge Bender sternly. "The jurymen will not make any +remarks!" +</p> +<p> +"But, Your Honor—we all agreed at recess there was nothing in this +case," announced the foreman. "And now this testimony simply clinches +it. Why go on with it!" +</p> +<p> +"That's so!" ejaculated another. "Let us go, judge." +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt's weather-beaten face was wreathed in smiles. +</p> +<p> +"Easy, gentlemen!" he cautioned. +</p> +<p> +The judge shrugged his shoulders, frowning. +</p> +<p> +"This is very irregular!" he said. +</p> +<p> +Then he beckoned to O'Brien, and the two whispered together for several +minutes, while all over the court room on the part of those who had sat +there so patiently for sixty-nine days there was a prolonged and +ecstatic wriggling of arms and legs. Instinctively they all knew that +the farce was over. +</p> +<p> +The assistant district attorney returned to his table but did not sit +down. +</p> +<p> +"If the court please," he said rather wearily, "the last witness, Miss +Duryea, by her testimony, which I personally am quite ready to accept as +truthful, has interjected a reasonable doubt of the defendant's guilt +into what otherwise would in my opinion be a case for the jury. If Mock +Hen was at Hudson House, nearly two miles from Pell and Doyers Streets, +at four o'clock on the afternoon of the homicide, manifestly he could +not have been one of the assailants of Quong Lee at one minute past +four. I am satisfied that no jury would convict—" +</p> +<p> +"Not on your life!" snorted the foreman airily. +</p> +<p> +"—and I therefore," went on O'Brien, "ask the court to direct an +acquittal." +</p> +<hr> +<p> +In the grand banquet hall of the Shanghai and Hongkong American-Chinese +Restaurant, Ephraim Tutt, draped in a blue mandarin coat with a tasseled +pill box rakishly upon his old gray head, sat beside Wong Get and Buddha +at the head of a long table surrounded by three hundred Chinamen in +their richest robes of ceremony. Lanterns of party-colored glass +swaying from gilded rafters shed a strange light upon a silken cloth +marvelously embroidered and laden with the choicest of Oriental dishes, +and upon the pale faces of the Hip Leong Tong—the Mocks, the Wongs, the +Fongs and the rest—both those who had testified and also those who had +merely been ready if duty called to do so, all of whom were now gathered +together to pay honor where they felt honor to be due; namely, at the +shrine of Mr. Tutt. +</p> +<p> +Deft Chinese waiters slipped silently from guest to guest with +bird's-nest soup, guy soo main, mon goo guy pan, shark's fin and lung +har made of shreds of lobster, water chestnuts, rice and the succulent +shoots of the young bamboo, while three musicians in a corner sang +through their nose a syncopated dirge. "Wang-ang-ang-ang!" it rose and +fell as Mr. Tutt, his neck encircled by a wreath of lilies, essayed to +manipulate a pair of long black chop-sticks. "Wang-ang-ang-ang!" About +him were golden limes, ginger in syrup, litchi nuts, pickled leeches. +</p> +<p> +Then he felt a touch upon his shoulder and turned to see Fong Hen, the +slipper, standing beside him. It was the duty of Fong Hen to drink with +each guest—more than that, to drink as much as each guest drank! He +gravely offered Mr. Tutt a pony of rice brandy. It was not the fiery +lava he had anticipated, but a soft, caressing nectar, fragrant as if +distilled from celestial flowers of the time of Confucius. The slipper +swallowed the same quantity at a gulp, bowed and passed along. +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt vainly tried to grasp the fact that he was in his own native +city of New York. Long sleeves covered with red and purple dragons hid +his arms and hands, and below the collar a smooth tight surface of silk +across his breast made access to his pockets quite impossible. In one of +them reposed twenty one-thousand-dollar bills—his fee for securing the +acquittal of Mock Hen. Yes, he was in New York! +</p> +<p> +The monotonous wail of the instruments, the pungency of the incense, the +subdued light, the humid breath of the roses carried the thoughts of Mr. +Tutt far away. Before him, against the blue misty sunshine, rose the +yellow temples of Peking. He could hear the faint tintinnabulation of +bells. He was wandering in a garden fragrant with jasmine blossoms and +adorned with ancient graven stones and carved gilt statues. The air was +sweet. Mr. Tutt was very tired.... +</p> +<p> +"Let him sleep!" nodded Buddha, deftly conveying to his wrinkled lips a +delicate morsel of guy yemg dun. "Let him sleep! He has earned his +sleep. He has saved our face!" +</p> +<p> +It was after midnight when Mr. Tutt, heavily laden with princely gifts +of ivory and jade and boxes of priceless teas, emerged from the side +door of the Shanghai and Hongkong American-Chinese Restaurant. The sky +was brilliant with stars and the sidewalks of Doyers and Pell Streets +were crowded with pedestrians. Near by a lantern-bedecked rubber-neck +wagon was in process of unloading its cargo of seekers after the curious +and unwholesome. On either side of him walked Wong Get and Buddha. They +had hardly reached the corner when five shots echoed in quick succession +above the noise of the traffic and the crowd turned with one accord and +rushed in the direction from which he had just come. +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt, startled, stopped and looked back. Courteously also stopped +Wong Get and Buddha. A throng was fast gathering in front of the +Shanghai and Hongkong Restaurant. +</p> +<p> +Then Murtha appeared, shouldering his way roughly through the mob. +Catching sight of Mr. Tutt, he paused long enough to whisper hoarsely in +the lawyer's ear: "Well, they got Mock Hen! Five bullets in him! But if +they were going to, why in hell couldn't they have done it three months +ago?" +</p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<a name="SAMUEL"><!-- SAMUEL --></a> +<h2> +Samuel and Delilah +</h2> +<p> </p> +<blockquote><p> +"And it came to pass, when she pressed him daily with +her words, and urged him, so that his soul was vexed +unto death; that he told her all his heart, and said unto +her, There hath not come a razor upon mine head; ... +if I be shaven, then my strength will go from me, and I +shall become weak and be like any other man."—JUDGES XVI, 16, 17. +</p></blockquote> +<p> +"Have you seen '76 Fed.' anywhere, Mr. Tutt?" inquired Tutt, appearing +suddenly in the doorway of his partner's office. +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt looked up from Page 364 of the opinion he was perusing in "The +United States vs. One Hundred and Thirty-two Packages of Spirituous +Liquors and Wines." +</p> +<p> +"Got it here in front of me," he answered shortly. "What do you want it +for?" +</p> +<p> +Tutt looked over his shoulder. +</p> +<p> +"That's a grand name for a case, isn't it? 'Packages of Wines!'" he +chuckled. "I made a note once of a matter entitled 'United States vs. +Forty-three Cases of Frozen Eggs'; and of another called 'United States +vs. One Feather Mattress and One Hundred and Fifty Pounds of +Butter'—along in 197 Federal Reports, if I remember correctly. And you +recall that accident case we had—Bump against the Railroad?" +</p> +<p> +"You can't tell me anything about names," remarked Mr. Tutt. "I once +tried a divorce action. Fuss against Fuss; and another, Love against +Love. Do you really want this book?" +</p> +<p> +"Not if you are using it," replied Tutt. "I just wanted to show an +authority to Mr. Sorg, the president of the Fat and Skinny Club. You +know our application for a certificate of incorporation was denied +yesterday by Justice McAlpin." +</p> +<p> +"No, I didn't know it," returned Mr. Tutt. "Why?" +</p> +<p> +"Here's his memorandum in the Law Journal," answered his partner. "Read +it for yourself": +</p> +<blockquote><p> +Matter of Fat and Skinny Club, Inc. This is an +application for approval of a certificate of incorporation +as a membership corporation. The stated purposes are +to promote and encourage social intercourse and good +fellowship and to advance the interests of the community. +The name selected is the Fat and Skinny Club. If this +be the most appropriate name descriptive of its membership +it is better that it remain unincorporated. Application +denied. +</p></blockquote> +<p> +"Now who says the law isn't the perfection of common sense?" ruminated +Mr. Tutt. "Its general principles are magnificent." +</p> +<p> +"And yet," mused Tutt, "only last week Judge McAlpin granted the +petition of one Solomon Swackhamer to change his name to Phillips Brooks +Vanderbilt. Is that right? Is that justice? Is it equity? I ask +you!—when he turns down the Fat and Skinnies?" +</p> +<p> +"Oh, yes it is," retorted Mr. Tutt. "When you consider that Mr. +Swackhamer could have assumed the appellation of P.B. Vanderbilt or any +other name he chose without asking the court's permission at all." +</p> +<p> +"What!" protested Tutt incredulously. +</p> +<p> +"That's the law," returned the senior partner. "A man can call himself +what he chooses and change his name as often as he likes—so long, of +course, as he doesn't do it to defraud. The mere fact that a statute +likewise gives him the right to apply to the courts to accomplish the +same result makes no difference." +</p> +<p> +"Of course it might make him feel a little more comfortable about it to +do it that way," suggested Tutt. "Do you know, as long as I've practised +law in this town I've always assumed that one had to get permission to +change one's name." +</p> +<p> +"You've learned something," said Mr. Tutt suavely. "I hope you will put +it to good account. Here's '76 Fed.' Take it out and console the Fat and +Skinny Club with it if you can." +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt surrendered the volume without apparent regret and Tutt retired +to his own office and to the task of soothing the injured feelings of +Mr. Sorg. +</p> +<p> +A simple-minded little man was Tutt, for all his professional shrewdness +and ingenuity. Like many a hero of the battlefield and of the bar, once +inside the palings of his own fence he became modest, gentle, even +timorous. For Abigail, his wife, had no illusions about him and did not +affect to have any. To her neither Tutt nor Mr. Tutt was any such great +shakes. Had Tutt dared to let her know of many of the schemes which he +devised for the profit or safety of his clients she would have thought +less of him still; in fact, she might have parted with him forever. In a +sense Mrs. Tutt was an exacting woman. Though she somewhat reluctantly +consented to view the hours from nine a.m. to five p.m. in her husband's +day as belonging to the law, she emphatically regarded the rest of the +twenty-four hours as belonging to her. +</p> +<p> +The law may be, as Judge Holmes has called it, "a jealous mistress," but +in the case of Tutt it was not nearly so jealous as his wife. So Tutt +was compelled to walk the straight-and-narrow path whether he liked it +or not. On the whole he liked it well enough, but there were +times—usually in the spring—when without being conscious of what was +the matter with him he mourned his lost youth. For Tutt was only +forty-eight and he had had a grandfather who had lived strenuously to +upward of twice that age. He was vigorous, sprightly, bright-eyed and as +hard as nails, even if somewhat resembling in his contours the late Mr. +Pickwick. Mrs. Tutt was tall, spare, capable and sardonic. She made Tutt +comfortable, but she no longer appealed to his sense of romance. Still +she held him. As the playwright hath said "It isn't good looks they +want, but good nature; if a warm welcome won't hold them, cold cream +won't." +</p> +<p> +However, Tutt got neither looks nor cold cream. His welcome, in fact, +was warm only if he stayed out too late, and then the later the warmer. +His relationship to his wife was prosaic, respectful. In his heart of +hearts he occasionally thought of her as exceedingly unattractive. In a +word Mrs. Tutt performed her wifely functions in a purely matter-of-fact +way. Anything else would have seemed to her unseemly. She dressed in a +manner that would have been regarded as conservative even on Beacon +Hill. She had no intention of making an old fool of herself or of +letting him be one either. When people had been married thirty years +they could take some things for granted. Few persons therefore had ever +observed Mr. Tutt in the act of caressing Mrs. Tutt; and there were +those who said that he never had. Frankly, she was a trifle forbidding: +superficially not the sort of person to excite a great deal of +sentiment; and occasionally, as we have hinted, in the spring Tutt +yearned for a little sentiment. +</p> +<p> +He did his yearning, however, entirely on the side and within those +hours consecrated to the law. In his wife's society he yearned not at +all. In her company he carefully kept his thoughts and his language +inside the innermost circle of decorum. At home his talk was entirely +"Yea, yea," and "Nay, nay," and dealt principally with politics and the +feminist movement, in which Abigail was deeply interested. +</p> +<p> +And by this we do not mean to suggest that at other times or places Tutt +was anything but conventionally proper. He was not. He only yearned to +be, well knowing that he was deficient in courage if not in everything +else. +</p> +<p> +But habit or no habit, likely or unlikely, Mrs. Tutt had no intention of +taking any chances so far as Tutt was concerned. If he did not reach +home precisely at six explanations were in order, and if he came in half +an hour later he had to demonstrate his integrity beyond a reasonable +doubt according to the established rules of evidence. +</p> +<p> +Perhaps Mrs. Tutt did wisely to hold Tutt thus in leash considering the +character of many of the firm's clients. For it was quite impossible to +conceal the nature of the practise of Tutt & Tutt; much of which figured +flamboyantly in the newspapers. Some women would have taken it for +granted under like circumstances that their husbands had acquired a +touch at least of the wisdom of the serpent even if they remained quite +harmless. Abigail countenanced no thought of any demoralization in her +spouse. To her he was like the artist who smears himself and his smock +with paint while in his studio, but appears at dinner in spotless linen +without even a whiff of benzine about him to suggest his occupation. So +Tutt, though hand and glove in his office with the most notorious of the +elite of Longacre Square, came home to supper with the naiveté and +innocence of a theological student for whom an evening at a picture show +is the height of dissipation. +</p> +<p> +Yet Tutt was no more of a Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde than most of us. +Merely, his daily transition was a little more abrupt. And when all is +said and done most of the devices invented by his fertile little brain +to further the interests of his clients were no more worthy of +condemnation than those put forward by far higher-priced and much more +celebrated attorneys. +</p> +<p> +Not that Mrs. Tutt was blind to the dangers to which her husband by +virtue of his occupation was exposed. Far from it. Indeed she made it +her business to pay periodical visits to the office, ostensibly to see +whether or not it was properly cleaned and the windows washed, but in +reality—or at least so Tutt suspected—to find out whether the +personnel was entirely suitable for a firm of their standing and +particularly for a junior partner of his susceptibilities. +</p> +<p> +But she never discovered anything to give her the slightest cause for +alarm. The dramatis personae of the offices of Tutt & Tutt were +characteristic of the firm, none of their employees—except Miss +Sondheim, the tumultous-haired lady stenographer—and Willie, the office +boy, being under forty years of age. +</p> +<p> +When not engaged in running errands or fussing over his postage-stamp +album, Willie spent most of his time teasing old Scraggs, the scrivener, +an unsuccessful teetotaler. A faint odor of alcohol emanated from the +cage in which he performed his labors and lent an atmosphere of +cheerfulness to what might otherwise have seemed to Broadway clients an +unsympathetic environment, though there were long annual periods during +which he was as sober as a Kansas judge. The winds of March were apt, +however, to take hold of him. Perhaps it was the spring in his case +also. +</p> +<p> +The backbone of the establishment was Miss Minerva Wiggin. In every law +office there is usually some one person who keeps the shop going. +Sometimes it is a man. If so, he is probably a sublimated stenographer +or law clerk who, having worked for years to get himself admitted to the +bar, finds, after achieving that ambition, that he has neither the +ability nor the inclination to brave the struggle for a livelihood by +himself. Perchance as a youth he has had visions of himself arguing test +cases before the Court of Appeals while the leaders of the bar hung upon +his every word, of an office crowded with millionaire clients and +servile employees, even as he is servile to the man for whom he labors +for a miserly ten dollars a week. +</p> +<p> +His ambition takes him by the hand and leads him to high places, from +which he gazes down into the land of his future prosperity and +greatness. The law seems a mysterious, alluring, fascinating profession, +combining the romance of the drama with the gratifications of the +intellect. He springs to answer his master's bell; he sits up until all +hours running down citations and making extracts from opinions; he +rushes to court and answers the calendar and sometimes carries the +lawyer's brief case and attends him throughout a trial. Three years go +by—five—and he finds that he is still doing the same thing. He is now +a member of the bar, he has become the managing clerk, he attends to +fairly important matters, engages the office force, superintends +transfer of title, occasionally argues a motion. Five years more go by +and perhaps his salary is raised a trifle more. Then one day he awakes +to the realization that his future is to be only that of a trusted +servitor. +</p> +<p> +Perchance he is married and has a baby. The time has come for him to +choose whether he will go forth and put his fortune to the test "to win +or lose it all" or settle down into the position of faithful legal hired +man. He is getting a bit bald, he has had one or two tussles with his +bank about accidental overdrafts. The world looks pretty bleak outside +and the big machine of the law goes grinding on heartless, inevitable. +Who is he to challenge the future? The old job is fairly easy; they +can't get on without him, they say; here is where he belongs; he knows +his business—give him his thirty-five hundred a year and let him stay! +</p> +<p> +That is Binks, or Calkins, or Shivers, or any one of those worried +gray-haired men who sit in the outer office behind a desk strewn with +papers and make sure that no mistakes have been made. To them every +doubtful question of practise is referred and they answer +instantly—sometimes wrongly, but always instantly. They know the last +day for serving the demurrer in Bilbank against Terwilliger and whether +or not you can tax a referee's fee as a disbursement in a bill of costs; +they are experts on the precise form for orders in matrimonial actions +and the rule in regard to filing a summons and complaint in Oneida +County; they stand between the members of the firm and disagreeable +clients; they hire and discharge the office boys; they do everything +from writing a brief for the Supreme Court of the United States down to +making the contract with the window cleaners; they are the only lawyers +who really know anything and they were once promising young men, who +have found out at last that life and the Sunday-school books are very +far apart; but they run the works and make the law a gentleman's +profession for the rest of us. They are always there. Others come, grow +older, go away, but they remain. Many of them drink. All of which would +be irrelevant, incompetent and immaterial if this were not a legal +story. +</p> +<p> +Scraggs had been one of these, but he had also been one of those who +drank, and now he was merely a bookkeeper. Miss Wiggin reigned in his +stead. +</p> +<p> +A woman and not a man kept Tutt & Tutt on the map. When this sort of +thing occurs it is usually because the woman in question is the ablest +and very likely also the best person in the outfit, and she assumes the +control of affairs by a process of natural selection. Miss Wiggin was +the conscience, if Mr. Tutt was the heart, of Tutt & Tutt. Nobody, +unless it was Mr. Tutt, knew where she had come from or why she was +working if at all in only a semi-respectable law office. Without her +something dreadful would have happened to the general morale. Everybody +recognized that fact. +</p> +<p> +Her very appearance gave the place tone—neutralized the faint odor of +alcohol from the cage. For in truth she was a fine-looking woman. Had +she been costumed by a Fifth Avenue dressmaker and done her coiffure +differently she would have been pretty. Because she drew her gray hair +straight back from her low forehead and tied it in a knob on the back of +her head, wore paper cuffs and a black dress, she looked nearer fifty +than forty-one, which she was. Two hundred dollars would have taken +twenty years off her apparent age—a year for every ten dollars; but she +would not have looked a particle less a lady. +</p> +<p> +Her duties were ambiguous. She was always the first to arrive at the +office and was the only person permitted to open the firm mail outside +of its members. She overlooked the books that Scraggs kept and sent out +the bills. She kept the key to the cash box and had charge of the safe. +She made the entries in the docket and performed most of the duties of a +regular managing clerk. She had been admitted to the bar. She checked up +the charge accounts and on Saturdays paid off the office force. In +addition to all these things she occasionally took a hand at a brief, +drew most of the pleadings, and kept track of everything that was done +in the various cases. +</p> +<p> +But her chief function, one which made her invaluable was that of +receiving clients who came to the office, and in the first instance +ascertaining just what their troubles were; and she was so sympathetic +and at the same time so sensible that many a stranger who casually +drifted in and would otherwise just as casually have drifted out again +remained a permanent fixture in the firm's clientele. Scraggs and +William adored her in spite of her being an utter enigma to them. She +was quiet but businesslike, of few words but with a latent sense of +humor that not infrequently broke through the surface of her gravity, +and she proceeded upon the excellent postulate that everyone with whom +she came in contact was actuated by the highest sense of honor. She +acted as a spiritual tonic to both Mr. Tutt and Tutt—especially to the +latter, who was the more in need of it. If they were ever tempted to +stray across the line of professional rectitude her simple assumption +that the thing couldn't be done usually settled the matter once and for +all. On delicate questions Mr. Tutt frankly consulted her. Without her, +Tutt & Tutt would have been shysters; with her they were almost +respectable. She received a salary of three thousand dollars a year and +earned double that amount, for she served where she loved and her first +thought was of Tutt & Tutt. If you can get a woman like that to run your +law office do not waste any time or consideration upon a man. Her price +is indeed above rubies. +</p> +<p> +Yet even Miss Wiggin could not keep the shadow of the vernal equinox off +the simple heart of the junior Tutt. She had seen it coming for several +weeks, had scented danger in the way Tutt's childish eye had lingered +upon Miss Sondheim's tumultous black hair and in the rather rakish, +familiar way he had guided the ladies who came to get divorces out to +the elevator. And then there swam into his life the beautiful Mrs. +Allison, and for a time Tutt became not only hysterically young again, +but—well, you shall see. +</p> +<p> +Yet, curiously enough, though we are a long way from where this story +opened, it all goes back to Phillips Brooks Vanderbilt and the Fat and +Skinny Club and the right to call ourselves by what names we please. +Moreover, as must be apparent, all that happened occurred beyond Miss +Wiggin's sphere of spiritual influence. Yet, had it not, even she could +not have harnessed Leviathan or loosed the bands of Orion—to say +nothing of counteracting the effect of spring. +</p> +<p> +When Tutt returned with "76 Fed." after the departure of Mr. Sorg he +found his partner smoking the usual stogy and gazing pensively down upon +the harbor. The immediate foreground was composed of rectangular roofs +of divers colors, mostly reddish, ornamented with eccentrically shaped +chimney pots, pent-houses, skylights and water tanks, in addition to +various curious whistle-like protuberances from which white wraiths of +steam whirled and danced in the gay breeze. Beyond, in the middle +distance, a great highway of sparkling jewels led across the waves to +the distant faintly green hills of Staten Island. Three tiny aeroplanes +wove invisible threads against the blue woof of the sky above the New +Jersey shore. It was not a day to practise law at all. It was a day to +lie on one's back in the grass and watch the clouds or throw one's +weight against the tugging helm of a racing sloop and bite the spindrift +blown across her bows—not a day for lawyers but for lovers! +</p> +<p> +"Here's '76 Fed.'," said Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"What's become of Sorg?" +</p> +<p> +"Gone. Mad. Says the whole point of the Fat and Skinny Club is in the +name." +</p> +<p> +"I fancy—from looking at Mr. Sorg—that that is quite true," remarked +Mr. Tutt. He paused and reaching down into a lower compartment of his +desk, lifted out a tumbler and his bottle of malt extract, which he +placed carefully at his elbow and leaned back again contemplatively. +"Look here, Tutt," he said. "I want to ask you something. Is there +anything the matter with you?" +</p> +<p> +Tutt regarded him with the air of a small boy caught peeking through a +knot hole. +</p> +<p> +"Why,—no!" he protested lamely. "That is—nothing in particular. I do +feel a bit restless—sort of vaguely dissatisfied." +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt nodded sympathetically. +</p> +<p> +"How old are you, Tutt?" +</p> +<p> +"Forty-eight." +</p> +<p> +"And you feel just at present as if life were 'flat, stale and +unprofitable?'" +</p> +<p> +"Why—yes; you might put it that way. The fact is every day seems just +like every other day. I don't even get any pleasure out of eating. The +very sight of a boiled egg beside my plate at breakfast gives me the +willies. I can't eat boiled eggs any more. They sicken me!" +</p> +<p> +"Exactly!" Mr. Tutt poured out a glass of the malt extract. +</p> +<p> +"I feel the same way about a lot of things," Tutt hurried on. "Special +demurrers, for instance. They bore me horribly. And supplementary +proceedings get most frightfully upon my nerves." +</p> +<p> +"Exactly!" repeated Mr. Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"What do you mean by 'exactly?'" snapped Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"You're bored," explained his partner. +</p> +<p> +"Rather!" agreed Tutt. "Bored to death. Not with anything special, you +understand; just everything. I feel as if I'd like to do something +devilish." +</p> +<p> +"When a man feels like that he better go to a doctor," declared Mr. +Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"A doctor!" exclaimed Tutt derisively. "What good would a doctor do me?" +</p> +<p> +"He might keep you from getting into trouble." +</p> +<p> +"Oh, you needn't be alarmed. I won't get into any trouble." +</p> +<p> +"It's the dangerous age," said Mr. Tutt. "I've known a lot of +respectable married men to do the most surprising things round fifty." +</p> +<p> +Tutt looked interested. +</p> +<p> +"Have you now?" he inquired. "Well, I've no doubt it did some of 'em a +world of good. Tell you frankly sometimes I feel as if I'd rather like +to take a bit of a fling myself!" +</p> +<p> +"Your professional experience ought to be enough to warn you of the +dangers of that sort of experiment," answered Mr. Tutt gravely. "It's +bad enough when it occurs inadvertently, so to speak, but when a man in +your condition of life deliberately goes out to invite trouble it's a +sad, sad spectacle." +</p> +<p> +"Do you mean to imply that I'm not able to take care of myself?" +demanded Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"I mean to imply that no man is too wise to be made a fool of by some +woman." +</p> +<p> +"That every Samson has his Delilah?" +</p> +<p> +"If you want to put it that way—yes." +</p> +<p> +"And that in the end he'll get his hair cut?" +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt took a sip from the tumbler of malt and relit his stogy. +</p> +<p> +"What do you know about Samson and Delilah, Tutt?" he challenged. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, about as much as you do, I guess, Mr. Tutt," answered his partner +modestly. +</p> +<p> +"Well, who cut Samson's hair?" demanded the senior member. +</p> +<p> +He emptied the dregs of the malt-extract bottle into his glass and +holding it to the light examined it critically. +</p> +<p> +"Delilah, of course!" ejaculated Tutt. +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt shook his head. +</p> +<p> +"There you go off at half-cock again, Tutt!" he retorted whimsically. +"You wrong her. She did no such thing." +</p> +<p> +"Why, I'll bet you a hundred dollars on it!" cried Tutt excitedly. +</p> +<p> +"Make it a simple dinner at the Claridge Grill and I'll go you." +</p> +<p> +"Done!" +</p> +<p> +There were four books on the desk near Mr. Tutt's right hand—the New +York Code of Civil Procedure, an almanac, a Shakesperean concordance and +a Bible. +</p> +<p> +"Look it up for yourself," said Mr. Tutt, waving his arm with a gesture +of the utmost impartiality. "That is, if you happen to know in what part +of Holy Writ said Delilah is to be found." +</p> +<p> +Tutt followed the gesture and sat down at the opposite side of the desk. +</p> +<p> +"There!" he exclaimed, after fumbling over the leaves for several +minutes. "What did I tell you? Listen, Mr. Tutt! It's in the sixteenth +chapter of Judges: 'And it came to pass, when she pressed him daily with +her words, and urged him, so that his soul was vexed unto death; That he +told her all his heart, and said unto her, There hath not come a razor +upon mine head.' Um—um." +</p> +<p> +"Read on, Tutt!" ordered Mr. Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"Um. 'And when Delilah saw that he had told her all his heart, she sent +and called for the lords of the Philistines, saying, Come up this once.' +Um-um." +</p> +<p> +"Yes, go on!" +</p> +<p> +"'And she made him sleep upon her knees; and she called for a man, and +she caused him to shave off the seven locks of his head.' Well, I'll be +hanged!" exclaimed Tutt. "Now, I would have staked a thousand dollars on +it. But look here, you don't win! Delilah did cut Samson's hair—through +her agent. '<i>Qui facit per alium facit per se!</i>'" +</p> +<p> +"Your point is overruled," said Mr. Tutt. "A barber cut Samson's hair. +Let it be a lesson to you never to take anything on hearsay. Always look +up your authorities yourself. Moreover"—and he looked severely at +Tutt—"the cerebral fluid—like malt extract—tends to become cloudy +with age." +</p> +<p> +"Well, anyhow, I'm no Samson," protested Tutt. "And I haven't met anyone +that looked like a Delilah. I guess after the procession of +adventuresses that have trailed through this office in the last twenty +years I'm reasonably safe." +</p> +<p> +"No man is safe," meditated Mr. Tutt. "For the reason that no man knows +the power of expansion of his heart. He thinks it's reached its +limit—and then he finds to his horror or his delight that it hasn't. To +put it another way, a man's capacity to love may be likened to a +thermometer. At twenty-five or thirty he meets some young person, falls +in love with her, thinks his amatory thermometer has reached the +boiling-point and accordingly marries her. In point of fact it +hasn't—it's only marking summer heat—hasn't even registered the +temperature of the blood. Well, he goes merrily on life's way and some +fine day another lady breezes by, and this safe and sane citizen, who +supposes his capacity for affection was reached in early youth, suddenly +discovers to his amazement that his mercury is on the jump and presently +that his old thermometer has blown its top off." +</p> +<p> +"Very interesting, Mr. Tutt," observed Tutt after a moment's silence. +"You seem to have made something of a study of these things." +</p> +<p> +"Only in a business way—only in a business way!" Mr. Tutt assured him. +"Now, if you're feeling stale—and we all are apt to get that way this +time of year—why don't you take a run down to Atlantic City?" +</p> +<p> +Now Tutt would have liked to go to Atlantic City could he have gone by +himself, but the idea of taking Abigail along robbed the idea of its +attraction. She had got more than ever on his nerves of late. But his +reply, whatever it might have been, was interrupted by the announcement +of Miss Wiggin, who entered at that moment, that a lady wished to see +him. +</p> +<p> +"She asked for Mr. Tutt," explained Minerva. +</p> +<p> +"But I think her case is more in your line," and she nodded to Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"Good looking?" inquired Tutt roguishly. +</p> +<p> +"Very," returned Miss Wiggin. "A blonde." +</p> +<p> +"Thanks," answered Tutt, smoothing his hair; "I'm on my way." +</p> +<p> +Now this free, almost vulgar manner of speech was in reality foreign to +both Tutt and Miss Wiggin and it was born of the instant, due doubtless +to some peculiar juxtaposition of astral bodies in Cupid's horoscope +unknown to them, but which none the less had its influence. Strange +things happen on the eve of St. Agnes and on Midsummer Night—even in +law offices. +</p> +<p> +Mrs. Allison was sitting by the window in Tutt's office when he came in, +and for a full minute he paused upon the threshold while she pretended +she did not know that he was there. The deluge of sunlight that fell +upon her face betrayed no crack or wrinkle—no flaw of any kind—in the +white marble of its perfection. It was indeed a lovely face, classic in +the chiseling of its transparent alabaster; and when she turned, her +eyes were like misty lakes of blue. Bar none, she was the most beautiful +creature—and there had been many—that had ever wandered into the +offices of Tutt & Tutt. He sought for a word. "Wonderful"; that was, it, +she was "wonderful." His stale spirit soared in ecstasy, and left him +tongue-tied. In vulgar parlance he was rattled to death, this +commonplace little lawyer who for a score of years had dealt cynically +with the loves and lives of the flock of female butterflies who +fluttered annually in and out of the office. Throughout that period he +had sat unemotionally behind his desk and listened in an aloof, cold, +professional manner to the stories of their wrongs as they sobbed or +hissed them forth. Wise little lawyer that he was, he had regarded them +all as just what they were and nothing else—specimens of the Cecropia. +And he had not even patted them upon the shoulder or squeezed their +hands when he had bade them good-by—maintaining always an impersonal +and dignified demeanor. +</p> +<p> +Therefore he was surprised to hear himself say in soothing, almost +cooing tones: +</p> +<p> +"Well, my dear, what can I do for you?" +</p> +<p> +Shades of Abigail! "Well, my dear!" Tutt—Tutt! Tutt! +</p> +<p> +"I am in great trouble," faltered Mrs. Allison, gazing in misty +helplessness out of her blue grottoes at him while her beautiful red +lips trembled. +</p> +<p> +"I hope I can help you!" he breathed. "Tell me all about it! Take your +time. May I relieve you of your wrap?" +</p> +<p> +She wriggled out of it gratefully and he saw for the first time the +round, slender pillar of her neck. What a head she had—in its nimbus of +hazy gold. What a figure! His forty-eight-year-old lawyer's heart +trembled under its heavy layer of half-calf dust. He found difficulty in +articulating. He stammered, staring at her most shamelessly both of +which symptoms she did not notice. She was used to them in the other +sex. Tutt did not know what was the matter with him. He had in fact +entered upon that phase at which the wise man, be he old or young, turns +and runs. +</p> +<p> +But Tutt did not run. In legal phrase he stopped, looked and listened, +experiencing a curious feeling of expansion. This enchanting creature +transmuted the dingy office lined with its rows of calfskin bindings +into a golden grot in which he stood spellbound by the low murmur of her +voice. A sense of infinite leisure emanated from her—a subtle denial of +the ordinary responsibilities—very relaxing and delightful to Tutt. But +what twitched his very heartstrings was the dimple that came and went +with that pathetic little twisted smile of hers. +</p> +<p> +"I came to you," said Mrs. Allison, "because I knew you were both kind +and clever." +</p> +<p> +Tutt smiled sweetly. +</p> +<p> +"Kind, perhaps—not clever!" he beamed. +</p> +<p> +"Why, everyone says you are one of the cleverest lawyers in New York," +she protested. Then, raising her innocent China-blue eyes to his she +murmured, "And I so need kindness!" +</p> +<p> +Tutt's breast swelled with an emotion which he was forced to admit was +not altogether avuncular—that curious sentimental mixture that +middle-aged men feel of paternal pity, Platonic tenderness and +protectiveness, together with all those other euphemistic synonyms, that +make them eager to assist the weak and fragile, to try to educate and +elevate, and particularly to find out just how weak, fragile, uneducated +and unelevated a helpless lady may be. But in spite of his half century +of experience Tutt's knowledge of these things was purely vicarious. He +could have told another man when to run, but he didn't know when to run +himself. He could have saved another, himself he could not save—at any +rate from Mrs. Allison. +</p> +<p> +He had never seen anyone like her. He pulled his chair a little nearer. +She was so slender, so supple, so—what was it?—svelte! And she had an +air of childish dignity that appealed to him tremendously. There was +nothing, he assured himself, of the vamp about her at all. +</p> +<p> +"I only want to get my rights," she said, tremulously. "I'm nearly out +of my mind. I don't know what to do or where to turn!" +</p> +<p> +"Is there"—he forced himself to utter the word with difficulty—"a—a +man involved?" +</p> +<p> +She flushed and bowed her head sadly, and instantly a poignant rage +possessed him. +</p> +<p> +"A man I trusted absolutely," she replied in a low voice. +</p> +<p> +"His name?" +</p> +<p> +"Winthrop Oaklander." +</p> +<p> +Tutt gasped audibly, for the name was that of one of Manhattan's most +distinguished families, the founder of which had swapped glass beads and +red-flannel shirts with the aborigines for what was now the most +precious water frontage in the world—and moreover, Mrs. Allison +informed Tutt, he was a clergyman. +</p> +<p> +"I don't wonder you're surprised!" agreed Mrs. Allison. +</p> +<p> +"Why—I—I'm—not surprised at all!" prevaricated Tutt, at the same time +groping for his silk handkerchief. "You don't mean to say you've got a +case against this man Oaklander!" +</p> +<p> +"I have indeed!" she retorted with firmly compressed lips. "That is, if +it is what you call a case for a man to promise to marry a woman and +then in the end refuse to do so." +</p> +<p> +"Of course it is!" answered Tutt. "But why on earth wouldn't he?" +</p> +<p> +"He found out I had been divorced," she explained. "Up to that time +everything had been lovely. You see he thought I was a widow." +</p> +<p> +"Ah!" +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt experienced another pang of resentment against mankind in +general. +</p> +<p> +"I had a leading part in one of the season's successes on Broadway," she +continued miserably. "But when Mr. Oaklander promised to marry me I left +the stage; and now—I have nothing!" +</p> +<p> +"Poor child!" sighed Tutt. +</p> +<p> +He would have liked to take her in his arms and comfort her, but he +always kept the door into the outer office open on principle. +</p> +<p> +"You know, Mr. Oaklander is the pastor of St. Lukes-Over-the-Way," said +Mrs. Allison. "I thought that maybe rather than have any publicity he +might do a little something for me." +</p> +<p> +"I suppose you've got something in the way of evidence, haven't you? +Letters or photographs or something?" inquired Tutt, reverting +absent-mindedly to his more professional manner. +</p> +<p> +"No," she answered. "We never wrote to one another. And when we went out +it was usually in the evening. I don't suppose half a dozen people have +ever seen us together." +</p> +<p> +"That's awkward!" meditated Tutt, "if he denies it." +</p> +<p> +"Of course he will deny it!" +</p> +<p> +"You can't tell. He may not." +</p> +<p> +"Oh, yes, he will! Why, he even refuses to admit that he ever met me!" +declared Mrs. Allison indignantly. +</p> +<p> +Now, to Tutt's credit be it said that neither at this point nor at any +other did any suspicion of Mrs. Allison's sincerity enter his mind. For +the first time in his professional existence he accepted what a lady +client told him at its face value. Indeed he felt that no one, not even +a clergyman, could help loving so miraculous a woman, or that loving her +one could refrain from marrying her save for some religious or other +permanent obstacle He was sublimely, ecstatically happy in the mere +thought that he, Tutt, might be of help to such a celestial being, and +he desired no reward other than the privilege of being her willing slave +and of reading her gratitude in those melting, misty eyes. +</p> +<p> +Mrs. Allison went away just before lunch time, leaving her telephone +number, her handkerchief, a pungent odor of violet talc, and a +disconsolate but highly excited Tutt. Never, at any rate within twenty +years, had he felt so young. Life seemed tinged with every color of the +spectrum. The radiant fact was that he would—he simply had to—see her +again. What he might do for her professionally—all that aspect of the +affair was shoved far into the background of his mind. His only thought +was how to get her back into his office at the earliest possible moment. +</p> +<p> +"Shall I enter the lady's name in the address book?" inquired Miss +Wiggin coldly as he went out to get a bite of lunch. +</p> +<p> +Tutt hesitated. +</p> +<p> +"Mrs. Georgie Allison is her name," he said in a detached sort of way. +</p> +<p> +"Address?" +</p> +<p> +Tutt felt in his waistcoat pocket. +</p> +<p> +"By George!" he muttered, "I didn't take it. But her telephone number is +Lincoln Square 9187." +</p> +<p> +To chronicle the details of Tutt's second blooming would be needlessly +to derogate from the dignity of the history of Tutt & Tutt. There is a +silly season in the life of everyone—even of every lawyer—who can call +himself a man, and out of such silliness comes the gravity of knowledge. +Tutt found it necessary for his new client to come to the office almost +every day, and as she usually arrived about the noon hour what was more +natural than that he should invite her out to lunch? Twice he walked +home with her. The telephone was busy constantly. And the only thorn in +the rose of Tutt's delirious happiness was the fear lest Abigail might +discover something. The thought gave him many an anxious hour, cost him +several sleepless nights. At times this nervousness about his wife +almost exceeded the delight of having Mrs. Allison for a friend. Yet +each day he became on more and more cordial terms with her, and the +lunches became longer and more intimate. +</p> +<p> +The Reverend Winthrop Oaklander gave no sign of life, however. The +customary barrage of legal letters had been laid down, but without +eliciting any response. The Reverend Winthrop must be a wise one, opined +Tutt, and he began to have a hearty contempt as well as hatred for his +quarry. The first letter had been the usual vague hint that the +clergyman might and probably would find it to his advantage to call at +the offices of Tutt & Tutt, and so on. The Reverend Winthrop, however +did not seem to care to secure said advantage whatever it might be. The +second epistle gave the name of the client and proposed a friendly +discussion of her affairs. No reply. The third hinted at legal +proceedings. Total silence. The fourth demanded ten thousand dollars +damages and threatened immediate suit. +</p> +<p> +In answer to this last appeared the Reverend Winthrop himself. He was a +fine-looking young chap with a clear eye—almost as blue as +Georgie's—and a skin even pinker than hers, and he stood six feet five +in his Oxfords and his fist looked to Tutt as big as a coconut. +</p> +<p> +"Are you the blackmailer who's been writing me those letters?" he +demanded, springing into Tutt's office. "If you are, let me tell you +something. You've got hold of the wrong monkey. I've been dealing with +fellows of your variety ever since I got out of the seminary. I don't +know the lady you pretend to represent, and I never heard of her. If I +get any more letters from you I'll go down and lay the case before the +district attorney; and if he doesn't put you in jail I'll come up here +and knock your head off. Understand? Good day!" +</p> +<p> +At any other period in his existence Tutt could not have failed to be +impressed with the honesty of this husky exponent of the church +militant, but he was drugged as by the drowsy mandragora. The blatant +defiance of this muscular preacher outraged him. This canting hypocrite, +this wolf in priest's clothing must be brought to book. But how? Mrs. +Allison had admitted the literal truth when she had told him that there +were no letters, no photographs. There was no use commencing an action +for breach of promise if there was no evidence to support it. And once +the papers were filed their bolt would have been shot. Some way must be +devised whereby the Reverend Winthrop Oaklander could be made to +perceive that Tutt & Tutt meant business, and—equally +imperative—whereby Georgie would be impressed with the fact that not +for nothing had she come to them—that is, to him—for help. +</p> +<p> +The fact of the matter was that the whole thing had become rather +hysterical. Tutt, though having nothing seriously to reproach himself +with, was constantly haunted by a sense of being rather ridiculous and +doing something behind his wife's back. He told himself that his +Platonic regard for Georgie was a noble thing and did him honor, but it +was an honor which he preferred to wear as an entirely private +decoration. He was conscious of being laughed at by Willie and Scraggs +and disapproved of by Miss Wiggin, who was very snippy to him. And in +addition there was the omnipresent horror of having Abigail unearth his +philandering. He now not only thought of Mrs. Allison as Georgie but +addressed her thus, and there was quite a tidy little bill at the +florist's for flowers that he had sent her. In one respect only did he +exhibit even the most elementary caution—he wrote and signed all his +letters to her himself upon the typewriter, and filed copies in the +safe. +</p> +<p> +"So there we are!" he sighed as he gave to Mrs. Allison a somewhat +expurgated, or rather emasculated version of the Reverend Winthrop's +visit. "We have got to hand him something hot or make up our minds to +surrender. In a word we have got to scare him—Georgie." +</p> +<p> +And then it was that, like the apocryphal mosquito, the Fat and Skinny +Club justified its attempted existence. For the indefatigable Sorg made +an unheralded reappearance in the outer office and insisted upon seeing +Tutt, loudly asserting that he had reason to believe that if a new +application were now made to another judge—whom he knew—it would be +more favorably received. Tutt went to the doorway and stood there +barring the entrance and expostulating with him. +</p> +<p> +"All right!" shouted Sorg. "All right! I hear you! But don't tell me +that a man named Solomon Swackhamer can change his name to Phillips +Brooks Vanderbilt and in the same breath a reputable body of citizens be +denied the right to call themselves what they please!" +</p> +<p> +"He don't understand!" explained Tutt to Georgie, who had listened with +wide, dreamy eyes. "He don't appreciate the difference between doing a +thing as an individual and as a group." +</p> +<p> +"What thing?" +</p> +<p> +"Why, taking a name." +</p> +<p> +"I don't get you," said Georgie. +</p> +<p> +"Sorg wanted to call his crowd the Fat and Skinny Club, and the court +wouldn't let him—thought it was silly." +</p> +<p> +"Well?" +</p> +<p> +"But he could have called himself Mr. Fat or Mr. Skinny or Mr. Anything +Else without having to ask anybody—Oh, I say!" +</p> +<p> +Tutt had stiffened into sculpture. +</p> +<p> +"What is it?" demanded Georgie fascinated. +</p> +<p> +"I've got an idea," he cried. "You can call yourself anything you like. +Why not call yourself Mrs. Winthrop Oaklander?" +</p> +<p> +"But what good would that do?" she asked vaguely. +</p> +<p> +"Look here!" directed Tutt. "This is the surest thing you know! Just go +up to the Biltmore and register as Mrs. Winthrop Oaklander. You have a +perfect legal right to do it. You could call yourself Mrs. Julius Caesar +if you wanted to. Take a room and stay there until our young Christian +soldier offers you a suitable inducement to move along. Even if you're +violating the law somehow his first attempt to make trouble for you will +bring about the very publicity he is anxious to avoid. Why, it's +marvelous—and absolutely safe? They can't touch you. He'll come across +inside of two hours. If he doesn't a word to the reporters will start +things in the right direction." +</p> +<p> +For a moment Mrs. Allison looked puzzled. Then her beautiful face broke +into an enthusiastic classic smile and she laid her little hand softly +on his arm. +</p> +<p> +"What a clever boy you are—Sammy!" +</p> +<p> +A subdued snigger came from the direction of the desk usually occupied +by William. Tutt flushed. It was one thing to call Mrs. Allison +"Georgie" in private and another to have her "Sammy" him within hearing +of the office force. And just then Miss Wiggin passed by with her nose +slightly in the air. +</p> +<p> +"What a perfectly wonderful idea!" went on Mrs. Allison rapturously. "A +perfectly wonderful idea!" +</p> +<p> +Then she smiled a strange, mysterious, significant smile that almost +tore Tutt's heart out by the roots. +</p> +<p> +"Listen, Sammy," she whispered, with a new light in those beautiful +eyes. "I want five thousand dollars." +</p> +<p> +"Five?" repeated Tutt simply. "I thought you wanted ten thousand!" +</p> +<p> +"Only five from you, Sammy!" +</p> +<p> +"Me!" he gagged. +</p> +<p> +"You—dearest!" +</p> +<p> +Tutt turned blazing hot; then cold, dizzy and sea-sick. His sight was +slightly blurred. Slowly he groped for the door and closed it +cautiously. +</p> +<p> +"What—are—you—talking about?" he choked, though he knew perfectly +well. +</p> +<p> +Georgie had thrown herself back in the leather chair by his desk and had +opened her gold mesh-bag. +</p> +<p> +"About five thousand dollars," she replied with the careful enunciation +of a New England school-mistress. +</p> +<p> +"What five thousand dollars?" +</p> +<p> +"The five you're going to hand me before I leave this office, Sammy +darling," she retorted dazzlingly. +</p> +<p> +Tutt's head swam and he sank weakly into his swivel chair. It was +incredible that he, a veteran of the criminal bar, should have been so +tricked. Instantly, as when a reagent is injected into a retort of +chemicals and a precipitate is formed leaving the previously cloudy +liquid like crystal, Tutt's addled brain cleared. He was caught! The +victim of his own asininity. He dared not look at this woman who had +wound him thus round her finger, innocent as he was of any wrongdoing; +he was ashamed to think of his wife. +</p> +<p> +"My Lord!" he murmured, realizing for the first time the depth of his +weakness. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, it isn't as bad as that!" she laughed. "Remember you were going to +charge Oaklander ten thousand. This costs you only five. Special rates +for physicians and lawyers!" +</p> +<p> +"And suppose I don't choose to give it to you?" he asked. +</p> +<p> +"Listen here, you funny little man!" she answered in caressing tones +that made him writhe. "You'd stand for twenty if I insisted on it. Oh, +don't jump! I'm not going to. You're getting off easy—too easy. But I +want to stay on good terms with you. I may need you sometime in my +business. Your certified check for five thousand dollars—and I leave +you." +</p> +<p> +She struck a match and started to light a tiny gold-tipped cigarette. +</p> +<p> +"Don't!" he gasped. "Not in the office." +</p> +<p> +"Do I get the five thousand?" +</p> +<p> +He ground his teeth, not yet willing to concede defeat. +</p> +<p> +"You silly old bird!" she said. "Do you know how many times you've had +me down here in your office in the last three weeks? Fifteen. How many +times you've taken me out to lunch? Ten. How often you've called me on +the telephone? Eighty-nine How many times you've sent me flowers? +Twelve. How many letters you've written me? Eleven! Oh, I realize +they're typewritten, but a photograph enlargement would show they were +typed in your office. Every typewriter has its own individuality, you +know. Your clerks and office boy have heard me call you Sammy. Why, +every time you've moved with me beside you someone has seen you. That's +enough, isn't it? But now, on top of all that, you go and hand me +exactly what I need on a gold plate." +</p> +<p> +He gazed at her stupidly. +</p> +<p> +"Why, if now you don't give me that check I shall simply go up to the +Biltmore and register as Mrs. Samuel Tutt. I shall take a room and stay +there until you offer me a proper inducement to move on." She giggled +delightedly. "It's marvelous—absolutely safe," she quoted. "They can't +touch me. You'll come across inside of two hours. If you don't a word to +the reporters will start things in the right direction." +</p> +<p> +"Don't!" he groaned. "I must have been crazy. That was simply +blackmail!" +</p> +<p> +"That's exactly what it was!" she agreed. "There aren't any letters +except these typewritten ones, or photographs, or any evidence at all, +but you're going to give me five thousand dollars just the same. Just so +that your wife won't know what a silly old fool you've been. Where's +your check book, Sam?" +</p> +<p> +Tutt pulled out the bottom drawer of his desk and slowly removed his +personal check book. With his fountain pen in his hand he paused and +looked at her. +</p> +<p> +"Rather than give you another cent I'd stand the gaff," he remarked +defiantly. +</p> +<p> +"I know it," she answered. "I looked you up before I came here the first +time. You are good for exactly five thousand dollars." +</p> +<p> +Tutt filled out the check to cash and sent Willie across the street to +the bank to have it certified. The sun was just sinking over the Jersey +shore beyond the Statue of Liberty and the surface of the harbor +undulated like iridescent watered silk. The clouds were torn into +golden-purple rents, and the air was so clear that one could look down +the Narrows far out to the open sea. Standing there by the window Mrs. +Allison looked as innocently beautiful as the day Tutt had first beheld +her. After all, he thought, perhaps the experience had been worth the +money. +</p> +<p> +Something of the same thought may have occurred to the lady, for as she +took the check and carefully examined the certification she remarked +with a distinct access of cordiality: "Really, Sammy, you're quite a +nice little man. I rather like you." +</p> +<p> +Tutt stood after she had gone watching the sunset until the west was +only a mass of leaden shadows Then, strangely relieved, he took his hat +and started out of the office. Somewhat to his surprise he found Miss +Wiggin still at her desk. +</p> +<p> +"By the way," she remarked casually as he passed her, "what shall I +charge that check to? The one you just drew to cash for five thousand +dollars?" +</p> +<p> +"Charge it to life insurance," he said shortly. +</p> +<p> +He felt almost gay as he threaded his way through the crowds along +Broadway. Somehow a tremendous load had been lifted from his shoulders +He would no longer be obliged to lead a sneaking, surreptitious +existence. He felt like shouting with joy now that he could look the +world frankly in the face. The genuine agony he had endured during the +past three weeks loomed like a sickness behind him. He had been a +fool—and there was no fool like an old one. Just let him get back to +his old Abigail and there'd be no more wandering-boy business for him! +Abigail might not have the figure or the complexion that Georgie had, +but she was a darn sight more reliable. Henceforth she could have him +from five p.m. to nine a.m. without reserve. As for kicking over the +traces, sowing wild oats and that sort of thing, there was nothing in it +for him. Give him Friend Wife. +</p> +<p> +He stopped at the florist's and, having paid a bill of thirty-six +dollars for Georgie's flowers, purchased a double bunch of violets and +carried them home with him. Abigail was watching for him out of the +window. Something warm rushed to his heart at the sight of her. Through +the lace curtains she looked quite trim. +</p> +<p> +"Hello, old girl!" he cried, as she opened the door. "Waiting for me, +eh? Here's a bunch of posies for you." +</p> +<p> +And he kissed her on the cheek. +</p> +<p> +"That's more than I ever did to Georgie," he said to himself. +</p> +<p> +"Why, Samuel!" laughed Abigail with a faded blush. "What's ever got into +you?" +</p> +<p> +"Dunno!" he retorted gaily. "The spring, I guess. What do you say to a +little dinner at a restaurant and then going to the play?" +</p> +<p> +She bridled—being one of the generation who did such things—with +pleasure. +</p> +<p> +"Seems to me you're getting rather extravagant." she objected. "Still—" +</p> +<p> +"Oh, come along!" he bullied her. "One of my clients collected five +thousand dollars this afternoon." +</p> +<p> +Tutt summoned a taxi and they drove to the brightest, most glittering of +Broadway hostelries. Abigail had never been in such a chic place before. +It half terrified and shocked her, all those women in dresses that +hardly came up to their armpits. Some of them were handsome though. That +slim one at the table by the pillar, for instance. She was really quite +lovely with that mass of yellow-golden hair, that startlingly white +skin, and those misty China-blue eyes. And the gentleman with her, the +tall man with the pink cheeks, was very handsome, too. +</p> +<p> +"Look, Samuel," she said, touching his hand. "See that good-looking +couple over there." +</p> +<p> +But Samuel was looking at them already—intently. And just then the +beautiful woman turned and, catching sight of the Tutts, smiled +cordially if somewhat roguishly and raised her glass, as did her +companion. Mechanically Tutt elevated his. The three drank to one +another. +</p> +<p> +"Do you know those people, Samuel?" inquired Mrs. Tutt somewhat stiffly. +"Who are they?" +</p> +<p> +"Oh, those over there?" he repeated absently. "I don't really know what +the lady's name is, she's been down to our office a few times. But the +man is Winthrop Oaklander—and the funny part of it is, I always thought +he was a clergyman." +</p> +<p> +Later in the evening he turned to her between the acts and remarked +inconsequently: "Say, Abbie, do I look as if I'd just had my hair cut?" +</p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<a name="ANDREW"><!-- ANDREW --></a> +<h2> +The Dog Andrew +</h2> +<p> </p> +<blockquote><p> +"Every dog is entitled to one bite."—UNREPORTED +OPINION OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION OF THE NEW +YORK SUPREME COURT. +</p></blockquote> +<p> +"Now see here!" shouted Mr. Appleboy, coming out of the boathouse, where +he was cleaning his morning's catch of perch, as his neighbor Mr. +Tunnygate crashed through the hedge and cut across Appleboy's parched +lawn to the beach. "See here, Tunnygate, I won't have you trespassing on +my place! I've told you so at least a dozen times! Look at the hole +you've made in that hedge, now! Why can't you stay in the path?" +</p> +<p> +His ordinarily good-natured countenance was suffused with anger and +perspiration. His irritation with Mr. Tunnygate had reached the point of +explosion. Tunnygate was a thankless friend and he was a great cross to +Mr. Appleboy. Aforetime the two had been intimate in the fraternal, +taciturn intimacy characteristic of fat men, an attraction perhaps akin +to that exerted for one another by celestial bodies of great mass, for +it is a fact that stout people do gravitate toward one another—and hang +or float in placid juxtaposition, perhaps merely as a physical result of +their avoirdupois. So Appleboy and Tunnygate had swum into each other's +spheres of influence, either blown by the dallying winds of chance or +drawn by some mysterious animal magnetism, and, being both addicted to +the delights of the soporific sport sanctified by Izaak Walton, had +raised unto themselves portable temples upon the shores of Long Island +Sound in that part of the geographical limits of the Greater City known +as Throggs Neck. +</p> +<p> +Every morn during the heat of the summer months Appleboy would rouse +Tunnygate or conversely Tunnygate would rouse Appleboy, and each in his +own wobbly skiff would row out to the spot which seemed most propitious +to the piscatorial art. There, under two green umbrellas, like two fat +rajahs in their shaking howdahs upon the backs of two white elephants, +the friends would sit in solemn equanimity awaiting the evasive cunner, +the vagrant perch or cod or the occasional flirtatious eel. They rarely +spoke and when they did the edifice of their conversation—their Tower +of Babel, so to speak—was monosyllabic. Thus: +</p> +<p> +"Huh! Ain't had a bite!" +</p> +<p> +"Huh!" +</p> +<p> +"Huh!" +</p> +<p> +Silence for forty minutes. Then: "Huh! Had a bite?" +</p> +<p> +"Nope!" +</p> +<p> +"Huh!" +</p> +<p> +That was generally the sum total of their interchange Yet it satisfied +them, for their souls were in harmony. To them it was pregnant of +unutterable meanings, of philosophic mysteries more subtle than those of +the esoterics, of flowers and poetry, of bird-song and twilight, of all +the nuances of softly whispered avowals, of the elusive harmonies of +love's half-fainting ecstasy. +</p> +<p> +"Huh!" +</p> +<p> +"Huh!" +</p> +<p> +And then into this Eden—only not by virtue of the excision of any +vertebra such as was originally necessary in the case of Adam—burst +woman. There was silence no longer. The air was rent with clamor; for +both Appleboy and Tunnygate, within a month of one another, took unto +themselves wives. Wives after their own image! +</p> +<p> +For a while things went well enough; it takes ladies a few weeks to find +out each other's weak points. But then the new Mrs. Tunnygate +unexpectedly yet undeniably began to exhibit the serpent's tooth, the +adder's tongue or the cloven hoof—as the reader's literary traditions +may lead him to prefer. For no obvious reason at all she conceived a +violent hatred of Mrs. Appleboy, a hatred that waxed all the more +virulent on account of its object's innocently obstinate refusal to +comprehend or recognize it. Indeed Mrs. Tunnygate found it so difficult +to rouse Mrs. Appleboy into a state of belligerency sufficiently +interesting that she soon transferred her energies to the more worthy +task of making Appleboy's life a burden to him. +</p> +<p> +To this end she devoted herself with a truly Machiavellian ingenuity, +devising all sorts of insults irritations and annoyances, and adding to +the venom of her tongue the inventive cunning of a Malayan witch doctor. +The Appleboys' flower-pots mysteriously fell off the piazza, their +thole-pins disappeared, their milk bottles vanished, Mr. Appleboy's fish +lines acquired a habit of derangement equaled only by barbed-wire +entanglements, and his clams went bad! But these things might have been +borne had it not been for the crowning achievement of her malevolence, +the invasion of the Appleboys' cherished lawn, upon which they lavished +all that anxious tenderness which otherwise they might have devoted to a +child. +</p> +<p> +It was only about twenty feet by twenty, and it was bordered by a hedge +of moth-eaten privet, but anyone who has ever attempted to induce a +blade of grass to grow upon a sand dune will fully appreciate the +deviltry of Mrs. Tunnygate's malignant mind. Already there was a horrid +rent where Tunnygate had floundered through at her suggestion in order +to save going round the pathetic grass plot which the Appleboys had +struggled to create where Nature had obviously intended a floral vacuum. +Undoubtedly it had been the sight of Mrs. Appleboy with her small +watering pot patiently encouraging the recalcitrant blades that had +suggested the malicious thought to Mrs. Tunnygate that maybe the +Appleboys didn't own that far up the beach. They didn't—that was the +mockery of it. Like many others they had built their porch on their +boundary line, and, as Mrs. Tunnygate pointed out, they were claiming to +own something that wasn't theirs. So Tunnygate, in daily obedience to +his spouse, forced his way through the hedge to the beach, and daily the +wrath of the Appleboys grew until they were driven almost to +desperation. +</p> +<p> +Now when the two former friends sat fishing in their skiffs they either +contemptuously ignored one another or, if they "Huh-Huhed!" at all the +"Huhs!" resembled the angry growls of infuriated beasts. The worst of it +was that the Appleboys couldn't properly do anything about it. Tunnygate +had, as Mrs. Tunnygate sneeringly pointed out, a perfect legal right to +push his way through the hedge and tramp across the lawn, and she didn't +propose to allow the Appleboys to gain any rights by proscription, +either. Not much! +</p> +<p> +Therefore, when Mr. Appleboy addressed to Mr. Tunnygate the remarks with +which this story opens, the latter insolently replied in words, form or +substance that Mr. Appleboy could go to hell. Moreover, as he went by +Mr. Appleboy he took pains to kick over a clod of transplanted sea +grass, nurtured by Mrs. Appleboy as the darling of her bosom, and +designed to give an air of verisimilitude to an otherwise bare and +unconvincing surface of sand. Mr. Appleboy almost cried with vexation. +</p> +<p> +"Oh!" he ejaculated, struggling for words to express the full content of +his feeling. "Gosh, but you're—mean!" +</p> +<p> +He hit it! Curiously enough, that was exactly the word! Tunnygate was +mean—and his meanness was second only to that of the fat hippopotama +his wife. +</p> +<p> +Then, without knowing why, for he had no formulated ideas as to the +future, and probably only intended to try to scare Tunnygate with vague +threats, Appleboy added: "I warn you not to go through that hedge again! +Understand—I warn you! And if you do I won't be responsible for the +consequences!" +</p> +<p> +He really didn't mean a thing by the words, and Tunnygate knew it. +</p> +<p> +"Huh!" retorted the latter contemptuously. "You!" +</p> +<p> +Mr. Appleboy went inside the shack and banged the door. Mrs. Appleboy +was peeling potatoes in the kitchen-living room. +</p> +<p> +"I can't stand it!" he cried weakly. "He's driving me wild!" +</p> +<p> +"Poor lamb!" soothed Mrs. Appleboy, peeling an interminable rind. "Ain't +that just a sweetie? Look! It's most as long as your arm!" +</p> +<p> +She held it up dangling between her thumb and fore-finger. Then, with a +groan she dropped it at his feet. "I know it's a real burden to you, +deary!" she sighed. +</p> +<p> +Suddenly they both bent forward with startled eyes, hypnotized by the +peel upon the floor. +</p> +<p> +Unmistakably it spelt "dog"! They looked at one another significantly. +</p> +<p> +"It is a symbol!" breathed Mrs. Appleboy in an awed whisper. +</p> +<p> +"Whatever it is, it's some grand idea!" exclaimed her husband. "Do you +know anybody who's got one? I mean a—a—" +</p> +<p> +"I know just what you mean," she agreed. "I wonder we never thought of +it before! But there wouldn't be any use in getting any dog!" +</p> +<p> +"Oh, no!" he concurred. "We want a real—dog!" +</p> +<p> +"One you know about!" she commented. +</p> +<p> +"The fact is," said he, rubbing his forehead, "if they know about 'em +they do something to 'em. It ain't so easy to get the right kind." +</p> +<p> +"Oh, we'll get one!" she encouraged him. "Now Aunt Eliza up to Livornia +used to have one. It made a lot of trouble and they ordered her—the +selectmen did—to do away with it. But she only pretended she had—she +didn't really—and I think she's got him yet." +</p> +<p> +"Gee!" said Mr. Appleboy tensely. "What sort was it?" +</p> +<p> +"A bull!" she replied. "With a big white face." +</p> +<p> +"That's the kind!" he agreed excitedly. "What was its name?" +</p> +<p> +"Andrew," she answered. +</p> +<p> +"That's a queer name for a dog!" he commented "Still, I don't care what +his name is, so long as he's the right kind of dog! Why don't you write +to Aunt Eliza to-night?" +</p> +<p> +"Of course Andrew may be dead," she hazarded. "Dogs do die." +</p> +<p> +"Oh, I guess Andrew isn't dead!" he said hopefully "That tough kind of +dog lasts a long time. What will you say to Aunt Eliza?" +</p> +<p> +Mrs. Appleboy went to the dresser and took a pad and pencil from one of +the shelves. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, something like this," she answered, poising the pencil over the +pad in her lap: +</p> +<p> +"Dear Aunt Eliza: I hope you are quite well. It is sort of lonely living +down here on the beach and there are a good many rough characters, so we +are looking for a dog for companionship and protection Almost any kind +of healthy dog would do and you may be sure he would have a good home. +Hoping to see you soon. Your affectionate niece, Bashemath." +</p> +<p> +"I hope she'll send us Andrew," said Appleboy fervently. +</p> +<p> +"I guess she will!" nodded Bashemath. +</p> +<hr> +<p> +"What on earth is that sign?" wrathfully demanded Mrs. Tunnygate one +morning about a week later as she looked across the Appleboys' lawn from +her kitchen window. "Can you read it, Herman?" +</p> +<p> +Herman stopped trying to adjust his collar and went out on the piazza. +</p> +<p> +"Something about 'dog'," he declared finally. +</p> +<p> +"Dog!" she exclaimed. "They haven't got a dog!" +</p> +<p> +"Well," he remarked, "that's what the sign says: 'Beware of the dog'! +And there's something above it. Oh! 'No crossing this property. +Trespassing forbidden.'" +</p> +<p> +"What impudence!" avowed Mrs. Tunnygate. "Did you ever know such +people! First they try and take land that don't belong to them, and then +they go and lie about having a dog. Where are they, anyway?" +</p> +<p> +"I haven't seen 'em this morning," he answered. "Maybe they've gone away +and put up the sign so we won't go over. Think that'll stop us!" +</p> +<p> +"In that case they've got another think comin'!" she retorted angrily. +"I've a good mind to have you go over and tear up the whole place!" +</p> +<p> +"'N pull up the hedge?" he concurred eagerly. "Good chance!" +</p> +<p> +Indeed, to Mr. Tunnygate it seemed the supreme opportunity both to +distinguish himself in the eyes of his blushing bride and to gratify +that perverse instinct inherited from our cave-dwelling ancestors to +destroy utterly—in order, perhaps, that they may never seek to avenge +themselves upon us—those whom we have wronged. Accordingly Mr. +Tunnygate girded himself with his suspenders, and with a gleam of +fiendish exultation in his eye stealthily descended from his porch and +crossed to the hole in the hedge. No one was in sight except two +barefooted searchers after clams a few hundred yards farther up the +beach and a man working in a field half a mile away. The bay shimmered +in the broiling August sun and from a distant grove came the rattle and +wheeze of locusts. Throggs Neck blazed in silence, and utterly silent +was the house of Appleboy. +</p> +<p> +With an air of bravado, but with a slightly accelerated heartbeat, +Tunnygate thrust himself through the hole in the hedge and looked +scornfully about the Appleboy lawn. A fierce rage worked through his +veins. A lawn! What effrontery! What business had these condescending +second-raters to presume to improve a perfectly good beach which was +satisfactory to other folks? He'd show 'em! He took a step in the +direction of the transplanted sea grass. Unexpectedly the door of the +Appleboy kitchen opened. +</p> +<p> +"I warned you!" enunciated Mr. Appleboy with unnatural calmness, which +with another background might have struck almost anybody as suspicious. +</p> +<p> +"Huh!" returned the startled Tunnygate, forced under the circumstances +to assume a nonchalance that he did not altogether feel. "You!" +</p> +<p> +"Well," repeated Mr. Appleboy. "Don't ever say I didn't!" +</p> +<p> +"Pshaw!" ejaculated Mr. Tunnygate disdainfully. +</p> +<p> +With premeditation and deliberation, and with undeniable malice +aforethought, he kicked the nearest bunch of sea grass several feet in +the air. His violence carried his leg high in the air and he partially +lost his equilibrium. Simultaneously a white streak shot from beneath +the porch and something like a red-hot poker thrust itself savagely into +an extremely tender part of his anatomy. +</p> +<p> +"Ouch! O—o—oh!" he yelled in agony. "Oh!" +</p> +<p> +"Come here, Andrew!" said Mr. Appleboy mildly. "Good doggy! Come here!" +</p> +<p> +But Andrew paid no attention. He had firmly affixed himself to the base +of Mr. Tunnygate's personality without any intention of being +immediately detached. And he had selected that place, taken aim, and +discharged himself with an air of confidence and skill begotten of +lifelong experience. +</p> +<p> +"Oh! O—o—oh!" screamed Tunnygate, turning wildly and clawing through +the hedge, dragging Andrew after him. "Oh! O—oh!" +</p> +<p> +Mrs. Tunnygate rushed to the door in time to see her spouse lumbering up +the beach with a white object gyrating in the air behind him. +</p> +<p> +"What's the matter?" she called out languidly. Then perceiving the +matter she hastily followed. The Appleboys were standing on their lawn +viewing the whole proceeding with ostentatious indifference. +</p> +<p> +Up the beach fled Tunnygate, his cries becoming fainter and fainter. The +two clam diggers watched him curiously, but made no attempt to go to his +assistance. The man in the field leaned luxuriously upon his hoe and +surrendered himself to unalloyed delight. Tunnygate was now but a white +flicker against the distant sand. His wails had a dying fall: +"O—o—oh!" +</p> +<p> +"Well, we warned him!" remarked Mr. Appleboy to Bashemath with a smile +in which, however, lurked a slight trace of apprehension. +</p> +<p> +"We certainly did!" she replied. Then after a moment she added a trifle +anxiously: "I wonder what will happen to Andrew!" +</p> +<p> +Tunnygate did not return. Neither did Andrew. Secluded in their kitchen +living-room the Appleboys heard a motor arrive and through a crack in +the door saw it carry Mrs. Tunnygate away bedecked as for some momentous +ceremonial. At four o'clock, while Appleboy was digging bait, he +observed another motor making its wriggly way along the dunes. It was +fitted longitudinally with seats, had a wire grating and was marked +"N.Y.P.D." Two policemen in uniform sat in front. Instinctively Appleboy +realized that the gods had called him. His heart sank among the clams. +Slowly he made his way back to the lawn where the wagon had stopped +outside the hedge. +</p> +<p> +"Hey there!" called out the driver. "Is your name Appleboy?" +</p> +<p> +Appleboy nodded. +</p> +<p> +"Put your coat on, then, and come along," directed the other. "I've got +a warrant for you." +</p> +<p> +"Warrant?" stammered Appleboy dizzily. +</p> +<p> +"What's that?" cried Bashemath, appearing at the door. "Warrant for +what?" +</p> +<p> +The officer slowly descended and handed Appleboy a paper. +</p> +<p> +"For assault," he replied. "I guess you know what for, all right!" +</p> +<p> +"We haven't assaulted anybody," protested Mrs. Appleboy heatedly. +"Andrew—" +</p> +<p> +"You can explain all that to the judge," retorted the cop. "Meantime put +on your duds and climb in. If you don't expect to spend the night at the +station you'd better bring along the deed of your house so you can give +bail." +</p> +<p> +"But who's the warrant for?" persisted Mrs. Appleboy. +</p> +<p> +"For Enoch Appleboy," retorted the cop wearily. "Can't you read?" +</p> +<p> +"But Enoch didn't do a thing!" she declared. "It was Andrew!" +</p> +<p> +"Who's Andrew?" inquired the officer of the law mistrustfully. +</p> +<p> +"Andrew's a dog," she explained. +</p> +<hr> +<p> +"Mr. Tutt," announced Tutt, leaning against his senior partner's door +jamb with a formal-looking paper in his hand, "I have landed a case +that will delight your legal soul." +</p> +<p> +"Indeed?" queried the elder lawyer. "I have never differentiated between +my legal soul and any other I may possess. However, I assume from your +remark that we have been retained in a matter presenting some peculiarly +absurd, archaic or otherwise interesting doctrine of law?" +</p> +<p> +"Not directly," responded Tutt. "Though you will doubtless find it +entertaining enough, but indirectly—atmospherically so to speak—it +touches upon doctrines of jurisprudence, of religion and of philosophy, +replete with historic fascination." +</p> +<p> +"Good!" exclaimed Mr. Tutt, laying down his stogy. "What kind of a case +is it?" +</p> +<p> +"It's a dog case!" said the junior partner, waving the paper. "The dog +bit somebody." +</p> +<p> +"Ah!" exclaimed Mr. Tutt, perceptibly brightening. "Doubtless we shall +find a precedent in Oliver Goldsmith's famous elegy: +</p> +<pre> + "And in that town a dog was found, + As many dogs there be, + Both mongrel, puppy, whelp, and hound, + And curs of low degree." +</pre> +<p> +"Only," explained Tutt, "in this case, though the man recovered of the +bite, the dog refused to die!" +</p> +<p> +"And so they want to prosecute the dog? It can't be done. An animal +hasn't been brought to the bar of justice for several centuries." +</p> +<p> +"No, no!" interrupted Tutt. "They don't—" +</p> +<p> +"There was a case," went on Mr. Tutt reminiscently "Let me see—at +Sauvigny, I think it was—about 1457, when they tried a sow and three +pigs for killing a child. The court assigned a lawyer to defend her, but +like many assigned counsel he couldn't think of anything to say in her +behalf. As regards the little pigs he did enter the plea that no animus +was shown, that they had merely followed the example of their mother, +and that at worst they were under age and irresponsible. However, the +court found them all guilty, and the sow was publicly hanged in the +market place." +</p> +<p> +"What did they do with the three little pigs?" inquired Tutt with some +interest. +</p> +<p> +"They were pardoned on account of their extreme youth," said Mr. Tutt, +"and turned loose again—with a warning." +</p> +<p> +"I'm glad of that!" sighed Tutt. "Is that a real case?" +</p> +<p> +"Absolutely," replied his partner. "I've read it in the Sauvigny +records." +</p> +<p> +"I'll be hanged!" exclaimed Tutt. "I never knew that animals were ever +held personally responsible." +</p> +<p> +"Why, of course they were!" said Mr. Tutt. "Why shouldn't they be? If +animals have souls why shouldn't they be responsible for their acts?" +</p> +<p> +"But they haven't any souls!" protested Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"Haven't they now?" remarked the elder lawyer. "I've seen many an old +horse that had a great deal more conscience than his master. And on +general principles wouldn't it be far more just and humane to have the +law deal with a vicious animal that had injured somebody than to leave +its punishment to an irresponsible and arbitrary owner who might be +guilty of extreme brutality?" +</p> +<p> +"If the punishment would do any good—yes!" agreed Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"Well, who knows?" meditated Mr. Tutt. "I wonder if it ever does any +good? But anybody would have to agree that responsibility for one's acts +should depend upon the degree of one's intelligence—and from that point +of view many of our friends are really much less responsible than +sheep." +</p> +<p> +"Which, as you so sagely point out, would, however be a poor reason for +letting their families punish them in case they did wrong. Just think +how such a privilege might be abused! If Uncle John didn't behave +himself as his nephews thought proper they could simply set upon him and +briskly beat him up." +</p> +<p> +"Yes, of course, the law even to-day recognizes the right to exercise +physical discipline within the family. Even homicide is excusable, under +</p> +<p> +"That's a fine relic of barbarism!" remarked Tutt. "But the child soon +passes through that dangerous zone and becomes entitled to be tried for +his offenses by a jury of his peers; the animal never does." +</p> +<p> +"Well, an animal couldn't be tried by a jury of his peers, anyhow," said +Mr. Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"I've seen juries that were more like nanny goats than men!" commentated +Tutt. "I'd like to see some of our clients tried by juries of geese or +woodchucks." +</p> +<p> +"The field of criminal responsibility is the No Man's Land of the law," +mused Mr. Tutt. "Roughly, mental capacity to understand the nature of +one's acts is the test, but it is applied arbitrarily in the case of +human beings and a mere point of time is taken beyond which, +irrespective of his actual intelligence, a man is held accountable for +whatever he does. Of course that is theoretically unsound. The more +intelligent a person is the more responsible he should be held to be and +the higher the quality of conduct demanded of him by his fellows. Yet +after twenty-one all are held equally responsible—unless they're +actually insane. It isn't equity! In theory no man or animal should be +subject to the power of discretionary punishment on the part of +another—even his own father or master. I've often wondered what earthly +right we have to make the animals work for us—to bind them to slavery +when we denounce slavery as a crime. It would horrify us to see a human +being put up and sold at auction. Yet we tear the families of animals +apart, subject them to lives of toil, and kill them whenever we see fit. +We say we do this because their intelligence is limited and they cannot +exercise any discrimination in their conduct, that they are always in +the zone of irresponsibility and so have no rights. But I've seen +animals that were shrewder than men, and men who were vastly less +intelligent than animals." +</p> +<p> +"Right-o!" assented Tutt. "Take Scraggs, for instance. He's no more +responsible than a chipmunk." +</p> +<p> +"Nevertheless, the law has always been consistent," said Mr. Tutt, "and +has never discriminated between animals any more than it has between men +on the ground of varying degrees of intelligence. They used to try 'em +all, big and little, wild and domesticated, mammals and invertebrates." +</p> +<p> +"Oh, come!" exclaimed Tutt. "I may not know much law, but—" +</p> +<p> +"Between 1120 and 1740 they prosecuted in France alone no less than +ninety-two animals. The last one was a cow." +</p> +<p> +"A cow hasn't much intelligence," observed Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"And they tried fleas," added Mr. Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"They have a lot!" commented his junior partner. "I knew a flea once, +who—" +</p> +<p> +"They had a regular form of procedure," continued Mr. Tutt, brushing the +flea aside, "which was adhered to with the utmost technical accuracy. +You could try an individual animal, either in person or by proxy, or you +could try a whole family, swarm or herd. If a town was infested by rats, +for example, they first assigned counsel—an advocate, he was +called—and then the defendants were summoned three times publicly to +appear. If they didn't show up on the third and last call they were +tried <i>in absentia</i>, and if convicted were ordered out of the country +before a certain date under penalty of being exorcised." +</p> +<p> +"What happened if they were exorcised?" asked Tutt curiously. +</p> +<p> +"It depended a good deal on the local power of Satan," answered the old +lawyer dryly. "Sometimes they became even more prolific and destructive +than they were before, and sometimes they promptly died. All the leeches +were prosecuted at Lausanne in 1451. A few selected representatives +were brought into court, tried, convicted and ordered to depart within +a fixed period. Maybe they didn't fully grasp their obligations or +perhaps were just acting contemptuously, but they didn't depart and so +were promptly exorcised. Immediately they began to die off and before +long there were none left in the country." +</p> +<p> +"I know some rats and mice I'd like to have exorcised," mused Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"At Autun in the fifteenth century the rats won their case," said Mr. +Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"Who got 'em off?" asked Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"M. Chassensée, the advocate appointed to defend them. They had been a +great nuisance and were ordered to appear in court. But none of them +turned up. M. Chassensée therefore argued that a default should not be +taken because <i>all</i> the rats had been summoned, and some were either so +young or so old and decrepit that they needed more time. The court +thereupon granted him an extension. However, they didn't arrive on the +day set, and this time their lawyer claimed that they were under duress +and restrained by bodily fear—of the townspeople's cats. That all these +cats, therefore should first be bound over to keep the peace! The court +admitted the reasonableness of this, but the townsfolk refused to be +responsible for their cats and the judge dismissed the case!" +</p> +<p> +"What did Chassensée get out of it?" inquired Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"There is no record of who paid him or what was his fee." +</p> +<p> +"He was a pretty slick lawyer," observed Tutt. "Did they ever try +birds?" +</p> +<p> +"Oh, yes!" answered Mr. Tutt. "They tried a cock at Basel in 1474—for +the crime of laying an egg." +</p> +<p> +"Why was that a crime?" asked Tutt. "I should call it a <i>tour de +force</i>." +</p> +<p> +"Be that as it may," said his partner, "from a cock's egg is hatched the +cockatrice, or basilisk, the glance of whose eye turns the beholder to +stone. Therefore they tried the cock, found him guilty and burned him +and his egg together at the stake. That is why cocks don't lay eggs +now." +</p> +<p> +"I'm glad to know that," said Tutt. "When did they give up trying +animals?" +</p> +<p> +"Nearly two hundred years ago," answered Mr. Tutt. "But for some time +after that they continued to try inanimate objects for causing injury to +people. I've heard they tried one of the first locomotives that ran over +a man and declared it forfeit to the crown as a deodand." +</p> +<p> +"I wonder if you couldn't get 'em to try Andrew," hazarded Tutt, "and +maybe declare him forfeited to somebody as a deodand." +</p> +<p> +"Deodand means 'given to God,'" explained Mr. Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"Well, I'd give Andrew to God—if God would take him," declared Tutt +devoutly. +</p> +<p> +"But who is Andrew?" asked Mr. Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"Andrew is a dog," said Tutt, "who bit one Tunnygate, and now the Grand +Jury have indicted not the dog, as it is clear from your historical +disquisition they should have done, but the dog's owner, Mr. Enoch +Appleboy." +</p> +<p> +"What for?" +</p> +<p> +"Assault in the second degree with a dangerous weapon." +</p> +<p> +"What was the weapon?" inquired Mr. Tutt simply. +</p> +<p> +"The dog." +</p> +<p> +"What are you talking about?" cried Mr. Tutt. "What nonsense!" +</p> +<p> +"Yes, it is nonsense!" agreed Tutt. "But they've done it all the same. +Read it for yourself!" And he handed Mr. Tutt the indictment. +</p> +<hr> +<p> +"The Grand Jury of the County of New York by this indictment accuse +Enoch Appleboy of the crime of assault in the second degree, committed +as follows: +</p> +<p> +"Said Enoch Appleboy, late of the Borough of Bronx, City and County +aforesaid, on the 21st day of July, in the year of our Lord one +thousand nine hundred and fifteen, at the Borough and County aforesaid, +with force and arms in and upon one Herman Tunnygate, in the peace of +the State and People then and there being, feloniously did willfully and +wrongfully make an assault in and upon the legs and body of him the said +Herman Tunnygate, by means of a certain dangerous weapon, to wit: one +dog, of the form, style and breed known as 'bull,' being of the name of +'Andrew,' then and there being within control of the said Enoch +Appleboy, which said dog, being of the name of 'Andrew,' the said Enoch +Appleboy did then and there feloniously, willfully and wrongfully +incite, provoke, and encourage, then and there being, to bite him, the +said Herman Tunnygate, by means whereof said dog 'Andrew' did then and +there grievously bite the said Herman Tunnygate in and upon the legs and +body of him, the said Herman Tunnygate, and the said Enoch Appleboy thus +then and there feloniously did willfully and wrongfully cut, tear, +lacerate and bruise, and did then and there by the means of the dog +'Andrew' aforesaid feloniously, willfully and wrongfully inflict +grievous bodily harm upon the said Herman Tunnygate, 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." +</p> +<p> +"That," asserted Mr. Tutt, wiping his spectacles, "is a document worthy +of preservation in the Congressional Library. Who drew it?" +</p> +<p> +"Don't know," answered Tutt, "but whoever he was he was a humorist!" +</p> +<p> +"It's no good. There isn't any allegation of <i>scienter</i> in it," affirmed +Mr. Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"What of it? It says he assaulted Tunnygate with a dangerous weapon. You +don't have to set forth that he knew it was a dangerous weapon if you +assert that he did it willfully. You don't have to allege in an +indictment charging an assault with a pistol that the defendant knew it +was loaded." +</p> +<p> +"But a dog is different!" reasoned Mr. Tutt. "A dog is not <i>per se</i> a +dangerous weapon. Saying so doesn't make it so, and that part of the +indictment is bad on its face—unless, to be sure, it means that he hit +him with a dead dog, which it is clear from the context that he didn't. +The other part—that he set the dog on him—lacks the allegation that +the dog was vicious and that Appleboy knew it; in other words an +allegation of <i>scienter</i>. It ought to read that said Enoch Appleboy +'well knowing that said dog Andrew was a dangerous and ferocious animal +and would, if incited, provoked and encouraged, bite the legs and body +of him the said Herman—did then and there feloniously, willfully and +wrongfully incite, provoke and encourage the said Andrew, and so +forth.'" +</p> +<p> +"I get you!" exclaimed Tutt enthusiastically. "Of course an allegation +of <i>scienter</i> is necessary! In other words you could demur to the +indictment for insufficiency?" +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt nodded. +</p> +<p> +"But in that case they'd merely go before the Grand Jury and find +another—a good one. It's much better to try and knock the case out on +the trial once and for all." +</p> +<p> +"Well, the Appleboys are waiting to see you," said Tutt. "They are in my +office. Bonnie Doon got the case for us off his local district leader, +who's a member of the same lodge of the Abyssinian Mysteries—Bonnie's +been Supreme Exalted Ruler of the Purple Mountain for over a year—and +he's pulled in quite a lot of good stuff, not all dog cases either! +Appleboy's an Abyssinian too." +</p> +<p> +"I'll see them," consented Mr. Tutt, "but I'm going to have you try the +case. I shall insist upon acting solely in an advisory capacity. Dog +trials aren't in my line. There are some things which are <i>infra +dig</i>—even for Ephraim Tutt." +</p> +<hr> +<p> +Mr. Appleboy sat stolidly at the bar of justice, pale but resolute. +Beside him sat Mrs. Appleboy, also pale but even more resolute. A jury +had been selected without much manifest attention by Tutt, who had +nevertheless managed to slip in an Abyssinian brother on the back row, +and an ex-dog fancier for Number Six. Also among those present were a +delicatessen man from East Houston Street, a dealer in rubber novelties, +a plumber and the editor of Baby's World. The foreman was almost as fat +as Mr. Appleboy, but Tutt regarded this as an even break on account of +the size of Tunnygate. As Tutt confidently whispered to Mrs. Appleboy, +it was as rotten a jury as he could get. +</p> +<p> +Mrs. Appleboy didn't understand why Tutt should want a rotten jury, but +she nevertheless imbibed some vicarious confidence from this statement +and squeezed Appleboy's hand encouragingly. For Appleboy, in spite of +his apparent calm, was a very much frightened man, and under the creases +of his floppy waistcoat his heart was beating like a tom-tom. The +penalty for assault in the second degree was ten years in state's +prison, and life with Bashemath, even in the vicinity of the Tunnygates, +seemed sweet. The thought of breaking stones under the summer sun—it +was a peculiarly hot summer—was awful. Ten years! He could never live +through it! And yet as his glance fell upon the Tunnygates, arrayed in +their best finery and sitting with an air of importance upon the front +bench of the court room, he told himself that he would do the whole +thing all over again—yes, he would! He had only stood up for his +rights, and Tunnygate's blood was upon his own head—or wherever it was. +So he squeezed Bashemath's hand tenderly in response. +</p> +<p> +Upon the bench Judge Witherspoon, assigned from somewhere upstate to +help keep down the ever-lengthening criminal calendar of the +Metropolitan District, finished the letter he was writing to his wife in +Genesee County, sealed it and settled back in his chair. An old war +horse of the country bar, he had in his time been mixed up in almost +every kind of litigation, but as he looked over the indictment he with +difficulty repressed a smile. Thirty years ago he'd had a dog case +himself; also of the form, style and breed known as bull. +</p> +<p> +"You may proceed, Mister District Attorney!" he announced, and little +Pepperill, the youngest of the D.A.'s staff, just out of the law school, +begoggled and with his hair plastered evenly down on either side of his +small round head, rose with serious mien, and with a high piping voice +opened the prosecution. +</p> +<p> +It was, he told them, a most unusual and hence most important case. The +defendant Appleboy had maliciously procured a savage dog of the most +vicious sort and loosed it upon the innocent complainant as he was on +his way to work, with the result that the latter had nearly been torn to +shreds. It was a horrible, dastardly, incredible, fiendish crime, he +would expect them to do their full duty in the premises, and they should +hear Mr. Tunnygate's story from his own lips. +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tunnygate limped with difficulty to the stand, and having been sworn +gingerly sat down—partially. Then turning his broadside to the gaping +jury he recounted his woes with indignant gasps. +</p> +<p> +"Have you the trousers which you wore upon that occasion?" inquired +Pepperill. +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tunnygate bowed solemnly and lifted from the floor a paper parcel +which he untied and from which he drew what remained of that now +historic garment. +</p> +<p> +"These are they," he announced dramatically. +</p> +<p> +"I offer them in evidence," exclaimed Pepperill, "and I ask the jury to +examine them with great care." +</p> +<p> +They did so. +</p> +<p> +Tutt waited until the trousers had been passed from hand to hand and +returned to their owner; then, rotund, chipper and birdlike as ever, +began his cross-examination much like a woodpecker attacking a stout +stump. The witness had been an old friend of Mr. Appleboy's, had he not? +Tunnygate admitted it, and Tutt pecked him again. Never had done him +any wrong, had he? Nothing in particular. Well, any wrong? Tunnygate +hesitated. Why, yes, Appleboy had tried to fence in the public beach +that belonged to everybody. Well, did that do the witness any harm? The +witness declared that it did; compelled him to go round when he had a +right to go across. Oh! Tutt put his head on one side and glanced at the +jury. How many feet? About twenty feet. Then Tutt pecked a little +harder. +</p> +<p> +"Didn't you tear a hole in the hedge and stamp down the grass when by +taking a few extra steps you could have reached the beach without +difficulty?" +</p> +<p> +"I—I simply tried to remove an illegal obstruction," declared Tunnygate +indignantly. +</p> +<p> +"Didn't Mr. Appleboy ask you to keep off?" +</p> +<p> +"Sure—yes!" +</p> +<p> +"Didn't you obstinately refuse to do so?" +</p> +<p> +Mr. Pepperill objected to "obstinately" and it was stricken out. +</p> +<p> +"I wasn't going to stay off where I had a right to go," asserted the +witness. +</p> +<p> +"And didn't you have warning that the dog was there?" +</p> +<p> +"Look here!" suddenly burst out Tunnygate. "You can't hector me into +anything. Appleboy never had a dog before. He got a dog just to sic him +on me! He put up a sign 'Beware of the dog,' but he knew that I'd think +it was just a bluff. It was a plant, that's what it was! And just as +soon as I got inside the hedge that dog went for me and nearly tore me +to bits. It was a rotten thing to do and you know it!" +</p> +<p> +He subsided, panting. +</p> +<p> +Tutt bowed complacently. +</p> +<p> +"I move that the witness' remarks be stricken out on the grounds first, +that they are unresponsive; second, that they are irrelevant, +incompetent and immaterial; third, that they contain expressions of +opinion and hearsay; and fourth, that they are abusive and generally +improper." +</p> +<p> +"Strike them out!" directed Judge Witherspoon. Then he turned to +Tunnygate. "The essence of your testimony is that the defendant set a +dog on you, is it not? You had quarreled with the defendant, with whom +you had formerly been on friendly terms. You entered on premises claimed +to be owned by him, though a sign warned you to beware of a dog. The dog +attacked and bit you? That's the case, isn't it?" +</p> +<p> +"Yes, Your Honor." +</p> +<p> +"Had you ever seen that dog before?" +</p> +<p> +"No, sir." +</p> +<p> +"Do you know where he got it?" +</p> +<p> +"My wife told me—" +</p> +<p> +"Never mind what your wife told you. Do you—" +</p> +<p> +"He don't know where the dog came from, judge!" suddenly called out Mrs. +Tunnygate in strident tones from where she was sitting. "But I know!" +she added venomously. "That woman of his got it from—" +</p> +<p> +Judge Witherspoon fixed her coldly with an impassive and judicial eye. +</p> +<p> +"Will you kindly be silent, madam? You will no doubt be given an +opportunity to testify as fully as you wish. That is all, sir, unless +Mr. Tutt has some more questions." +</p> +<p> +Tutt waved the witness from the stand contemptuously. +</p> +<p> +"Well, I'd like a chance to testify!" shrilled Mrs. Tunnygate, rising in +full panoply. +</p> +<p> +"This way, madam," said the clerk, motioning her round the back of the +jury box. And she swept ponderously into the offing like a full-rigged +bark and came to anchor in the witness chair, her chin rising and +falling upon her heaving bosom like the figurehead of a vessel upon a +heavy harbor swell. +</p> +<p> +Now it has never been satisfactorily explained just why the character of +an individual should be in any way deducible from such irrelevant +attributes as facial anatomy, bodily structure or the shape of the +cranium. Perhaps it is not, and in reality we discern disposition from +something far more subtle—the tone of the voice, the expression of the +eyes, the lines of the face or even from an aura unperceived by the +senses. However that may be, the wisdom of the Constitutional safeguard +guaranteeing that every person charged with crime shall be confronted by +the witnesses against him was instantly made apparent when Mrs. +Tunnygate took the stand, for without hearing a word from her firmly +compressed lips the jury simultaneously swept her with one comprehensive +glance and turned away. Students of women, experienced adventurers in +matrimony, these plumbers, bird merchants "delicatessens" and the rest +looked, perceived and comprehended that here was the very devil of a +woman—a virago, a shrew, a termagant, a natural-born trouble-maker; and +they shivered and thanked God that she was Tunnygate's and not theirs; +their unformulated sentiment best expressed in Pope's immortal couplet: +</p> +<pre> + Oh woman, woman! when to ill thy mind + Is bent, all hell contains no fouler fiend. +</pre> +<p> +She had said no word. Between the judge and jury nothing had passed, and +yet through the alpha rays of that mysterious medium of communication +by which all men as men are united where woman is concerned, the +thought was directly transmitted and unanimously acknowledged that here +for sure was a hell cat! +</p> +<p> +It was as naught to them that she testified to the outrageous illegality +of the Appleboys' territorial ambitions, the irascibility of the wife, +the violent threats of the husband; or that Mrs. Appleboy had been +observed to mail a suspicious letter shortly before the date of the +canine assault. They disregarded her. Yet when Tutt upon +cross-examination sought to attack her credibility by asking her various +pertinent questions they unhesitatingly accepted his implied accusations +as true, though under the rules of evidence he was bound by her denials. +</p> +<p> +Peck 1: "Did you not knock Mrs. Appleboy's flower pots off the piazza?" +he demanded significantly. +</p> +<p> +"Never! I never did!" she declared passionately +</p> +<p> +But they knew in their hearts that she had. +</p> +<p> +Peck 2: "Didn't you steal her milk bottles?" +</p> +<p> +"What a lie! It's absolutely false!" +</p> +<p> +Yet they knew that she did. +</p> +<p> +Peck 3: "Didn't you tangle up their fish lines and take their +thole-pins?" +</p> +<p> +"Well, I never! You ought to be ashamed to ask a lady such questions!" +</p> +<p> +They found her guilty. +</p> +<p> +"I move to dismiss, Your Honor," chirped Tutt blithely at the conclusion +of her testimony. +</p> +<p> +Judge Witherspoon shook his head. +</p> +<p> +"I want to hear the other side," he remarked. "The mere fact that the +defendant put up a sign warning the public against the dog may be taken +as some evidence that he had knowledge of the animal's vicious +propensities. I shall let the case go to the jury unless this evidence +is contradicted or explained. Reserve your motion." +</p> +<p> +"Very well, Your Honor," agreed Tutt, patting himself upon the abdomen. +"I will follow your suggestion and call the defendant. Mr. Appleboy, +take the stand." +</p> +<p> +Mr. Appleboy heavily rose and the heart of every fat man upon the jury, +and particularly that of the Abyssinian brother upon the back row, went +out to him. For just as they had known without being told that the new +Mrs. Tunnygate was a vixen, they realized that Appleboy was a kind, +good-natured man—a little soft, perhaps, like his clams, but no more +dangerous. Moreover, it was plain that he had suffered and was, indeed, +still suffering, and they had pity for him. Appleboy's voice shook and +so did the rest of his person as he recounted his ancient friendship for +Tunnygate and their piscatorial association, their common matrimonial +experiences, the sudden change in the temperature of the society of +Throggs Neck, the malicious destruction of their property and the +unexplained aggressions of Tunnygate upon the lawn. And the jury, +believing, understood. +</p> +<p> +Then like the sword of Damocles the bessemer voice of Pepperill severed +the general atmosphere of amiability: "Where did you get that dog?" +</p> +<p> +Mr. Appleboy looked round helplessly, distress pictured in every +feature. +</p> +<p> +"My wife's aunt lent it to us." +</p> +<p> +"How did she come to lend it to you?" +</p> +<p> +"Bashemath wrote and asked for it." +</p> +<p> +"Oh! Did you know anything about the dog before you sent for it?" +</p> +<p> +"Of your own knowledge?" interjected Tutt sharply. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, no!" returned Appleboy. +</p> +<p> +"Didn't you know it was a vicious beast?" sharply challenged Pepperill. +</p> +<p> +"Of your own knowledge?" again warned Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"I'd never seen the dog." +</p> +<p> +"Didn't your wife tell you about it?" +</p> +<p> +Tutt sprang to his feet, wildly waving his arms: "I object; on the +ground that what passed between husband and wife upon this subject must +be regarded as confidential." +</p> +<p> +"I will so rule," said Judge Witherspoon, smiling. "Excluded." +</p> +<p> +Pepperill shrugged his shoulders. +</p> +<p> +"I would like to ask a question," interpolated the editor of Baby's +World. +</p> +<p> +"Do!" exclaimed Tutt eagerly. +</p> +<p> +The editor, who was a fat editor, rose in an embarrassed manner. +</p> +<p> +"Mr. Appleboy!" he began. +</p> +<p> +"Yes, sir!" responded Appleboy. +</p> +<p> +"I want to get this straight. You and your wife had a row with the +Tunnygates. He tried to tear up your front lawn. You warned him off. He +kept on doing it. You got a dog and put up a sign and when he +disregarded it you sicked the dog on him. Is that right?" +</p> +<p> +He was manifestly friendly, merely a bit cloudy in the cerebellum. The +Abyssinian brother pulled him sharply by the coat tails. +</p> +<p> +"Sit down," he whispered hoarsely. "You're gumming it all up." +</p> +<p> +"I didn't sic Andrew on him!" protested Appleboy. +</p> +<p> +"But I say, why shouldn't he have?" demanded the baby's editor. "That's +what anybody would do!" +</p> +<p> +Pepperill sprang frantically to his feet. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, I object! This juryman is showing bias. This is entirely improper." +</p> +<p> +"I am, am I?" sputtered the fat editor angrily. "I'll show you—" +</p> +<p> +"You want to be fair, don't you?" whined Pepperill. "I've proved that +the Appleboys had no right to hedge in the beach!" +</p> +<p> +"Oh, pooh!" sneered the Abyssinian, now also getting to his feet. +"Supposing they hadn't? Who cares a damn? This man Tunnygate deserved +all he's got!" +</p> +<p> +"Gentlemen! Gentlemen!" expostulated the judge firmly. "Take your seats +or I shall declare a mistrial. Go on, Mr. Tutt. Call your next witness." +</p> +<p> +"Mrs. Appleboy," called out Tutt, "will you kindly take the chair?" And +that good lady, looking as if all her adipose existence had been devoted +to the production of the sort of pies that mother used to make, placidly +made her way to the witness stand. +</p> +<p> +"Did you know that Andrew was a vicious dog?" inquired Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"No!" answered Mrs. Appleboy firmly. "I didn't." +</p> +<p> +O woman! +</p> +<p> +"That is all," declared Tutt with a triumphant smile. +</p> +<p> +"Then," snapped Pepperill, "why did you send for him?" +</p> +<p> +"I was lonely," answered Bashemath unblushingly. +</p> +<p> +"Do you mean to tell this jury that you didn't know that that dog was +one of the worst biters in Livornia?" +</p> +<p> +"I do!" she replied. "I only knew Aunt Eliza had a dog. I didn't know +anything about the dog personally." +</p> +<p> +"What did you say to your aunt in your letter?" +</p> +<p> +"I said I was lonely and wanted protection." +</p> +<p> +"Didn't you hope the dog would bite Mr. Tunnygate?" +</p> +<p> +"Why, no!" she declared. "I didn't want him to bite anybody." +</p> +<p> +At that the delicatessen man poked the plumber in the ribs and they both +grinned happily at one another. +</p> +<p> +Pepperill gave her a last disgusted look and sank back in his seat. +</p> +<p> +"That is all!" he ejaculated feebly. +</p> +<p> +"One question, if you please, madam," said Judge Witherspoon. "May I be +permitted to"—he coughed as a suppressed snicker ran round the +court—"that is—may I not—er—Oh, look here! How did you happen to +have the idea of getting a dog?" +</p> +<p> +Mrs. Appleboy turned the full moon of her homely countenance upon the +court. +</p> +<p> +"The potato peel came down that way!" she explained blandly. +</p> +<p> +"What!" exploded the dealer in rubber novelties. +</p> +<p> +"The potato peel—it spelled 'dog,'" she repeated artlessly. +</p> +<p> +"Lord!" deeply suspirated Pepperill. "What a case! Carry me out!" +</p> +<p> +"Well, Mr. Tutt," said the judge, "now I will hear what you may wish to +say upon the question of whether this issue should be submitted to the +jury. However, I shall rule that the indictment is sufficient." +</p> +<p> +Tutt elegantly rose. +</p> +<p> +"Having due respect to Your Honor's ruling as to the sufficiency of the +indictment I shall address myself simply to the question of <i>scienter</i>. +I might, of course, dwell upon the impropriety of charging the defendant +with criminal responsibility for the act of another free agent even if +that agent be an animal—but I will leave that, if necessary, for the +Court of Appeals. If anybody were to be indicted in this case I hold it +should have been the dog Andrew. Nay, I do not jest! But I can see by +Your Honor's expression that any argument upon that score would be +without avail." +</p> +<p> +"Entirely," remarked Witherspoon. "Kindly go on!" +</p> +<p> +"Well," continued Tutt, "the law of this matter needs no elucidation. It +has been settled since the time of Moses." +</p> +<p> +"Of whom?" inquired Witherspoon. "You don't need to go back farther +than Chief Justice Marshall so far as I am concerned." +</p> +<p> +Tutt bowed. +</p> +<p> +"It is an established doctrine of the common law both of England and +America that it is wholly proper for one to keep a domestic animal for +his use, pleasure or protection, until, as Dykeman, J., says in Muller +vs. McKesson, 10 Hun., 45, 'some vicious propensity is developed and +brought out to the knowledge of the owner.' Up to that time the man who +keeps a dog or other animal cannot be charged with liability for his +acts. This has always been the law. +</p> +<p> +"In the twenty-first chapter of Exodus at the twenty-eighth verse it is +written: 'If an ox gore a man or a woman, that they die; then the ox +shall be surely stoned, and his flesh shall not be eaten; but the owner +of the ox shall be quit. But if the ox were wont to push with his horn +in time past, and it hath been testified to his owner, and he hath not +kept him in, but that he hath killed a man or a woman; the ox shall be +stoned, and his owner also shall be put to death.' +</p> +<p> +"In the old English case of Smith vs. Pehal, 2 Strange, 1264, it was +said by the court: 'If a dog has once bit a man, and the owner having +notice thereof keeps the dog, and lets him go about or lie at his door, +an action will lie against him at the suit of a person who is bit, +though it happened by such person's treading on the dog's toes; for it +was owing to his not hanging the dog on the first notice. And the safety +of the king's subjects ought not afterwards to be endangered.' That is +sound law; but it is equally good law that 'if a person with full +knowledge of the evil propensities of an animal wantonly excites him or +voluntarily and unnecessarily puts himself in the way of such an animal +he would be adjudged to have brought the injury upon himself, and ought +not to be entitled to recover. In such a case it cannot be said in a +legal sense that the keeping of the animal, which is the gravamen of the +offense, produced the injury.' +</p> +<p> +"Now in the case at bar, first there is clearly no evidence that this +defendant knew or ever suspected that the dog Andrew was otherwise than +of a mild and gentle disposition. That is, there is no evidence whatever +of <i>scienter</i>. In fact, except in this single instance there is no +evidence that Andrew ever bit anybody. Thus, in the word of Holy Writ +the defendant Appleboy should be quit, and in the language of our own +courts he must be held harmless. Secondly, moreover, it appears that the +complainant deliberately put himself in the way of the dog Andrew, after +full warning. I move that the jury be directed to return a verdict of +not guilty." +</p> +<p> +"Motion granted," nodded Judge Witherspoon, burying his nose in his +handkerchief. "I hold that every dog is entitled to one bite." +</p> +<p> +"Gentlemen of the jury," chanted the clerk: "How say you? Do you find +the defendant guilty or not guilty?" +</p> +<p> +"Not guilty," returned the foreman eagerly, amid audible evidences of +satisfaction from the Abyssinian brother, the Baby's World editor and +the others. Mr. Appleboy clung to Tutt's hand, overcome by emotion. +</p> +<p> +"Adjourn court!" ordered the judge. Then he beckoned to Mr. Appleboy. +"Come up here!" he directed. +</p> +<p> +Timidly Mr. Appleboy approached the dais. +</p> +<p> +"Don't do it again!" remarked His Honor shortly. +</p> +<p> +"Eh? Beg pardon, Your Honor, I mean—" +</p> +<p> +"I said: 'Don't do it again!'" repeated the judge with a twinkle in his +eye. Then lowering his voice he whispered: "You see I come from +Livornia, and I've known Andrew for a long time." +</p> +<p> +As Tutt guided the Appleboys out into the corridor the party came face +to face with Mr. and Mrs. Tunnygate. +</p> +<p> +"Huh!" sneered Tunnygate. +</p> +<p> +"Huh!" retorted Appleboy. +</p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<a name="WILE"><!-- WILE --></a> +<h2> +Wile Versus Guile +</h2> +<p> </p> +<pre> + For 'tis the sport to have the engineer + Hoist with his own petar.—HAMLET. +</pre> +<p> +It was a mouse by virtue of which Ephraim Tutt had leaped into fame. It +is true that other characters famous in song and story—particularly in +"Mother Goose"—have similarly owed their celebrity in whole or part to +rodents, but there is, it is submitted, no other case of a mouse, as +mouse <i>per se</i>, reported in the annals of the law, except Tutt's mouse, +from Doomsday Book down to the present time. +</p> +<p> +Yet it is doubtful whether without his mouse Ephraim Tutt would ever +have been heard of at all, and same would equally have been true if when +pursued by the chef's gray cat the mouse aforesaid had jumped in another +direction. But as luck would have it, said mouse leaped foolishly into +an open casserole upon a stove in the kitchen of the Comers Hotel, and +Mr. Tutt became in his way a leader of the bar. +</p> +<p> +It is quite true that the tragic end of the mouse in question has +nothing to do with our present narrative except as a side light upon the +vagaries of the legal career, but it illustrates how an attorney if he +expects to succeed in his profession, must be ready for anything that +comes along—even if it be a mouse. +</p> +<p> +The two Tutts composing the firm of Tutt & Tutt were both, at the time +of the mouse case, comparatively young men. Tutt was a native of Bangor, +Maine, and numbered among his childhood friends one Newbegin, a +commercial wayfarer in the shingle and clapboard line; and as he hoped +at some future time to draw Newbegin's will or to incorporate for him +some business venture Tutt made a practise of entertaining his +prospective client at dinner upon his various visits to the metropolis, +first at one New York hostelry and then at another. +</p> +<p> +Chance led them one night to the Comers, and there amid the imitation +palms and imitation French waiters of the imitation French restaurant +Tutt invited his friend Newbegin to select what dish he chose from those +upon the bill of fare; and Newbegin chose kidney stew. It was at about +that moment that the adventure which has been referred to occurred in +the hotel kitchen. The gray cat was cheated of its prey, and in due +course the casserole containing the stew was borne into the dining room +and the dish was served. +</p> +<p> +Suddenly Mr. Newbegin contorted his mouth and exclaimed: +</p> +<p> +"Heck! A mouse!" +</p> +<p> +It was. The head waiter was summoned, the manager, the owner. Guests and +garçons crowded about Tutt and Mr. Newbegin to inspect what had so +unexpectedly been found. No one could deny that it was, mouse—cooked +mouse; and Newbegin had ordered kidney stew. Then Tutt had had his +inspiration. +</p> +<p> +"You shall pay well for this!" he cried, frowning at the distressed +proprietor, while Newbegin leaned piteously against a pâpier-maché +pillar. "This is an outrage! You shall be held liable in heavy damages +for my client's indigestion!" +</p> +<p> +And thus Tutt & Tutt got their first case out of Newbegin, for under the +influence of the eloquence of Mr. Tutt a jury was induced to give him a +verdict of one thousand dollars against the Comers Hotel, which the +Court of Appeals sustained in the following words, quoting verbatim from +the learned brief furnished by Tutt & Tutt, Ephraim Tutt of counsel: +</p> +<p> +"The only legal question in the case, or so it appears to us, is whether +there is such a sale of food to a guest on the part of the proprietor +as will sustain a warranty. If we are not in error, however, the law is +settled and has been since the reign of Henry the Sixth. In the Ninth +Year Book of that Monarch's reign there is a case in which it was held +that 'if I go to a tavern to eat, and the taverner gives and sells me +meat and it corrupted, whereby I am made very sick, action lies against +him without any express warranty, for there is a warranty in law'; and +in the time of Henry the Seventh the learned Justice Keilway said, 'No +man can justify selling corrupt victual, but an action on the case lies +against the seller, whether the victual was warranted to be good or +not.' Now, certainly, whether mouse meat be or be not deleterious to +health a guest at a hotel who orders a portion of kidney stew has the +right to expect, and the hotel keeper impliedly warrants, that such dish +will contain no ingredients beyond those ordinarily placed therein." +</p> +<hr> +<p> +"A thousand dollars!" exulted Tutt when the verdict was rendered. "Why, +anyone would eat mouse for a thousand dollars!" +</p> +<p> +The Comers Hotel became in due course a client of Tutt & Tutt, and the +mouse which made Mr. Tutt famous did not die in vain, for the case +became celebrated throughout the length and breadth of the land, to the +glory of the firm and a vast improvement in the culinary conditions +existing in hotels. +</p> +<p> +"Come in, Mr. Barrows! Come right in! I haven't seen you for—well, how +long is it?" exclaimed Mr. Tutt, extending a long welcoming arm toward a +human scarecrow upon the threshold. +</p> +<p> +"Five years," answered the visitor. "I only got out day before +yesterday. Fourteen months off for good behavior." +</p> +<p> +He coughed and put down carefully beside him a large dress-suit case +marked E.V.B., Pottsville, N.Y. +</p> +<p> +"Well, well!" sighed Mr. Tutt. "So it is. How time flies!" +</p> +<p> +"Not in Sing Sing!" replied Mr. Barrows ruefully. +</p> +<p> +"I suppose not. Still, it must feel good to be out!" +</p> +<p> +Mr. Barrows made no reply but dusted off his felt hat. He was but the +shadow of a man, an old man at that, as was attested by his long gray +beard, his faded blue eyes, and the thin white hair about his fine +domelike forehead. +</p> +<p> +"I forget what your trouble was about," said Mr. Tutt gently. "Won't you +have a stogy?" +</p> +<p> +Mr. Barrows shook his head. +</p> +<p> +"I ain't used to it," he answered. "Makes me cough." He gazed about him +vaguely. +</p> +<p> +"Something about bonds, wasn't it?" asked Mr. Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"Yes," replied Mr. Barrows; "Great Lakes and Canadian Southern." +</p> +<p> +"Of course! Of course!" +</p> +<p> +"A wonderful property," murmured Mr. Barrows regretfully. "The bonds +were perfectly good. There was a defect in the foreclosure proceedings +which made them a permanent underlying security of the reorganized +company—under The Northern Pacific R.R. Co. vs. Boyd; you know—but the +court refused to hold that way. They never will hold the way you want, +will they?" He looked innocently at Mr. Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"No," agreed the latter with conviction, "they never will!" +</p> +<p> +"Now those bonds were as good as gold," went on the old man; "and yet +they said I had to go to prison. You know all about it. You were my +lawyer." +</p> +<p> +"Yes," assented Mr. Tutt, "I remember all about it now." +</p> +<p> +Indeed it had all come back to him with the vividness of a landscape +seen during a lightning flash—the crowded court, old Doc Barrows upon +the witness stand, charged with getting money on the strength of +defaulted and outlawed bonds—picked up heaven knows where—pathetically +trying to persuade an unsympathetic court that for some reason they +were still worth their face value, though the mortgage securing the debt +which they represented had long since been foreclosed and the money +distributed. +</p> +<p> +"I'd paid for 'em—actual cash," he rambled on. "Not much, to be +sure—but real money. If I got 'em cheap that was my good luck, wasn't +it? It was because my brain was sharper than other folks'! I said they +had value and I say so now—only nobody will believe it or take the +trouble to find out. I learned a lot up there in Sing Sing too," he +continued, warming to his subject. "Do you know, sir, there are fortunes +lying all about us? Take gold, for instance! There's a fraction of a +grain in every ton of sea water. But the big people don't want it taken +out because it would depress the standard of exchange. I say it's a +conspiracy—and yet they jailed a man for it! There's great mineral +deposits all about just waiting for the right man to come along and +develop 'em." +</p> +<p> +His lifted eye rested upon the engraving of Abraham Lincoln over Mr. +Tutt's desk. "There was a man!" he exclaimed inconsequently; then +stopped and ran his transparent, heavily veined old hand over his +forehead. "Where was I? Let me see. Oh, yes—gold. All those great +properties could be bought at one time or another for a song. It needed +a pioneer! That's what I was—a pioneer to find the gold where other +people couldn't find it. That's not any crime; it's a service to +humanity! If only they'd have a little faith—instead of locking you up. +The judge never looked up the law about those Great Lakes bonds! If he +had he'd have found out I was right! I'd looked it up. I studied law +once myself." +</p> +<p> +"I know," said Mr. Tutt, almost moved to tears by the sight of the wreck +before him. "You practised up state, didn't you?" +</p> +<p> +"Yes," responded Doc Barrows eagerly. "And in Chicago too. I'm a member +of the Cook County bar. I'll tell you something! If the Supreme Court of +Illinois hadn't been wrong in its law I'd be the richest man in the +world—in the whole world!" He grabbed Mr. Tutt by the arm and stared +hard into his eyes. "Didn't I show you my papers? I own seven feet of +water front clean round Lake Michigan all through the city of Chicago I +got it for a song from the man who found out the flaw in the original +title deed of 1817; he was dying. 'I'll sell my secret to you,' he says, +'because I'm passing on. May it bring you luck!' I looked it all up and +it was just as he said. So I got up a corporation—The Chicago Water +Front and Terminal Company—and sold bonds to fight my claim in the +courts. But all the people who had deeds to my land conspired against +me and had me arrested! They sent me to the penitentiary. There's +justice for you!" +</p> +<p> +"That was too bad!" said Mr. Tutt in a soothing voice. "But after all +what good would all that money have done you?" +</p> +<p> +"I don't want money!" affirmed Doc plaintively. "I've never needed +money. I know enough secrets to make me rich a dozen times over. Not +money but justice is what I want—my legal rights. But I'm tired of +fighting against 'em. They've beaten me! Yes, they've beaten me! I'm +going to retire. That's why I came in to see you, Mr. Tutt. I never paid +you for your services as my attorney. I'm going away. You see my married +daughter lost her husband the other day and she wants me to come up and +live with her on the farm to keep her from being lonely. Of course it +won't be much like life in Wall Street—but I owe her some duty and I'm +getting on—I am, Mr. Tutt, I really am!" +</p> +<p> +He smiled. +</p> +<p> +"And I haven't seen Louisa for three years—my only daughter. I shall +enjoy being with her. She was such a dear little girl! I'll tell you +another secret"—his voice dropped to a whisper—"I've found out there's +a gold mine on her farm, only she doesn't know it. A rich vein runs +right through her cow pasture. We'll be rich! Wouldn't it be fine, Mr. +Tutt, to be rich? Then I'm going to pay you in real money for all you've +done for me—thousands! But until then I'm going to let you have +these—all my securities; my own, you know, every one of them." +</p> +<p> +He placed the suitcase in front of Mr. Tutt and opened the clasps with +his shaking old fingers. It bulged with bonds, and he dumped them forth +until they covered the top of the desk. +</p> +<p> +"These are my jewels!" he said. "There's millions represented here!" He +lifted one tenderly and held it to the light, fresh as it came from the +engraver's press—a thousand dollar first-mortgage bond of The Chicago +Water Front and Terminal Company. "Look at that! Good as gold—if the +courts only knew the law." +</p> +<p> +He took up a yellow package of valueless obligations upon the top of +which an old-fashioned locomotive from whose bell-shaped funnel the +smoke poured in picturesque black clouds, dragging behind it a chain of +funny little passenger coaches, drove furiously along beside a rushing +river through fields rich with corn and wheat amid a border of dollar +signs. +</p> +<p> +"The Great Lakes and Canadian Southern," he crooned lovingly. "The child +of my heart! The district attorney kept all the rest—as evidence, he +claimed, but some day you'll see he'll bring an action against the Lake +Shore or the New York Central based on these bonds. Yes, sir! They're +all right!" +</p> +<p> +He pawed them over, picking out favorites here and there and excitedly +extolling the merits of the imaginary properties they represented. There +were the repudiated bonds of Southern states and municipalities of +railroads upon whose tracks no wheel had ever turned; of factories never +built except in Doc Barrows' addled brain; of companies which had +defaulted and given stock for their worthless obligations; certificates +of oil, mining and land companies; deeds to tracts now covered with sky +scrapers in Pittsburgh, St. Louis and New York—each and every one of +them not worth the paper they were printed on except to some crook who +dealt in high finance. But they were exquisitely engraved, quite lovely +to look at, and Doc Barrows gloated upon them with scintillating eyes. +</p> +<p> +"Ain't they beauties?" he sighed. "Some day—yes sir!—some day they'll +be worth real money. I paid it for some of 'em. But they're yours—all +yours." +</p> +<p> +He gathered them up with care and returned them to the suitcase, then +fastened the clasps and patted the leather cover with his hand. +</p> +<p> +"They are yours, sir!" he exclaimed dramatically. +</p> +<p> +"As you say," agreed Mr. Tutt, "there's gold lying round everywhere if +we only had sense enough to look for it. But I think you're wise to +retire. After all, you have the satisfaction of knowing that your +enterprises were sound even if other people disagreed with you." +</p> +<p> +"If this was 1819 instead of 1919 I'd own Chicago," began Doc, a gleam +appearing in his eye. "But they don't want to upset the status +quo—that's why I haven't got a fair chance. But they needn't worry! I'd +be generous with 'em—give 'em easy terms—long leases and nominal +rents." +</p> +<p> +"But you'll like living with your daughter, I'm sure," said Mr. Tutt. +"It will make a new man of you in no time." +</p> +<p> +"Healthiest spot in northern New York," exclaimed Doc. "Within two miles +of a lake—fishing, shooting, outdoor recreation of all kinds, an ideal +site for a mammoth summer hotel." +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt rose and laid his arms round old Doc Barrows' shoulders. +</p> +<p> +"Thank you a thousand times," he said gratefully, "for the securities. +I'll be glad to keep them for you in my vault." His lips puckered in a +stealthy smile which he tried hard to conceal. +</p> +<p> +"Louisa may want to repaper the farmhouse some time," he added to +himself. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, they're all yours to keep!" insisted Doc. "I want you to have +them!" His voice trembled. +</p> +<p> +"Well, well!" answered Mr. Tutt. "Leave it that way; but if you ever +should want them they'll be here waiting for you." +</p> +<p> +"I'm no Indian giver!" replied Doc with dignity. "Give, give, give a +thing—never take it back again." +</p> +<p> +He laughed rather childishly. He was evidently embarrassed. +</p> +<p> +"Could—could you let me have the loan of seventy-five cents?" he asked +shyly. +</p> +<hr> +<p> +Down below, inside a doorway upon the other side of the street, Sergeant +Murtha of the Detective Bureau waited for Doc Barrows to come out and be +arrested again. Murtha had known Doc for fifteen years as a harmless old +nut who had rarely succeeded in cheating anybody, but who was regarded +as generally undesirable by the authorities and sent away every few +years in order to keep him out of mischief. There was no danger that the +public would accept Doc's version of the nature or value of his +securities, but there was always the chance that some of his worthless +bonds—those bastard offsprings of his cracked old brain—would find +their way into less honest but saner hands. So Doc rattled about from +penitentiary to prison and from prison to madhouse and out again, +constantly taking appeals and securing writs of habeas corpus, and +feeling mildly resentful, but not particularly so, that people should be +so interfering with his business. Now as from force of long habit he +peered out of the doorway before making his exit; he looked like one of +the John Sargent's prophets gone a little madder than usual—a Jeremiah +or a Habakkuk. +</p> +<p> +"Hello, Doc!" called Murtha in hearty, friendly tones. "Hie spy! Come on +out!" +</p> +<p> +"Oh, how d'ye do, captain!" responded Doc. "How are you? I was just +interviewing my solicitor." +</p> +<p> +"Sorry," said Murtha. "The inspector wants to see you." +</p> +<p> +Doc flinched. +</p> +<p> +"But they've just let me go!" he protested faintly. +</p> +<p> +"It's one of those old indictments—Chicago Water Front or something. +Anyhow—Here! Hold on to yourself!" +</p> +<p> +He threw his arms around the old man, who seemed on the point of +falling. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, captain! That's all over! I served time for that out in Illinois!" +For some strange reason all the insanity had gone out of his bearing. +</p> +<p> +"Not in this state," answered Murtha. New pity for this poor old wastrel +took hold upon him. "What were you going to do?" +</p> +<p> +"I was going to retire, captain," said Doc faintly. "My daughter's +husband—he owned a farm up in Cayuga County—well, he died and I was +planning to go up there and live with her." +</p> +<p> +"And sting all the boobs?" grinned Murtha not unsympathetically. "How +much money have you got?" +</p> +<p> +"Seventy-five cents." +</p> +<p> +"How much is the ticket?" +</p> +<p> +"About nine dollars," quavered Doc. "But I know a man down on Chatham +Square who might buy a block of stock in the Last Chance Gold Mining +Company; I could get the money that way." +</p> +<p> +"What's the Last Chance Gold Mining Company?" asked Murtha sharply. +</p> +<p> +"It's a company I'm going to organize. I'll tell you a secret, Murtha. +There's a vein of gold runs right through my daughter Louisa's cow +pasture—she doesn't know anything about it—" +</p> +<p> +"Oh, hell!" exclaimed Murtha. "Come along to the station. I'll let you +have the nine bones. And you can put me down for half a million of the +underwriting." +</p> +<hr> +<p> +That same evening Mr. Tutt was toasting his carpet slippers before the +sea-coal fire in his library, sipping a hot toddy and rereading for the +eleventh time the "Lives of the Chancellors" when Miranda, who had not +yet finished washing the few dishes incident to her master's meager +supper, pushed open the door and announced that a lady was calling. +</p> +<p> +"She said you'd know her sho' enough, Mis' Tutt," grinned Miranda, +swinging her dishrag, "'case you and she used to live tergidder when you +was a young man." +</p> +<p> +This scandalous announcement did not have the startling effect upon the +respectable Mr. Tutt which might naturally have been anticipated, since +he was quite used to Miranda's forms of expression. +</p> +<p> +"It must be Mrs. Effingham," he remarked, closing the career of Lord +Eldon and removing his feet from the fender. +</p> +<p> +"Dat's who it is!" answered Miranda. "She's downstairs waitin' to come +up." +</p> +<p> +"Well, let her come," directed Mr. Tutt, wondering what his old +boarding-house keeper could want of him, for he had not seen Mrs. +Effingham for more than fifteen years, at which time she was well +provided with husband, three children and a going business. Indeed, it +required some mental adjustment on his part to recognize the withered +little old lady in widow's weeds and rusty black with a gold star on her +sleeve who so timidly, a moment later, followed Miranda into the room. +</p> +<p> +"I'm afraid you don't recognize me," she said with a pitiful attempt at +faded coquetry. "I don't blame you, Mr. Tutt. You don't look a day older +yourself. But a great deal has happened to me!" +</p> +<p> +"I should have recognized you anywhere," he protested gallantly. "Do sit +down, Mrs. Effingham won't you? I am delighted to see you. How would you +like a glass of toddy? Just to show there's no ill-feeling!" +</p> +<p> +He forced a glass into her hand and filled it from the teakettle +standing on the hearth, while Miranda brought a sofa cushion and tucked +it behind the old lady's back. +</p> +<p> +Mrs. Effingham sighed, tasted the toddy and leaned back deliciously. She +was very wrinkled and her hair under the bonnet was startlingly white in +contrast with the crepe of her veil, but there were still traces of +beauty in her face. +</p> +<p> +"I've come to you, Mr. Tutt," she explained apologetically, "because I +always said that if I ever was in trouble you'd be the one to whom I +should go to help me out." +</p> +<p> +"What greater compliment could I receive?" +</p> +<p> +"Well, in those days I never thought that time would come," she went on. +"You remember my husband—Jim? Jim died two years ago. And little +Jimmy—our eldest—he was only fourteen when you boarded with us—he was +killed at the Front last July." She paused and felt for her +handkerchief, but could not find it. "I still keep the house; but do you +know how old I am, Mr. Tutt? I'm seventy-one! And the two older girls +got married long ago and I'm all alone except for Jessie, the +youngest—and I haven't told her anything about it." +</p> +<p> +"Yes?" said Mr. Tutt sympathetically. "What haven't you told her about?" +</p> +<p> +"My trouble. You see, Jessie's not a well girl—she really ought to live +out West somewhere, the doctor says—and Jim and I had saved up all +these years so that after we were gone she would have something to live +on. We saved twelve thousand dollars—and put it into Government bonds." +</p> +<p> +"You couldn't have anything safer, at any rate," remarked the lawyer. "I +think you did exceedingly well." +</p> +<p> +"Now comes the awful part of it all!" exclaimed Mrs. Effingham, clasping +her hands. "I'm afraid it's gone—gone forever. I should have consulted +you first before I did it, but it all seemed so fair and above-board +that I never thought." +</p> +<p> +"Have you got rid of your bonds?" +</p> +<p> +"Yes—no—that is, the bank has them. You see I borrowed ten thousand +dollars on them and gave it to Mr. Badger to invest in his oil company +for me." +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt groaned inwardly. Badger was the most celebrated of Wall +Street's near-financiers. +</p> +<p> +"Where on earth did you meet Badger?" he demanded. +</p> +<p> +"Why, he boarded with me—for a long time," she answered. "I've no +complaint to make of Mr. Badger. He's a very handsome polite gentleman. +And I don't feel altogether right about coming to you and saying +anything that might be taken against him—but lately I've heard so many +things—" +</p> +<p> +"Don't worry about Badger!" growled Mr. Tutt. "How did you come to +invest in his oil stock?" +</p> +<p> +"I was there when he got the telegram telling how they had found oil on +the property; it came one night at dinner. He was tickled to death. The +stock had been selling at three cents a share, and, of course, after the +oil was discovered he said it would go right up to ten dollars. But he +was real nice about it—he said anybody who had been living there in the +house could share his good fortune with him, come in on the ground +floor, and have it just the same for three cents. A week later there +came a photograph of the gusher and almost all of us decided to buy +stock." +</p> +<p> +At this point in the narrative Mr. Tutt kicked the coal hod violently +and uttered a smothered ejaculation. +</p> +<p> +"Of course I didn't have any ready money," explained Mrs. Effingham, +"but I had the bonds—they only paid two per cent and the oil stock was +going to pay twenty—and so I took them down to the bank and borrowed +ten thousand dollars on them. I had to sign a note and pay five per cent +interest. I was making the difference—fifteen hundred dollars every +year." +</p> +<p> +"What has it paid?" demanded Mr. Tutt ironically. +</p> +<p> +"Twenty per cent," replied Mrs. Effingham. "I get Mr. Badger's check +regularly every six months." +</p> +<p> +"How many times have you got it?" +</p> +<p> +"Twice." +</p> +<p> +"Well, why don't you like your investment?" inquired Mr. Tutt blandly. +"I'd like something that would pay me twenty per cent a year!" +</p> +<p> +"Because I'm afraid Mr. Badger isn't quite truthful, and one of the +ladies—that old Mrs. Channing; you remember her, don't you—the one +with the curls?—she tried to sell her stock and nobody would make a bid +on it at all—and when she spoke to Mr. Badger about it he became very +angry and swore right in front of her. Then somebody told me that Mr. +Badger had been arrested once for something—and—and—Oh, I wish I +hadn't given him the money, because if it's lost Jessie won't have +anything to live on after I'm dead—and she's too sick to work. What do +you think, Mr. Tutt? Do you suppose Mr. Badger would buy the stock +back?" +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt smiled grimly. +</p> +<p> +"Not if I know him! Have you got your stock with you?" +</p> +<p> +She nodded. Fumbling in her black bag she pulled forth a flaring +certificate—of the regulation kind, not even engraved—which evidenced +that Sarah Maria Ann Effingham was the legal owner of three hundred and +thirty thousand shares of the capital stock of the Great Geyser Texan +Petroleum and Llano Estacado Land Company. +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt took it gingerly between his thumb and forefinger. It was +signed ALFRED HAYNES BADGER, Pres., and he had an almost irresistible +temptation to twist it into a spill and light a stogy with it. But he +used a match instead, while Mrs. Effingham watched him apprehensively. +Then he handed the stock back to her and poured out another glass of +toddy. +</p> +<p> +"Ever been in Mr. Badger's office?" +</p> +<p> +"Oh, yes!" she answered. "It's a lovely office. You can see 'way down +the harbor—and over to New Jersey. It's real elegant." +</p> +<p> +"Would you mind going there again? That is, are you on friendly terms +with him?" +</p> +<p> +Already a strange, rather desperate plan was half formulated in his +mind. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, we're perfectly friendly," she smiled. "I generally go down there +to get my check." +</p> +<p> +"Whose check is it—his or the company's?" +</p> +<p> +"I really don't know," she answered simply. "What difference would it +make?" +</p> +<p> +"Oh, nothing—except that he might claim that he'd loaned you the +money." +</p> +<p> +"Loaned it? To me?" +</p> +<p> +"Why, yes. One hears of such things." +</p> +<p> +"But it is my money!" she cried, stiffening. +</p> +<p> +"You paid that for the stock." +</p> +<p> +She shook her head helplessly. +</p> +<p> +"I don't understand these things," she murmured. "If Jim had been alive +it wouldn't have happened. He was so careful." +</p> +<p> +"Husbands have some uses occasionally." +</p> +<p> +Suddenly she put her hands to her face. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, Mr. Tutt! Please get the money back from him. If you don't +something terrible will happen to Jessie!" +</p> +<p> +"I'll do my best," he said gently, laying his hand on her fragile +shoulder. "But I may not be able to do it—and anyhow I'll need your +help." +</p> +<p> +"What can I do?" +</p> +<p> +"I want you to go down to Mr. Badger's office to-morrow morning and tell +him that you are so much pleased with your investment that you would +like to turn all your securities over to him to sell and put the money +into the Great Geyser Texan Petroleum and Llano Estacado Land Company." +</p> +<p> +He rolled out the words with unction. +</p> +<p> +"But I don't!" +</p> +<p> +"Oh, yes, you do!" he assured her. "You want to do just what I tell +you, don't you?" +</p> +<p> +"Of course," she answered. "But I thought you didn't like Mr. Badger's +oil company." +</p> +<p> +"Whether I like it or not makes no difference. I want you to say just +what I tell you." +</p> +<p> +"Oh, very well, Mr. Tutt." +</p> +<p> +"Then you must tell him about the note, and that first it will have to +be paid off." +</p> +<p> +"Yes." +</p> +<p> +"And then you must hand him a letter which I will dictate to you now." +</p> +<p> +She flushed slightly, her eyes bright with excitement. +</p> +<p> +"You're sure it's perfectly honest, Mr. Tutt? I wouldn't want to do +anything unfair!" +</p> +<p> +"Would you be honest with a burglar?" +</p> +<p> +"But Mr. Badger isn't a burglar!" +</p> +<p> +"No—he's only about a thousand times worse. He's a robber of widows and +orphans. He isn't man enough to take a chance at housebreaking." +</p> +<p> +"I don't know what you mean," she sighed. "Where shall I write?" +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt cleared a space upon his desk, handed her a pad and dipped a +pen in the ink while she took off her gloves. +</p> +<p> +"Address the note to the bank," he directed. +</p> +<p> +She did so. +</p> +<p> +"Now say: 'Kindly deliver to Mr. Badger all the securities I have on +deposit with you, whenever he pays my note. Very truly yours, Sarah +Maria Ann Effingham.'" +</p> +<p> +"But I don't want him to have my securities!" she retorted. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, you won't mind! You'll be lucky to get Mr. Badger to take back your +oil stock on any terms. Leave the certificate with me," laughed Mr. +Tutt, rubbing his long thin hands together almost gleefully. "And now as +it is getting rather late perhaps you will do me the honor of letting me +escort you home." +</p> +<p> +It was midnight before Mr. Tutt went to bed. In the first place he had +felt himself so neglectful of Mrs. Effingham that after he had taken her +home he had sat there a long time talking over the old lady's affairs +and making the acquaintance of the phthisical Jessie, who turned out to +be a wistful little creature with great liquid eyes and a delicate +transparent skin that foretold only too clearly what was to be her +future. There was only one place for her, Mr. Tutt told +himself—Arizona; and by the grace of God she should go there, Badger or +no Badger! +</p> +<p> +As the old lawyer walked slowly home with his hands clasped behind his +back he pondered upon the seeming mockery and injustice of the law that +forced a lonely, half-demented old fellow with the fixed delusion that +he was a financier behind prison bars and left free the sharp slick +crook who had no bowels or mercies and would snatch away the widow's +mite and leave her and her consumptive daughter to die in the poorhouse. +Yet such was the case, and there they all were! Could you blame people +for being Bolsheviks? And yet old Doc Barrows was as far from a +Bolshevik as anyone could well be. +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt passed a restless night, dreaming, when he slept at all, of +mines from which poured myriads of pieces of yellow gold, of gushers +spouting columns of blood-red oil hundreds of feet into the air, and of +old-fashioned locomotives dragging picturesque trains of cars across +bright green prairies studded with cacti in the shape of dollar signs. +Old Doc Barrows was with him, and from time to time he would lean toward +him and whisper "Listen, Mr. Tutt, I'll tell you a secret! There's a +vein of gold runs right through my daughter's cow pasture!" +</p> +<p> +When Willie next morning at half past eight reached the office he found +the door already unlocked and Mr. Tutt busy at his desk, up to his +elbows in a great mass of bonds and stock certificates. +</p> +<p> +"Gee!" he exclaimed to Miss Sondheim, the stenographer, when she made +her appearance at a quarter past nine. "Just peek in the old man's door +if you want to feel rich! Say, he must ha' struck pay dirt! I wonder if +we'll all get a raise?" +</p> +<p> +But all the securities on Mr. Tutt's desk would not have justified even +the modest advance of five dollars in Miss Sondheim's salary, and their +employer was merely sorting out and making an inventory of Doc Barrows' +imaginary wealth. By the time Mrs. Effingham arrived by appointment at +ten o'clock he had them all arranged and labeled; and in a special +bundle neatly tied with a piece of red tape were what on their face were +securities worth upward of seventy thousand dollars. There were ten of +the beautiful bonds of the Great Lakes and Canadian Southern Railroad +Company with their miniature locomotives and fields of wheat, and ten +equally lovely bits of engraving belonging to the long-since defunct +Bluff Creek and Iowa Central, ten more superb lithographs issued by the +Mohawk and Housatonic in 1867 and paid off in 1882, and a variety of +gorgeous chromos of Indians and buffaloes, and of factories and +steamships spouting clouds of soft-coal smoke; and on the top of all was +a pile of the First Mortgage Gold Six Per Cent obligations of the +Chicago Water Front and Terminal Company—all of them fresh and crisp, +with that faintly acrid smell which though not agreeable to the nostrils +nevertheless delights the banker's soul. +</p> +<p> +"Ah! Good morning to you, Mrs. Effingham!" Mr. Tutt cried, waving her in +when that lady was announced. "You are not the only millionaire, you +see! In fact, I've stumbled into a few barrels of securities +myself—only I didn't pay anything for them." +</p> +<p> +"Gracious!" cried Mrs. Effingham, her eyes lighting with astonishment. +"Wherever did you get them? And such exquisite pictures! Look at that +lamb!" +</p> +<p> +"It ought to have been a wolf!" muttered Mr. Tutt. "Well, Mrs. +Effingham, I've decided to make you a present—just a few pounds of +Chicago Water Front and Canadian Southern—those over there in that +pile; and now if you say so we'll just go along to your bank." +</p> +<p> +"Give them to me!" she protested. "What on earth for? You're joking, Mr. +Tutt." +</p> +<p> +"Not a bit of it!" he retorted. "I don't make any pretensions as to the +value of my gift, but they're yours for whatever they're worth." +</p> +<p> +He wrapped them carefully in a piece of paper and returned the balance +to Doc Barrows' dress-suit case. +</p> +<p> +"Aren't you afraid to leave them that way?" she asked, surprised. +</p> +<p> +"Not at all! Not at all!" he laughed. "You see there are fortunes lying +all about us everywhere if we only know where to look. Now the first +thing to do is to get your bonds back from the bank." +</p> +<p> +Mr. Thomas McKeever, the popular loan clerk of the Mustardseed National, +was just getting ready for the annual visit of the state bank examiner +when Mr. Tutt, followed by Mrs. Effingham, entered the exquisitely +furnished boudoir where lady clients were induced by all modern +conveniences except manicures and shower baths to become depositors. Mr. +Tutt and Mr. McKeever belonged to the same Saturday evening poker game +at the Colophon Club, familiarly known as The Bible Class. +</p> +<p> +"Morning, Tom," said Mr. Tutt. "This is my client, Mrs. Effingham. You +hold her note, I believe, for ten thousand dollars secured by some +government bonds. She has a use for those bonds and I thought that you +might be willing to take my indorsement instead. You know I'm good for +the money." +</p> +<p> +"Why, I guess we can accommodate her, Mr. Tutt!" answered the +Chesterfieldian Mr. McKeever. "Certainly we can. Sit down, Mrs. +Effingham, while I send for your bonds. See the morning paper?" +</p> +<p> +Mrs. Effingham blushingly acknowledged that she had not seen the paper. +In fact, she was much too excited to see anything. +</p> +<p> +"Sign here!" said the loan clerk, placing the note before the lawyer. +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt indorsed it in his strange, humpbacked chirography. +</p> +<p> +"Here are your bonds," said Mr. McKeever, handing Mrs. Effingham a small +package in a manila envelope. She took them in a half-frightened way, as +if she thought she was doing something wrong. +</p> +<p> +"And now," said Mr. Tutt, "the lady would like a box in your +safe-deposit vaults; a small one—about five dollars a year—will do. +She has quite a bundle of securities with her, which I am looking into. +Most if not all of them are of little or no value, but I have told her +she might just as well leave them as security for what they are worth, +in addition to my indorsement. Really it's just a slick game of ours to +get the bank to look after them for nothing. Isn't it, Mrs. Effingham?" +</p> +<p> +"Ye-es!" stammered Mrs. Effingham, not understanding what he was talking +about. +</p> +<p> +"Well," answered Mr. McKeever, "we never refuse collateral. I'll put the +bonds with the note—" His eye caught the edges of the bundle. "Great +Scott, Tutt! What are you leaving all these bonds here for against that +note? There must be nearly a hundred thousand dol—" +</p> +<p> +"I thought you never refused collateral, Mr. McKeever!" challenged Mr. +Tutt sternly. +</p> +<p> +Twenty minutes later the exquisite blonde that acted as Mr. Badger's +financial accomplice learned from Mrs. Effingham's faltering lips that +the widow would like to see the great man in regard to further +investments. +</p> +<p> +"How does it look, Mabel?" inquired the financier from behind his +massive mahogany desk covered with a six by five sheet of plate glass. +"Is it a squeal or a fall?" +</p> +<p> +"Easy money," answered Mabel with confidence. "She wants to put a +mortgage on the farm." +</p> +<p> +"Keep her about fourteen minutes, tell her the story of my +philanthropies, and then shoot her in," directed Badger. +</p> +<p> +So Mrs. Effingham listened politely while Mabel showed her the +photographs of Mr. Badger's home for consumptives out in Tyrone, New +Mexico, and of his wife and children, taken on the porch of his summer +home at Seabright, New Jersey; and then, exactly fourteen minutes having +elapsed, she was shot in. +</p> +<p> +"Ah! Mrs. Effingham! Delighted! Do be seated!" Mr. Badger's smile was +like that of the boa constrictor about to swallow the rabbit. +</p> +<p> +"About my oil stock," hesitated Mrs. Effingham. +</p> +<p> +"Well, what about it?" demanded Badger sharply. "Are you dissatisfied +with your twenty per cent?" +</p> +<p> +"Oh, no!" stammered the old lady. "Not at all! I just thought if I could +only get the note paid off at the Mustardseed Bank I might ask you to +sell the collateral and invest the proceeds in your gusher." +</p> +<p> +"Oh!" Mr. Badger beamed with pleasure. "Do you really wish to have me +dispose of your securities for you?" +</p> +<p> +He did not regard it as necessary to inquire into the nature of the +collateral. If it was satisfactory to the Mustardseed National it must +of course exceed considerably the amount of the note. +</p> +<p> +"Yes," answered Mrs. Effingham timidly; and she handed him the letter +dictated by Mr. Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"Well," replied Mr. Badger thoughtfully, after reading it, "what you ask +is rather unusual—quite unusual, I may say, but I think I may be able +to attend to the matter for you. Leave it in my hands and think no more +about it. How have you been, my dear Mrs. Effingham? You're looking +extraordinarily well!" +</p> +<p> +Mr. McKeever had about concluded his arrangements for welcoming the +state bank examiner when the telephone on his desk buzzed, and on taking +up the receiver he heard the ingratiating voice of Alfred Haynes Badger. +</p> +<p> +"Is this the Loan Department of the Mustardseed National?" +</p> +<p> +"It is," he answered shortly. +</p> +<p> +"I understand you hold a note of a certain Mrs. Effingham for ten +thousand dollars. May I ask if it is secured?" +</p> +<p> +"Who is this?" snapped McKeever. +</p> +<p> +"One of her friends," replied Mr. Badger amicably. +</p> +<p> +"Well, we don't discuss our clients' affairs over the telephone. You had +better come in here if you have any inquiries to make." +</p> +<p> +"But I want to pay the note," expostulated Mr. Badger. +</p> +<p> +"Oh! Well, anybody can pay the note who wants to." +</p> +<p> +"And of course in that case you would turn over whatever collateral is +on deposit to secure the note?" +</p> +<p> +"If we were so directed." +</p> +<p> +"May I ask what collateral there is?" +</p> +<p> +"I don't know." +</p> +<p> +"There is some collateral, I suppose?" +</p> +<p> +"Yes." +</p> +<p> +"Well, I have an order from Mrs. Effingham directing the bank to turn +over whatever securities she has on deposit as collateral, on my payment +of the note." +</p> +<p> +"In that case you'll get 'em," said Mr. McKeever gruffly. "I'll get +them out and have 'em ready for you." +</p> +<hr> +<p> +"Here is my certified check for ten thousand; dollars," announced Alfred +Haynes Badger a few minutes later. "And here is the order from Mrs. +Effingham. Now will you kindly turn over to me all the securities?" +</p> +<p> +Mr. McKeever, knowing something of the reputation of Mr. Badger, first +called up the bank which had certified the latter's check, and having +ascertained that the certification was genuine he marked Mrs. +Effingham's note as paid and then took down from the top of his roll-top +desk the bundle of beautifully engraved securities given him by Mr. +Tutt. Badger watched him greedily. +</p> +<p> +"Thank you," he gurgled, stuffing them into his pocket. "Much obliged +for your courtesy. Perhaps you would like me to open an account here?" +</p> +<p> +"Oh, anybody can open an account who wants to," remarked Mr. McKeever +dryly, turning away from him to something else. +</p> +<p> +Mr. Badger fairly flew back to his office. The exquisite blonde had +hardly ever before seen him exhibit so much agitation. +</p> +<p> +"What have you pulled this time?" she inquired dreamily. "Father's +daguerreotype and the bracelet of mother's hair?" +</p> +<p> +"I've grabbed off the whole bag of tricks!" he cried. "Look at 'em! +We've not seen so much of the real stuff in six months. +</p> +<p> +"Ten—twenty—thirty—forty—fifty—By gad!—sixty—seventy!" +</p> +<p> +"What are they?" asked Mabel curiously. "Some bonds—what?" +</p> +<p> +"I should say so!" he retorted gaily. "Say, girlie, I'll give you the +swellest meal of your young life to-night! Chicago Water Front and +Terminal, Great Lakes and Canadian Southern, Mohawk and Housatonic, +Bluff Creek and Iowa Central. '<i>Oh, Mabel</i>!'" +</p> +<p> +It was at just about this period of the celebration that Mr. Tutt +entered the outer office and sent in his name; and as Mr. Badger was at +the height of his good humor he condescended to see him. +</p> +<p> +"I have called," said Mr. Tutt, "in regard to the bonds belonging to my +client, Mrs. Effingham. I see you have them on the desk there in front +of you. Unfortunately she has changed her mind. She has decided not to +have you dispose of her securities." +</p> +<p> +Mr. Badger's expression instantly became hostile and defiant. +</p> +<p> +"It's too late!" he replied. "I have paid off her note and I am going to +carry out the rest of the arrangement." +</p> +<p> +"Oh," said Mr. Tutt, "so you are going to sell all her securities and +put the proceeds into your bogus oil company—whether she wishes it or +not? If you do the district attorney will get after you." +</p> +<p> +"I stand on my rights," snarled Badger. "Anyhow I can sell enough of the +securities to pay myself back my ten thousand dollars." +</p> +<p> +"And then you'll steal the rest?" inquired Mr. Tutt. "Be careful, my +dear sir! Remember there is such a thing as equity, and such a place as +Sing Sing." +</p> +<p> +Badger gave a cynical laugh. +</p> +<p> +"You're too late, my friend! I've got a written order—<i>a written +order</i>—from your client, as you call her. She can't go back on it now. +I've got the bonds and I'm going to dispose of them." +</p> +<p> +"Very well," said Mr. Tutt tolerantly. "You can do as you see fit. +But"—and he produced ten genuine one-thousand-dollar bills and +exhibited them to Mr. Badger at a safe distance—"I now on behalf of +Mrs. Effingham make you a legal tender of the ten thousand dollars you +have just paid out to cancel her note, and I demand the return of the +securities. Incidentally I beg to inform you that they are not worth the +paper they are printed on." +</p> +<p> +"Indeed!" sneered Badger. "Well, my dear! old friend, you might have +saved yourself the trouble of coming round here. You and your client +can go straight to hell. <i>You</i> can keep the money; <i>I'll</i> keep the +bonds. See?" +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt sighed and shook his head hopelessly. +</p> +<p> +Then he put the bills back into his pocket and started slowly for the +door. +</p> +<p> +"You absolutely and finally decline to give up the securities?" he asked +plaintively. +</p> +<p> +"Absolutely and finally?" mocked Mr. Badger with a sweeping bow. +</p> +<p> +"Dear! Dear!" almost moaned Mr. Tutt. "I'd heard of you a great many +times but I never realized before what an unscrupulous man you were! +Anyhow, I'm glad to have had a look at you. By the way, if you take the +trouble to dig through all that junk you'll find the certificate of +stock in the Great Jehoshaphat Oil Company you used to flim flam Mrs. +Effingham with out of her ten thousand dollars. Maybe you can use it on +someone else! Anyhow, she's about two thousand dollars to the good. It +isn't every widow who can get twenty per cent and then get her money +back in full." +</p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<a name="TRAMP"><!-- TRAMP --></a> +<h2> +The Hepplewhite Tramp +</h2> +<p> </p> +<blockquote><p> +"No freeman shall be taken, or imprisoned, or disseized +or outlawed, or exiled, or in any way harmed—nor will +we go upon or send upon him—save by the lawful judgment +of his peers or by the law of the land."—MAGNA CHARTA, Sec. 39. +</p></blockquote> +<blockquote><p> +"'Somebody has been lying in my bed—and here she +is,' cried the Little, Small, Wee Bear, in his little, small, +wee voice."—THE THREE BEARS. +</p></blockquote> +<p> +One of the nicest men in New York was Mr. John De Puyster Hepplewhite. +The chief reason for his niceness was his entire satisfaction with +himself and the padded world in which he dwelt, where he was as +protected from all shocking, rough or otherwise unpleasant things as a +shrinking débutante from the coarse universe of fact. Being thus +shielded from every annoyance and irritation by a host of sycophants he +lived serenely in an atmosphere of unruffled calm, gazing down benignly +and with a certain condescension from the rarefied altitude of his +Fifth Avenue windows, pleased with the prospect of life as it appeared +to him to be and only slightly conscious of the vileness of his fellow +man. +</p> +<p> +Certainly he was not conscious at all of the existence of the celebrated +law firm of Tutt & Tutt. Such vulgar persons were not of his sphere. His +own lawyers were gray-headed, dignified, rather smart attorneys who +moved only in the best social circles and practised their profession +with an air of elegance. When Mr. Hepplewhite needed advice he sent for +them and they came, chatted a while in subdued easy accents, and went +away—like cheerful undertakers. Nobody ever spoke in loud tones near +Mr. Hepplewhite because Mr. Hepplewhite did not like anything loud—not +even clothes. He was, as we have said, quite one of the nicest men in +New York. +</p> +<p> +At the moment when Mrs. Witherspoon made her appearance he was sitting +in his library reading a copy of "Sainte-Beuve" and waiting for Bibby, +the butler, to announce tea. It was eight minutes to five and there was +still eight minutes to wait; so Mr. Hepplewhite went on reading +"Sainte-Beuve." +</p> +<p> +Then "Mrs. Witherspoon!" intoned Bibby, and Mr. Hepplewhite rose +quickly, adjusted his eye-glass and came punctiliously forward. +</p> +<p> +"My dear Mrs. Witherspoon!" he exclaimed crisply. "I am really +delighted to see you. It was quite charming of you to give me this +week-end." +</p> +<p> +"Adorable of you to ask me Mr. Hepplewhite!" returned the lady. "I've +been looking forward to this visit for weeks. What a sweet room? Is that +a Corot?" +</p> +<p> +"Yes—yes!" murmured her host modestly. "Rather nice, I think, eh? I'll +show you my few belongings after tea. Now will you go upstairs first or +have tea first?" +</p> +<p> +"Just as you say," beamed Mrs. Witherspoon. "Perhaps I had better run up +and take off my veil." +</p> +<p> +"Whichever you prefer," he replied chivalrously. "Do exactly as you +like. Tea will be ready in a couple of minutes." +</p> +<p> +"Then I think I'll run up." +</p> +<p> +"Very well. Bibby, show Mrs. Witherspoon—" +</p> +<p> +"Very good, sir. This way, please, madam. Stockin', fetch Mrs. +Witherspoon's bag from the hall." +</p> +<p> +Mr. Hepplewhite stood rubbing his delicate hands in front of the fire, +telling himself what a really great pleasure it was to have Mrs. +Witherspoon staying with him over the week-end. He was having a dinner +party for her that evening—of forty-eight. All that it had been +necessary for him to do to have the party was to tell Mr. Sadducee, his +secretary, that he wished to have it and direct him to send the +invitations from List Number One and then to tell Bibby the same thing +and to order the chef to serve Dinner Number Four—only to have +Johannisberger Cabinet instead of Niersteiner. +</p> +<p> +All these things were highly important to Mr. Hepplewhite, for upon the +absolute smoothness with which tea and dinner were served and the +accuracy with which his valet selected socks to match his tie his entire +happiness, to say nothing of his peace of mind, depended. His daily life +consisted of a series of subdued and nicely adjusted social events. They +were forecast for months ahead. Nothing was ever done on the spur of the +moment at Mr. Hepplewhite's. He could tell to within a couple of seconds +just exactly what was going to occur during the balance of the day, the +remainder of Mrs. Witherspoon's stay and the rest of the month. It would +have upset him very much not to know exactly what was going to happen, +for he was a meticulously careful host and being a creature of habit the +unexpected was apt to agitate him extremely. +</p> +<p> +So now as he stood rubbing his hands it was in the absolute certainty +that in just a few more seconds one of the footmen would appear between +the tapestry portières bearing aloft a silver tray with the tea things, +and then Bibby would come in with the paper, and presently Mrs. +Witherspoon would come down and she would make tea for him and they +would talk about tea, and Aiken, and whether the Abner Fullertons were +going to get a domestic or foreign divorce, and how his bridge was these +days. It would be very nice, and he rubbed his hands very gently and +waited for the Dresden clock to strike five in the subdued and decorous +way that it had. But he did not hear it strike. +</p> +<p> +Instead a shriek rang out from the hall above, followed by yells and +feet pounding down the stairs. Mr. Hepplewhite turned cold and something +hard rose up in his throat. His sight dimmed. And then Bibby burst in, +pale and with protruding eyes. +</p> +<p> +"There was a man in the guest room!" he gasped. "Stockin's got him. What +shall we do?" +</p> +<p> +At that moment Mrs. Witherspoon followed. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, Mr. Hepplewhite! Oh, Mr. Hepplewhite!" she gasped, staggering +toward him. +</p> +<p> +Mr. Hepplewhite would have taken her in his arms and attempted to +comfort her only it was not done in Mr. Hepplewhite's set unless under +extreme provocation. So he pressed an armchair upon her; or, rather, +pressed her into an armchair; and leaned against the bookcase feeling +very faint. He was extremely agitated. +</p> +<p> +"S-send for the police! S-s-send for B-burk!" he stuttered. Burk was a +husky watchman who also acted as a personal guard for Mr. Hepplewhite. +</p> +<p> +An alarm began to beat a deafening staccato in the hall outside the +library. Bibby rushed gurgling from the room. Several tall men in knee +breeches and silk stockings dashed excitedly up and down stairs using +expressions such as had never before been heard by Mr. Hepplewhite, and +the clanging gong of a police wagon was audible as it clattered up the +Avenue. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, Mr. Hepplewhite," whispered Mrs. Witherspoon, unconsciously seeking +his hand. "I never was so frightened in my life!" +</p> +<p> +Then the gong stopped and the police poured into the house and up the +stairs. There were muffled noises and suppressed ejaculations of "Aw, +come on there, now! I've got him, Mike! No funny business now, you! Come +along quiet!" +</p> +<p> +The whole house seemed blue with policemen, and Mr. Hepplewhite became +aware of a very fat man in a blue cap marked Captain, who removed the +cap deferentially and otherwise indicated that he was making obeisance. +Behind the fat man stood three other equally fat men, who held between +them with grim firmness, by arm, neck and shoulder, a much smaller—in +fact, quite a small—man shabby, unkempt, and with a desperate look upon +his unshaven face. +</p> +<p> +"We've got him, all right, Mr. Hepplewhite!" exulted the captain, +obviously grateful that God had vouchsafed to deliver the criminal into +his and not into other hands. "Shall I take him to the house—or do you +want to examine him?" +</p> +<p> +"I?" ejaculated Mr. Hepplewhite. "Mercy, no! Take him away as quickly as +possible!" +</p> +<p> +"As you say, sir," wheezed the captain. "Come along, boys! Take him over +to court and arraign him!" +</p> +<p> +"Yes, do!" urged Mrs. Witherspoon. "And arraign him as hard as you can; +for he really frightened me nearly to death, the terrible man!" +</p> +<p> +"Leave him to me, ma'am!" adjured the captain "Will you have your butler +act as complainant sir?" he asked. +</p> +<p> +"Why—yes—Bibby will do whatever is proper," agreed Mr. Hepplewhite. +"It will not be necessary for me to go to court, will it?" +</p> +<p> +"Oh, no!" answered the captain. "Mr. Bibby will do all right. I suppose +we had better make the charge burglary, sir?" +</p> +<p> +"I suppose so," replied Mr. Hepplewhite vaguely. +</p> +<p> +"Get on, boys," ordered the captain. "Good evening, sir. Good evening, +ma'am. Step lively, you!" +</p> +<p> +The blue cloud faded away, bearing with it both Bibby and the burglar. +Then the third footman brought the belated tea. +</p> +<p> +"What a frightful thing to have happen!" grieved Mrs. Witherspoon as she +poured out the tea for Mr. Hepplewhite. "You don't take cream, do you?" +</p> +<p> +"No, thanks," he answered. "I find too much cream hard to digest. I have +to be rather careful, you know. By the way, you haven't told me where +the burglar was or what he was doing when you went into the room." +</p> +<p> +"He was in the bed," said Mrs. Witherspoon. +</p> +<hr> +<p> +"In the 'Decay of Lying,' Mr. Tutt," said Tutt thoughtfully, as he +dropped in for a moment's chat after lunch, "Oscar Wilde says, 'There is +no essential incongruity between crime and culture.'" +</p> +<p> +The senior partner removed his horn-rimmed spectacles and carefully +polished the lenses with a bit of chamois, which he produced from his +watch pocket, meanwhile resting the muscles of his forehead by elevating +his eyebrows until he somewhat resembled an inquiring but good-natured +owl. +</p> +<p> +"That's plain enough," he replied. "The most highly cultivated people +are often the most unscrupulous. I go Oscar one better and declare that +there is a distinct relationship between crime and progress!" +</p> +<p> +"You don't say, now!" ejaculated Tutt. "How do you make that out?" +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt readjusted his spectacles and slowly selected a stogy from the +bundle in the dusty old cigar box. +</p> +<p> +"Crime," he announced, "is the violation of the will of the majority as +expressed in the statutes. The law is wholly arbitrary and depends upon +public opinion. Acts which are crimes in one century or country become +virtues in another, and vice versa. Moreover, there is no difference, +except one of degree, between infractions of etiquette and of law, each +of which expresses the feelings and ideas of society at a given moment. +Violations of good taste, manners, morals, illegalities, wrongs, +crimes—they are all fundamentally the same thing, the insistence on +one's own will in defiance of society as a whole. The man who keeps his +hat on in a drawing-room is essentially a criminal because he prefers +his own way of doing things to that adopted by his fellows." +</p> +<p> +"That's all right," answered Tutt. "But how about progress?" +</p> +<p> +"Why, that is simple," replied his partner. "The man who refuses to bow +to habit, tradition, law—who thinks for himself and acts for himself, +who evolves new theories, who has the courage of his convictions and +stakes his life and liberty upon them—that man is either a statesman, a +prophet or a criminal. And in the end he is either hailed as a hero and +a liberator or is burned, cast into prison or crucified." +</p> +<p> +Tutt looked interested. +</p> +<p> +"Well, now," he returned, helping himself from the box, "I never thought +of it, but, of course, it's true. Your proposition is that progress +depends on development and development depends on new ideas. If the new +idea is contrary to those of society it is probably criminal. If its +inventor puts it across, gets away with it, and persuades society that +he is right he is a leader in the march of progress. If he fails he goes +to jail. Hence the relationship between crime and progress. Why not say +that crime is progress?" +</p> +<p> +"If successful it is," answered Mr. Tutt. "But the moment it is +successful it ceases to be crime." +</p> +<p> +"I get you," nodded Tutt. "Here to-day it is a crime to kill one's +grandmother; but I recall reading that among certain savage tribes to do +so is regarded as a highly virtuous act. Now if I convince society that +to kill one's grandmother is a good thing it ceases to be a crime. +Society has progressed. I am a public benefactor." +</p> +<p> +"And if you don't persuade society you go to the chair," remarked Mr. +Tutt laconically. +</p> +<p> +"To use another illustration," exclaimed Tutt, warming to the subject, +"the private ownership of property at the present time is recognized and +protected by the law, but if we had a Bolshevik government it might be a +crime to refuse to share one's property with others." +</p> +<p> +"In that case if you took your share of another's property by force, +instead of being a thief you would be a Progressive," smiled his +partner. +</p> +<p> +Tutt robbed his forehead. +</p> +<p> +"Looking at it that way, you know," said he, "makes it seem as if +criminals were rather to be admired." +</p> +<p> +"Well, some of them are, and a great multitude of them certainly were," +answered Mr. Tutt. "All the early Christian martyrs were criminals in +the sense that they were law-breakers." +</p> +<p> +"And Martin Luther," suggested Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"And Garibaldi," added Mr. Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"And George Washington—maybe?" hazarded the junior partner. +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt shrugged his high shoulders. +</p> +<p> +"You press the analogy a long way, but—in a sense every successful +revolutionist was in the beginning a criminal—as every rebel is and +perforce must be," he replied. +</p> +<p> +"So," said Tutt, "if you're a big enough criminal you cease to be a +criminal at all. If you're going to be a crook, don't be a piker—it's +too risky. Grab everything in sight. Exterminate a whole nation, if +possible. Don't be a common garden highwayman or pirate; be a Napoleon +or a Willy Hohenzollern." +</p> +<p> +"You have the idea," replied Mr. Tutt. "Crime is unsuccessful defiance +of the existing order of things. Once rebellion rises to the dignity of +revolution murder becomes execution and the murderers become +belligerents. Therefore, as all real progress involves a change in or +defiance of existing law, those who advocate progress are essentially +criminally minded, and if they attempt to secure progress by openly +refusing to obey the law they are actual criminals. Then if they +prevail, and from being in the minority come into power, they are taken +out of jail, banquets are given in their honor, and they are called +patriots and heroes. Hence the close connection between crime and +progress." +</p> +<p> +Tutt scratched his chin doubtfully. +</p> +<p> +"That sounds pretty good," he admitted, "but"—and he shook his +head—"there's something the matter with it. It doesn't work except in +the case of crimes involving personal rights and liberties. I see your +point that all progressives are criminals in the sense that they are +'agin the law' as it is, but—I also see the hole in your argument, +which is that the fact that all progressives are criminals doesn't make +all criminals progressive. Your proposition is only a half truth." +</p> +<p> +"You're quite wrong about my theory being a half truth," retorted Mr. +Tutt. "It is fundamentally sound. The fellow who steals a razor or a few +dollars is regarded as a mean thief, but if he loots a trust company or +takes a million he's a financier. The criminal law, I maintain, is +administered for the purpose of protecting the strong from the weak, the +successful from the unsuccessful the rich from the poor. And, sir"—Mr. +Tutt here shook his fist at an imaginary jury—"the man who wears a red +necktie in violation of the taste of his community or eats peas with his +knife is just as much a criminal as a man who spits on the floor when +there's a law against it. Don't you agree with me?" +</p> +<p> +"I do not!" replied Tutt. "But that makes no difference. Nevertheless +what you say about the criminal law being devised to protect the rich +from the poor interests me very much—very much indeed But I think +there's a flaw in that argument too, isn't there? Your proposition is +true only to the extent that the criminal law is invoked to protect +property rights—and not life and liberty. Naturally the laws that +protect property are chiefly of benefit to those who have it—the rich." +</p> +<p> +"However that may be," declared Mr. Tutt fiercely, "I claim that the +criminal laws are administered, interpreted and construed in favor of +the rich as against the liberties of the poor, for the simple reason +that the administrators of the criminal law desire to curry favor with +the powers that be." +</p> +<p> +"The moral of which all is," retorted the other, "that the law ought to +be very careful about locking up people." +</p> +<p> +"At any rate those who have violated laws upon which there can be a +legitimate difference of opinion," agreed Mr. Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"That's where we come in," said Tutt. "We make the difference—even if +there never was any before." +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt chuckled. +</p> +<p> +"We perform a dual service to society," he declared. "We prevent the law +from making mistakes and so keep it from falling into disrepute, and we +show up its weak points and thus enable it to be improved." +</p> +<p> +"And incidentally we keep many a future statesman and prophet from going +to prison," said Tutt. "The name of the last one was Solomon +Rabinovitch—and he was charged with stealing a second-hand razor from a +colored person described in the papers as one Morris Cohen." +</p> +<p> +How long this specious philosophic discussion would have continued is +problematical had it not been interrupted by the entry of a young +gentleman dressed with a somewhat ostentatious elegance, whose wizened +face bore an expression at once of vast good nature and of a deep and +subtle wisdom. +</p> +<p> +It was clear that he held an intimate relationship to Tutt & Tutt from +the familiar way in which he returned their cordial, if casual, +salutations. +</p> +<p> +"Well, here we are again," remarked Mr. Doon pleasantly, seating himself +upon the corner of Mr. Tutt's desk and spinning his bowler hat upon the +forefinger of his left hand. "The hospitals are empty. The Tombs is as +dry as a bone. Everybody's good and every day'll be Sunday by and by." +</p> +<p> +"How about that man who stole a razor?" asked Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"Discharged on the ground that the fact that he had a full beard created +a reasonable doubt," replied Doon. "Honestly there's nothing doing in my +line—unless you want a tramp case." +</p> +<p> +"A tramp case!" exclaimed Tutt & Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"I suppose you'd call it that," he answered blandly. "I don't think he +was a burglar. Anyhow he's in the Tombs now, shouting for a lawyer. I +listened to him and made a note of the case." +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt pushed over the box of stogies and leaned back attentively. +</p> +<p> +"You know the Hepplewhite house up on Fifth Avenue—that great stone +one with the driveway?" +</p> +<p> +The Tutts nodded. +</p> +<p> +"Well, it appears that the prisoner—our prospective client—was +snooping round looking for something to eat and found that the butler +had left the front door slightly ajar. Filled with a natural curiosity +to observe how the other half lived, he thrust his way cautiously in and +found himself in the main hall—hung with tapestry and lined with stands +of armor. No one was to be seen. Can't you imagine him standing there in +his rags—the Weary Willy of the comic supplements—gazing about him at +the <i>objets d'art</i>, the old masters, the onyx tables, the +statuary—wondering where the pantry was and whether the housekeeper +would be more likely to feed him or kick him out?" +</p> +<p> +"Weren't any of the domestics about?" inquired Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"Not one. They were all taking an afternoon off, except the third +assistant second man who was reading 'The Pilgrim's Progress' in the +servants' hall. To resume, our friend was not only very hungry, but very +tired. He had walked all the way from Yonkers, and he needed everything +from a Turkish bath to a manicuring. He had not been shaved for weeks. +His feet sank almost out of sight in the thick nap of the carpets. It +was quiet, warm, peaceful in there. A sense of relaxation stole over +him. He hated to go away, he says, and he meditated no wrong. But he +wanted to see what it was like upstairs. +</p> +<p> +"So up he went. It was like the palace of 'The Sleeping Beauty.' +Everywhere his eyes were soothed by the sight of hothouse plants, marble +floors, priceless rugs, luxurious divans—" +</p> +<p> +"Stop!" cried Tutt. "You are making me sleepy!" +</p> +<p> +"Well, that's what it did to him. He wandered along the upper hall, +peeking into the different rooms, until finally he came to a beautiful +chamber finished entirely in pink silk. It had a pink rug—of silk; the +furniture was upholstered in pink silk, the walls were lined with pink +silk and in the middle of the room was a great big bed with a pink silk +coverlid and a canopy of the same. It seemed to him that that bed must +have been predestined for him. Without a thought for the morrow he +jumped into it, pulled the coverlid over his head and went fast asleep. +</p> +<p> +"Meanwhile, at tea time Mrs. De Lancy Witherspoon arrived for the +week-end. Bibby, the butler, followed by Stocking, the second man, +bearing the hand luggage, escorted the guest to the Bouguereau Room, as +the pink-silk chamber is called." +</p> +<p> +Mr. Bonnie Doon, carried away by his own powers of description, waved +his hand dramatically at the old leather couch against the side wall, +in which Weary Willy was supposed to be reclining. +</p> +<p> +"Can't you see 'em?" he declaimed. "The haughty Bibby with nose in air, +preceding the great dame of fashion, enters the pink room and comes to +attention, 'This way, madam!' he declaims, and Mrs. Witherspoon sweeps +across the threshold." Bonnie Doon, picking up an imaginary skirt, +waddled round Mr. Tutt and approached the couch. Suddenly he started +back. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, la, la!" he half shrieked, dancing about. "There is a man in the +bed!" +</p> +<p> +Both Tutts stared hard at the couch as if fully expecting to see the +form of Weary Willy thereon. Bonnie Doon had a way of making things +appear very vivid. +</p> +<p> +"And sure enough," he concluded, "there underneath the coverlid in the +middle of the bed was a huddled heap with a stubby beard projecting like +Excalibur from a pink silk lake!" +</p> +<p> +"Excuse me," interrupted Tutt. "But may I ask what this is all about?" +</p> +<p> +"Why, your new case, to be sure," grinned Bonnie, who, had he been +employed by any other firm, might have run the risk of being regarded as +an ambulance chaser. "To make a long and tragic story short, they sent +for the watchman, whistled for a policeman, telephoned for the hurry-up +wagon, and haled the sleeper away to prison—where he is now, waiting +to be tried." +</p> +<p> +"Tried!" ejaculated Mr. Tutt. "What for?" +</p> +<p> +"For crime, to be sure," answered Mr. Doon. +</p> +<p> +"What crime?" +</p> +<p> +"I don't know. They'll find one, of course." +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt swiftly lowered his legs from the desk and brought his fist +down upon it with a bang. +</p> +<p> +"Outrageous! What was I just telling you, Tutt!" he cried, a flush +coming into his wrinkled face. "This poor man is a victim of the +overzealousness which the officers of the law exhibit in protecting the +privileges and property of the rich. If John De Puyster Hepplewhite fell +asleep in somebody's vestibule the policeman on post would send him home +in a cab; but if a hungry tramp does the same thing he runs him in. If +John De Puyster Hepplewhite should be arrested for some crime they would +let him out on bail; while the tramp is imprisoned for weeks awaiting +trial, though under the law he is presumed to be innocent. Is he +presumed to be innocent? Not much! He is presumed to be guilty, +otherwise he would not be there. But what is he presumed to be guilty +of? That's what I want to know! Just because this poor man—hungry, +thirsty and weary—happened to select a bed belonging to John De Puyster +Hepplewhite to lie on he is thrown into prison, indicted by a grand +jury, and tried for felony! Ye gods! 'Sweet land of liberty!'" +</p> +<p> +"Well, he hasn't been tried yet," replied Bonnie Doon. "If you feel that +way about it why don't you defend him?" +</p> +<p> +"I will!" shouted Mr. Tutt, springing to his feet. "I'll defend him and +acquit him!" +</p> +<p> +He seized his tall hat, placed it upon his head and strode rapidly +through the door. +</p> +<p> +"He will too!" remarked Bonnie, winking at Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"He thinks that tramp is either a statesman or a prophet!" mused Tutt, +his mind reverting to his partner's earlier remarks. +</p> +<p> +"He won't think so after he's seen him," replied Mr. Doon. +</p> +<p> +It sometimes happens that those who seek to establish great principles +and redress social evils involve others in an involuntary martyrdom far +from their desires. Mr. Tutt would have gone to the electric chair +rather than see the Hepplewhite Tramp, as he was popularly called by the +newspapers convicted of a crime, but the very fact that he had become +his legal champion interjected a new element into the situation, +particularly as O'Brien, Mr. Tutt's arch enemy in the district +attorney's office, had been placed in charge of the case. +</p> +<p> +It would have been one thing to let Hans Schmidt—that was the tramp's +name—go, if after remaining in the Tombs until he had been forgotten by +the press he could have been unobtrusively hustled over the Bridge of +Sighs to freedom. Then there would have been no comeback. But with +Ephraim Tutt breathing fire and slaughter, accusing the police and +district attorney of being trucklers to the rich and great, and +oppressors of the poor—law breakers, in fact—O'Brien found himself in +the position of one having an elephant by the tail and unable to let go. +</p> +<p> +In fact, it looked as if the case of the Hepplewhite Tramp might become +a political issue. That there was something of a comic side to it made +it all the worse. +</p> +<p> +"Holy cats, boys!" snorted District Attorney Peckham to the circle of +disgruntled police officers and assistants gathered about him on the +occasion described by the reporters as his making a personal +investigation of the case, "Why in the name of common sense didn't you +simply boot the fellow into the street?" +</p> +<p> +"I wish we had, counselor!" assented the captain of the Hepplewhite +precinct mournfully. "But we thought he was a burglar. I guess he was, +at that—and it was Mr. Hepplewhite's house." +</p> +<p> +"I've heard that until I'm sick of it!" retorted Peckham. +</p> +<p> +"One thing is sure—if we turn him out now Tutt will sue us all for +false arrest and put the whole administration on the bum," snarled +O'Brien. +</p> +<p> +"But I didn't know the tramp would get Mr. Tutt to defend him," +expostulated the captain. "Anyhow, ain't it a crime to go to sleep in +another man's bed?" +</p> +<p> +"If it ain't it ought to be!" declared his plain-clothes man +sententiously. "Can't you indict him for burglary?" +</p> +<p> +"You can indict all day; the thing is to convict!" snapped Peckham. +"It's up to you, O'Brien, to square this business so that the law is +vindicated—somehow It must be a crime to go into a house on Fifth +Avenue and use it as a hotel. Why, you can't cross the street faster +than a walk these days without committing a crime. Everything's a +crime." +</p> +<p> +"Sure thing," agreed the captain. "I never yet had any trouble finding a +crime to charge a man with, once I got the nippers on him." +</p> +<p> +"That's so," interjected the plain-clothes man. "Did you ever know it +was a crime to mismanage a steam boiler? Well, it is." +</p> +<p> +"Quite right," agreed Mr. Magnus, the indictment clerk. "The great +difficulty for the perfectly honest man nowadays is to avoid some act or +omission which the legislature has seen fit to make a crime without his +knowledge. Refilling a Sarsaparilla bottle, for instance, or getting up +a masquerade ball or going fishing or playing on Sunday or loitering +about a building to overhear what people are talking about inside—" +</p> +<p> +"That's no crime," protested the captain scornfully. +</p> +<p> +"Yes, it is too!" retorted Mr. Magnus, otherwise known to his fellows as +Caput, because of his supposed cerebral inflation. "Just like it is a +crime to have any kind of a show or procession on Sunday except a +funeral, in which case it's a crime to make a disbursing noise at it." +</p> +<p> +"What's a disbursing noise?" demanded O'Brien. +</p> +<p> +"I don't know," admitted Magnus. "But that's the law anyway. You can't +make a disbursing noise at a funeral on Sunday." +</p> +<p> +"Oh, hell!" ejaculated the captain. "Come to think of it, it's a crime +to spit. What man is safe?" +</p> +<p> +"It occurs to me," continued Mr. Magnus thoughtfully, "that it is a +crime under the law to build a house on another man's land; now I should +say that there was a close analogy between doing that and sleeping in +his bed." +</p> +<p> +"Hear! Hear!" commented O'Brien. "Caput Magnus, otherwise known as Big +Head, there is no doubt but that your fertile brain can easily devise a +way out of our present difficulty." +</p> +<p> +"Well, I've no time to waste on tramp cases," remarked District +Attorney Peckham. "I've something more important to attend to. Indict +this fellow and send him up quick. Charge him with everything in sight +and trust in the Lord. That's the only thing to be done. Don't bother me +about it, that's all!" +</p> +<p> +Meantime Mr. Hepplewhite became more and more agitated. Entirely against +his will and, so far as he could see, without any fault of his own, he +suddenly found himself the center of a violent and acrimonious +controversy respecting the fundamental and sacred rights of freemen +which threatened to disrupt society and extinguish the supremacy of the +dominant local political organization. +</p> +<p> +On the one hand he was acclaimed by the conservative pulpit and press as +a public-spirited citizen who had done exactly the right +thing—disinterestedly enforced the law regardless of his own +convenience and safety as a matter of principle and for the sake of the +community—a moral hero; on the other, though he was president of +several charitable organizations and at least one orphan asylum he was +execrated as a heartless brute, an oppressor of the poor, an octopus, a +soulless capitalist who fattened on the innocent and helpless and +who—Mr. Hepplewhite was a bachelor—probably if the truth could be +known lived a life of horrid depravity and crime. +</p> +<p> +Indeed there was a man named Tutt, of whom Mr. Hepplewhite had never +before heard, who publicly declared that he, Tutt, would show him, +Hepplewhite, up for what he was and make him pay with his body and his +blood, to say nothing of his money, for what he had done and caused to +be done. And so Mr. Hepplewhite became even more agitated, until he +dreamed of this Tutt as an enormous bird like the fabled roc, with a +malignant face and a huge hooked beak that some day would nip him in the +abdomen and fly, croaking, away with him. Mrs. Witherspoon had returned +to Aiken, and after the first flood of commiserations from his friends +on Lists Numbers One, Two, Three and Four he felt neglected, lonely and +rather fearful. +</p> +<p> +And then one morning something happened that upset his equanimity +entirely. He had just started out for a walk in the park when a flashy +person who looked like an actor walked impudently up to him and handed +him a piece of paper in which was wrapped a silver half dollar. In a +word Mr. Hepplewhite was subpoenaed and the nervous excitement attendant +upon that operation nearly caused his collapse. For he was thereby +commanded to appear before the Court of General Sessions of the Peace +upon the following Monday at ten a. m. as a witness in a criminal action +prosecuted by the People of the State of New York against Hans Schmidt. +Moreover, the paper was a dirty-brown color and bore the awful name of +Tutt. He returned immediately to the house and telephoned for Mr. +Edgerton, his lawyer, who at once jumped into a taxi on the corner of +Wall and Broad Streets and hurried uptown. +</p> +<p> +"Edgerton," said Hepplewhite faintly as the lawyer entered his library, +"this whole unfortunate affair has almost made me sick. I had nothing to +do with the arrest of this man Schmidt. The police did everything. And +now I'm ordered to appear as a witness! Why, I hardly looked at the man. +I shouldn't know him if I saw him. Do I have to go to court?" +</p> +<p> +Mr. Edgerton smiled genially in a manner which he thought would +encourage Mr. Hepplewhite. +</p> +<p> +"I suppose you'll have to go to court. You can't help that, you know, if +you've been subpoenaed. But you can't testify to anything that I can +see. It's just a formality." +</p> +<p> +"Formality!" groaned his client. "Well, I supposed the arrest was just a +formality." +</p> +<p> +Mr. Edgerton smiled again rather unconvincingly. +</p> +<p> +"Well, you see, you can't always tell what will happen when you once +start something," he began. +</p> +<p> +"But I didn't start anything," answered Mr. Hepplewhite. "I had nothing +to say about it." +</p> +<p> +At that moment Bibby appeared in the doorway. +</p> +<p> +"Excuse me, sir," he said. "There is a young man outside who asked me to +tell you that he has a paper he wishes to serve on you—and would you +mind saving him the trouble of waiting for you to go out?" +</p> +<p> +"Another!" gagged Mr. Hepplewhite. +</p> +<p> +"Yes, sir! Thank you, sir," stammered Bibby. +</p> +<p> +Mr. Hepplewhite looked inquiringly at Mr. Edgerton and rose feebly. +</p> +<p> +"He'll get you sooner or later," declared the lawyer. "A man as well +known as you can't avoid process." +</p> +<p> +Mr. Hepplewhite bit his lips and went out into the hall. +</p> +<p> +Presently he returned carrying a legal-looking bunch of papers. +</p> +<p> +"Well, what is it this time?" asked Edgerton jocosely. +</p> +<p> +"It's a suit for false imprisonment for one hundred thousand dollars!" +choked Mr. Hepplewhite. +</p> +<p> +Mr. Edgerton looked shocked. +</p> +<p> +"Well, now you've got to convict him!" he declared. +</p> +<p> +"Convict him?" retorted Mr. Hepplewhite. "I don't want to convict him. +I'd gladly give a hundred thousand dollars to get out of the—the—darn +thing!" +</p> +<p> +Which was as near profanity as he had ever permitted himself to go. +</p> +<hr> +<p> +Upon the following Monday Mr. Hepplewhite proceeded to court—flanked by +his distinguished counsel in frock coats and tall hats—simply because +he had been served with a dirty-brown subpoena by Tutt & Tutt; and his +distress was not lessened by the crowd of reporters who joined him at +the entrance of the Criminal Courts Building; or by the flashlight bomb +that was exploded in the corridor in order that the evening papers might +reproduce his picture on the front page. He had never been so much in +the public eye before, and he felt slightly defiled. For some curious +reason he had the feeling that he and not Schmidt was the actual +defendant charged with being guilty of something; nor was this +impression dispelled even by listening to the indictment by which the +Grand Jury charged Schmidt in eleven counts with burglary in the first, +second and third degrees and with the crime of entering his, +Hepplewhite's, house under circumstances not amounting to a burglary but +with intent to commit a felony, as follows: +</p> +<p> +"Therefore, to wit, on the eleventh day of January in the year of our +Lord one thousand nine hundred and nineteen in the night-time of the +said day at the ward, city and county aforesaid the dwelling house of +one John De Puyster Hepplewhite there situate, feloniously and +burglariously did break into and enter there being then and there a +human being in said dwelling house, with intent to commit some crime +therein, to wit, the goods, chattels, and personal property of the said +John De Puyster Hepplewhite, then and there being found, then and there +feloniously and burglariously to steal, take and carry away one silver +tea service of the value of five hundred dollars and one pair of opera +glasses of the value of five dollars each with force and arms——" +</p> +<p> +"But that silver tea service cost fifteen thousand dollars and weighs +eight hundred pounds!" whispered Mr. Hepplewhite. +</p> +<p> +"Order in the court!" shouted Captain Phelan, pounding upon the oak rail +of the bar, and Mr. Hepplewhite subsided. +</p> +<p> +Yet as he sat there between his lawyers listening to all the +extraordinary things that the Grand Jury evidently had believed Schmidt +intended to do, the suspicion began gradually to steal over him that +something was not entirely right somewhere. Why, it was ridiculous to +charge the man with trying to carry off a silver service weighing nearly +half a ton when he simply had gone to bed and fallen asleep. Still, +perhaps that was the law. +</p> +<p> +However, when the assistant district attorney opened the People's case +to the jury Mr. Hepplewhite began to feel much more at ease. Indeed +O'Brien made it very plain that the defendant had been guilty of a very +grievous—he pronounced it "gree-vious"—offense in forcing his way into +another man's private house. It might or might not be burglary—that +would depend upon the testimony—but in any event it was a criminal, +illegal entry and he should ask for a conviction. A man's house was his +castle and—to quote from that most famous of orators and +statesmen—Edmund Burke—"the wind might enter, the rain might enter, +but the King of England might not enter!" Thus Schmidt could not enter +the house of Hepplewhite without making himself amenable to the law. +</p> +<p> +Hepplewhite was filled with admiration for Mr. O'Brien, and his drooping +spirits reared their wilted heads as the prosecutor called Bibby to the +stand and elicited from him the salient features of the case. The jury +was vastly interested in the butler personally, as well as his account +rendered in the choicest cockney of how he had discovered Schmidt in his +master's bed. O'Brien bowed to Mr. Tutt and told him that he might +cross-examine. +</p> +<p> +And then it was that Mr. Hepplewhite discovered why he had been haunted +by that mysterious feeling of guilt; for by some occult and subtle +method of suggestion on the part of Mr. Tutt, the case, instead of +being a trial of Schmidt, resolved itself into an attack upon Mr. +Hepplewhite and his retainers and upon the corrupt minions of the law +who had violated every principle of justice, decency and morality in +order to accomplish the unscrupulous purposes of a merciless +aristocrat—meaning him. With biting sarcasm, Mr. Tutt forced from the +writhing Bibby the admission that the prisoner was sound asleep in the +pink silk fastnesses of the Bouguereau Room when he was discovered that +he made no attempt to escape, that he did not assault anybody and that +he had appeared comatose from exhaustion; that there was no sign of a +break anywhere, and that the pair of opera glasses "worth five dollars +<i>apiece</i>"—Tutt invited the court's attention to this ingenuous +phraseology of Mr. Caput Magnus, as a literary curiosity—were a figment +of the imagination. +</p> +<p> +In a word Mr. Tutt rolled Bibby up and threw him away, while his master +shuddered at the open disclosure of his trusted major-domo's vulgarity, +mendacity and general lack of sportsmanship. Somehow all at once the +case began to break up and go all to pot. The jury got laughing at +Bibby, the footmen and the cops as Mr. Tutt painted for their +edification the scene following the arrival of Mrs. Witherspoon, when +Schmidt was discovered asleep, as Mr. Tutt put it, like Goldilocks in +the Little, Small, Wee Bear's bed. +</p> +<p> +Stocking was the next witness, and he fared no better than had Bibby. +O'Brien, catching the judge's eye, made a wry face and imperceptibly +lowered his left lid—on the side away from the jury, thus officially +indicating that, of course, the case was a lemon but that there was +nothing that could be done except to try it out to the bitter end. +</p> +<p> +Then he rose and called out unexpectedly: "Mr. John De Puyster +Hepplewhite—take the stand!" +</p> +<p> +It was entirely unexpected. No one had suggested that he would be called +for the prosecution. Possibly O'Brien was actuated by a slight touch of +malice; possibly he wanted to be able, if the case was lost, to accuse +Hepplewhite of losing it on his own testimony. But at any rate he +certainly had no anticipation of what the ultimate consequence of his +act would be. +</p> +<p> +Mr. Hepplewhite suddenly felt as though his entire intestinal mechanism +had been removed. But he had no time to take counsel of his fears. +Everybody in the courtroom turned with one accord and looked at him. He +rose, feeling as one who dreams; that he is naked in the midst of a +multitude. He shrank back hesitating, but hostile hands reached out and +pushed him forward. Cringing, he slunk to the witness chair, and for the +first time faced the sardonic eyes of the terrible Tutt, his adversary +who looked scornfully from Hepplewhite to the jury and then from the +jury back to Hepplewhite as if to say: "Look at him! Call you this a +man?" +</p> +<p> +"You are the Mr. Hepplewhite who has been referred to in the testimony +as the owner of the house in which the defendant was found?" inquired +O'Brien. +</p> +<p> +"Yes—yes," answered Mr. Hepplewhite deprecatingly. +</p> +<p> +"The first witness—Bibby—is in your employ?" +</p> +<p> +"Yes—yes." +</p> +<p> +"Did you have a silver tea set of the value of—er—at least five +hundred dollars in the house?" +</p> +<p> +"It was worth fifteen thousand," corrected Mr. Hepplewhite. +</p> +<p> +"Oh! Now, have you been served by the defendant's attorneys with a +summons and complaint in an action for false arrest in which damages are +claimed in the sum of one hundred thousand dollars?" +</p> +<p> +"I object!" shouted Mr. Tutt. "It is wholly irrelevant." +</p> +<p> +"I think it shows the importance of the result of this trial to the +witness," argued O'Brien perfunctorily. "It shows this case isn't any +joke—even if some people seem to think it is." +</p> +<p> +"Objection sustained," ruled the court. "The question is irrelevant. The +jury is supposed to know that every case is important to those +concerned—to the defendant as well as to those who charge him with +crime." +</p> +<p> +O'Brien bowed. +</p> +<p> +"That's all. You may examine, Mr. Tutt." +</p> +<p> +The old lawyer slowly unfolded his tall frame and gazed quizzically down +upon the shivering Hepplewhite. +</p> +<p> +"You have been sued by my client for one hundred thousand dollars, +haven't you?" he demanded. +</p> +<p> +"Object!" shot out O'Brien. +</p> +<p> +"Overruled," snapped the court. "It is a proper question for +cross-examination. It may show motive." +</p> +<p> +Mr. Hepplewhite sat helplessly until the shooting was over. +</p> +<p> +"Answer the question!" suddenly shouted Mr. Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"But I thought—" he began. +</p> +<p> +"Don't think!" retorted the court sarcastically. "The time to think has +gone by. Answer!" +</p> +<p> +"I don't know what the question is," stammered Mr. Hepplewhite, +thoroughly frightened. +</p> +<p> +"Lord! Lord!" groaned O'Brien in plain hearing of the jury. +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt sighed sympathetically in mock resignation. +</p> +<p> +"My dear sir," he began in icy tones, "when you had my client arrested +and charged with being a burglar, had you made any personal inquiry as +to the facts?" +</p> +<p> +"I didn't have him arrested!" protested the witness. +</p> +<p> +"You deny that you ordered Bibby to charge the defendant with burglary?" +roared Mr. Tutt. "Take care! You know there is such a crime as perjury, +do you not?" +</p> +<p> +"No—I mean yes," stuttered Mr. Hepplewhite abjectly. "That is, I've +heard about perjury—but the police attended to everything for me." +</p> +<p> +"Aha!" cried Mr. Tutt, snorting angrily like the war horse depicted in +the Book of Job. "The police 'attended' to my client for you, did they? +What do you mean—for you? Did you pay them for their little attention?" +</p> +<p> +"I always send them something on Christmas," said Mr. Hepplewhite. "Just +like the postmen." +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt looked significantly at the jury, while a titter ran round the +court room. +</p> +<p> +"Well," he continued with patient irony, "what we wish to know is +whether these friends of yours whom you so kindly remember at Christmas +dragged the helpless man away from your house, threw him into jail and +charged him with burglary by your authority?" +</p> +<p> +"I didn't think anything about it," asserted Hepplewhite "Really I +didn't. I assumed that they knew what to do under such circumstances. I +didn't suppose they needed any authority from me." +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt eyed sideways the twelve jurymen. +</p> +<p> +"Trying to get out of it, are you? Attempting to avoid responsibility? +Are you thinking of what your position will be if the defendant is +acquitted—with an action against you for one hundred thousand dollars?" +</p> +<p> +Ashamed, terrified, humiliated, Mr. Hepplewhite almost burst into tears. +He had suffered a complete moral disintegration—did not know where to +turn for help or sympathy. The whole world seemed to have risen against +him. He opened his mouth to reply, but the words would not come. He +looked appealingly at the judge, but the judge coldly ignored him. The +whole room seemed crowded with a multitude of leering eyes. Why had God +made him a rich man? Why was he compelled to suffer those terrible +indignities? He was not responsible for what had been done—why then, +was he being treated so abominably? +</p> +<p> +"I don't want this man punished!" he suddenly broke out in fervent +expostulation. "I have nothing against him. I don't believe he intended +to do any wrong. And I hope the jury will acquit him!" +</p> +<p> +"Oho!" whistled Mr. Tutt exultantly, while O'Brien gazed at Hepplewhite +in stupefaction. <i>Was</i> this a man? +</p> +<p> +"So you admit that the charge against my client is without foundation?" +insisted Mr. Tutt. +</p> +<p> +Hepplewhite nodded weakly. +</p> +<p> +"I don't know rightly what the charge is—but I don't think he meant any +harm," he faltered. +</p> +<p> +"Then why did you have the police put him under arrest and hale him +away?" challenged Mr. Tutt ferociously. +</p> +<p> +"I supposed they had to—if he came into my house," said Mr. +Hepplewhite. Then he added shamefacedly: "I know it sounds silly—but +frankly I did not know that I had anything to say in the matter. If your +client has been injured by my fault or mistake I will gladly reimburse +him as handsomely as you wish." +</p> +<p> +O'Brien gasped. Then he made a funnel of his hands and whispered toward +the bench: "Take it away, for heaven's sake!" +</p> +<p> +"That is all!" remarked Mr. Tutt with deep sarcasm, making an elaborate +bow in the direction of Mr. Hepplewhite. "Thank you for your excellent +intentions!" +</p> +<p> +A snicker followed Mr. Hepplewhite as he dragged himself back to his +seat among the spectators. +</p> +<p> +He felt as though he had passed through a clothes wringer. Dimly he +heard Mr. Tutt addressing the court. +</p> +<p> +"And I move, Your Honor," the lawyer was paying, "that you take the +counts for burglary in the first, second and third degrees away from the +jury on the ground that there has been a complete failure of proof that +my client broke into the house of this man Hepplewhite either by night +or by day, or that he assaulted anybody or stole anything there, or ever +intended to." +</p> +<p> +"Motion granted," agreed the judge. "I quite agree with you, Mr. Tutt. +There is no evidence here of any breaking. In fact, the inferences are +all the other way." +</p> +<p> +"I further move that you take from the consideration of the jury the +remaining count of illegally entering the house with intent to commit a +crime and direct the jury to acquit the defendant for lack of evidence," +continued Mr. Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"But what was your client doing in the house?" inquired the judge. "He +had no particular business in it, had he?" +</p> +<p> +"That does not make his presence a crime, Your Honor," retorted the +lawyer. "A man is not guilty of a felony who falls asleep on my haycock. +Why should he be if he falls asleep in my bed?" +</p> +<p> +The judge smiled. +</p> +<p> +"We have no illegal entry statute with respect to fields or meadows, Mr. +Tutt," he remarked good-naturedly. "No, I shall be obliged to let the +jury decide whether this defendant went into that house for an honest +or dishonest purpose. It is clearly a proper question for them to pass +upon. Proceed with your case." +</p> +<p> +Now when, as in the case of the Hepplewhite Tramp, the chief witness for +the prosecution throws up his hands and offers to repay the defendant +for the wrong he has done him, naturally it is all over but the +shouting. +</p> +<p> +"There is no need for me to call the defendant," Mr. Tutt told the +court, "in view of the admissions made by the last witness. I am ready +to proceed with the summing up." +</p> +<p> +"As you deem wise," answered the judge. "Proceed then." +</p> +<p> +Through a blur of sight and sound Mr. Hepplewhite dimly heard Mr. Tutt +addressing the jury and saw them lean forward to catch his every word. +</p> +<p> +Beside him Mr. Edgerton was saying protestingly: "May I ask why you made +those fool statements on the witness stand?" +</p> +<p> +"Because I didn't want an innocent man convicted," returned Mr. +Hepplewhite tartly. +</p> +<p> +"Well, you'll get your wish!" sniffed his lawyer. "And you'll get soaked +for about twenty thousand dollars for false arrest!" +</p> +<p> +"I don't care," retorted the client. "And what's more I hope Mr. Tutt +gets a substantial fee out of it. He strikes me as a lawyer who knows +his business!" +</p> +<p> +The oldest and fattest court officers, men so old and fat that they +remembered the trial of Boss Tweed and the days when Delancey Nicoll was +the White Hope of the Brownstone Court House—declared Mr. Tutt's +summation was the greatest that ever they heard. For the shrewd old +lawyer had an artist's hand with which he played upon the keyboard of +the jury and knew just when to pull out the stops of the <i>vox humana</i> of +pathos and the grand diapason of indignation and defiance. So he began +by tickling their sense of humor with an ironic description of afternoon +tea at Mr. Hepplewhite's, with Bibby and Stocking as chief actors, until +all twelve shook with suppressed laughter and the judge was forced to +hide his face behind the <i>Law Journal</i>; ridiculed the idea of a criminal +who wanted to commit a crime calmly going to sleep in a pink silk bed in +broad daylight; and then brought tears to their eyes as he pictured the +wretched homeless tramp, sick, footsore and starving, who, drawn by the +need of food and warmth to this silk nest of luxury, was clubbed, +arrested and jailed simply because he had violated the supposed sanctity +of a rich man's home. +</p> +<p> +The jury watched him as intently as a dog watches a piece of meat held +over its nose. They smiled with him, they wept with him, they glared at +Mr. Hepplewhite and they gazed in a friendly way at Schmidt, whom Mr. +Tutt had bailed out just before the trial. The very stars in their +courses seemed warring for Tutt & Tutt. In the words of Phelan: "There +was nothing to it!" +</p> +<p> +"Thank God," concluded Mr. Tutt eloquently, "that in this land of +liberty in which we are privileged to dwell no man can be convicted of a +crime except by a jury of his peers—a right sacred under our +Constitution and inherited from Magna Charta, that foundation stone of +English liberty, in which the barons forced King John to declare that +'No freeman shall be taken, or imprisoned, or disseized, or outlawed, or +exiled, or in any way harmed ... save by the lawful judgment of his +peers or by the law of the land.' +</p> +<p> +"Had I the time I would demonstrate to you the arbitrary character of +our laws and the inequality with which they are administered. +</p> +<p> +"But in this case the chief witness has already admitted the innocence +of the defendant. There is nothing more to be said. The prosecution has +cried '<i>Peccavi!</i>' I leave my client in your hands." +</p> +<p> +He resumed his seat contentedly and wiped his forehead with his silk +handkerchief. The judge looked down at O'Brien with raised eyebrows. +</p> +<p> +"I will leave the case to the jury on Your Honor's charge," remarked +the latter carelessly. +</p> +<p> +"Gentlemen of the jury," began the judge, "the defendant is accused of +entering the house of Mr. Hepplewhite with the intent to commit a crime +therein—" +</p> +<p> +Mr. Hepplewhite sat, his head upon his breast, for what seemed to him +several hours. He had but one thought—to escape. His ordeal had been +far worse than he had anticipated. But he had made a discovery. He had +suddenly realized that one cannot avoid one's duties to one's fellows by +leaving one's affairs to others—not even to the police. He perceived +that he had lived with his head stuck in the sand. He had tried to +escape from his responsibilities as a citizen by hiding behind the thick +walls of his stone mansion on Fifth Avenue. He made up his mind that he +would do differently if he ever had the chance. Meanwhile, was not the +jury ever going to set the poor man free? +</p> +<p> +They had indeed remained out a surprisingly long time in order merely to +reach a verdict which was a mere formality. Ah! There they were! Mr. +Hepplewhite watched with palpitating heart while they straggled slowly +in. The clerk made the ordinary perfunctory inquiry as to what their +verdict was. Mr. Hepplewhite did not hear what the foreman said in +reply, but he saw both the Tutts and O'Brien start from their seats and +heard a loud murmur rise throughout the court room. +</p> +<p> +"What's that!" cried the clerk in astonished tones. "What did you say, +Mister Foreman?" +</p> +<p> +"I said that we find the defendant guilty," replied the foreman calmly. +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt stared incredulously at the twelve traitors who had betrayed +him. +</p> +<p> +"Never mind, Mr. Tutt," whispered Number Six confidentially. "You did +the best you could. Your argument was fine—grand—but nobody could ever +make us believe that your client went into that house for any purpose +except to steal whatever he could lay his hands on. Besides, it wasn't +Mr. Hepplewhite's fault. He means well. And anyhow a nut like that has +got to be protected against himself." +</p> +<p> +He might have enlightened Mr. Tutt further upon the psychology of the +situation had not the judge at that moment ordered the prisoner +arraigned at the bar. +</p> +<p> +"Have you ever been convicted before?" asked His Honor sharply. +</p> +<p> +"Sure," replied the Hepplewhite Tramp carelessly. "I've done three or +four bits, I'm a burglar. But you can't give me more than a year for +illegal entry." +</p> +<p> +"That is quite true," admitted His Honor stiffly. "And it isn't half +enough!" He hesitated. "Perhaps under the circumstances you'll tell us +what you were doing in Mr. Hepplewhite's bed?" +</p> +<p> +"Oh, I don't mind," returned the defendant with the superior air of one +who has put something over. "When I heard the guy in the knee breeches +coming up the stairs I just dove for the slats and played I was asleep." +</p> +<p> +Leaving the courthouse Mr. Tutt encountered Bonnie Doon. +</p> +<p> +"Young man," he remarked severely, "you assured me that fellow was only +a harmless tramp!" +</p> +<p> +"Well," answered Bonnie, "that's what he said." +</p> +<p> +"He says now he's a burglar," retorted Mr. Tutt wrathfully. "I don't +believe he knows what he is. Did you ever hear of such an outrageous +verdict? With not a scrap of evidence to support it?" +</p> +<p> +Bonnie lit a cigarette doubtfully. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, I don't know," he muttered. "The jury seems to have sized him up +rather better than we did." +</p> +<p> +"Jury!" growled Mr. Tutt, rolling his eyes heavenward. "'Sweet land of +liberty!'" +</p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<a name="LALLAPALOOSA"><!-- LALLAPALOOSAMOCK --></a> +<h2> +Lallapaloosa Limited +</h2> +<p> </p> +<blockquote><p> +"Ethics: The doctrine of man's duty in respect to +himself and the rights of others."—CENTURY DICTIONARY. +</p></blockquote> +<blockquote><p> +"I don't say that all these people couldn't be squared; +but it is right to tell you that I shouldn't be sufficiently +degraded in my own estimation unless I was insulted +with a very considerable bribe."—POOH-BAH. +</p></blockquote> +<p> +"I've been all over those securities," Miss Wiggin informed Mr. Tutt as +he entered the office one morning, "and not a single one of them is +listed on the Stock Exchange." +</p> +<p> +"What securities are those?" asked her employer, hanging his tall hat on +the antiquated mahogany coat tree in the corner opposite the screen that +ambushed the washing apparatus. "I don't remember any securities," he +remarked as he applied a match to the off end of a particularly green +and vicious-looking stogy. +</p> +<p> +"Why, of course you do, Mr. Tutt!" insisted Miss Wiggin. "Don't you +remember those great piles of bonds and stocks that Doctor Barrows left +here with you to keep for him?" +</p> +<p> +"Oh, those!" Mr. Tutt smiled inscrutably. "Mr. Barrows is not a +physician," he corrected her, running his eye over the General Sessions +calendar. "He's only a 'doc'—that is to say, one who doctors. You know +you can doctor a lot of things besides the human anatomy. No, I guess +they're not listed on the Stock Exchange or anywhere else." +</p> +<p> +"Well, here's a schedule I made of them—Miss Sondheim typed it—and +their total face value is seventeen million eight hundred thousand +dollars. I tried to find out all I could, but none of the firms on Wall +Street had ever heard of any of them—excepting of one that was traded +in on the curb up to within a few weeks. There's Great Lakes and +Canadian Southern Railway Company," she went on, "Chicago Water Front +and Terminal Company, Great Geyser Texan Petroleum and Llano Estacado +Land Company—dozens and dozens of them, and not one has an office or, +so far as I can find out, any tangible existence—but the one I spoke +of." +</p> +<p> +"Which is this great exception?" queried Mr. Tutt absently as he +searched through the <i>Law Journal</i> for the case he was going to try that +afternoon. "You said one of them had been dealt in on the curb? You +astonish me!" +</p> +<p> +"It's got a funny name," she answered. "It almost sounds as if they +meant it for a joke—Horse's Neck Extension." +</p> +<p> +"I guess they meant it for a joke all right—on the public," chuckled +her employer. "How many shares are there?" +</p> +<p> +"A hundred thousand," she answered. +</p> +<p> +"Jumping Jehoshaphat!" ejaculated Mr. Tutt. "How on earth did old Doc +manage to get hold of them?" +</p> +<p> +"It sold for only ten cents a share!" replied Miss Wiggin. "That would +mean ten thousand dollars—" +</p> +<p> +"If Doc paid for it," supplemented Mr. Tutt. "Which he probably didn't. +What's it selling for now?" +</p> +<p> +"It isn't selling at all." +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt pressed the button that summoned Willie. +</p> +<p> +"When you haven't anything better to do," he said to her, "why don't you +go round and see what has become of—of—Horse's Neck Extension?" +</p> +<p> +"I will," assented Miss Wiggin. "It makes me feel rich just to talk +about such things. I just love it." +</p> +<p> +"Many a slick crook has taken advantage of just that kind of feeling," +mused Mr. Tutt. "There are two things that women—particularly trained +nurses—seem to like better than anything else in the world—babies and +stock certificates." +</p> +<p> +Then upon the arrival of the recalcitrant William he gathered up his +papers and took down his hat from the tree. +</p> +<p> +"I wish you'd let me get your hat ironed, Mr. Tutt," remarked Miss +Wiggin. "It would cost you only fifty cents." +</p> +<p> +"That's all you know about it, my dear," he answered. "More likely it +would cost me a hundred thousand dollars." +</p> +<hr> +<p> +Mr. Tobias Greenbaum, of Scherer, Hunn, Greenbaum & Beck, carefully +placed his cigar where it would not char his Italian Renaissance desk +and smoothed out the list which Mr. Elderberry, the secretary of The +Horse's Neck Extension Copper Mining Company, handed to him. The list +was typed on thin sheets; of foolscap and contained the names of +stockholders, but as it had lain rolled up in the bottom of Mr. +Elderberry's desk for five years without being disturbed it was inclined +to resist the gentle pressure of Mr. Greenbaum's fingers. +</p> +<p> +Mr. Greenbaum glanced sharply round the plate-glass lake that separated +him from the other directors of Horse's Neck, rather as if he had +detected his associates in a crime. +</p> +<p> +"Isaacs says," he announced in an arrogant, almost insulting tone, +though below the surface he was an entirely genial person, "that the new +vein in the Amphalula runs into the west drift of Horse's Neck almost to +where we quit work in Number Nine five years ago." +</p> +<p> +"If it does it will make it a bonanza property," emphatically declared +his partner, Mr. Scherer, a dolichocephalous person with very black hair +and thin bluish cheeks. "It's a pity we didn't buy it all in at ten +cents a share." +</p> +<p> +"We did!" retorted Greenbaum. "All that could be shaken out. We've got +all the stock that hasn't gravitated to the cemeteries." +</p> +<p> +"Even if the Amphalula vein doesn't run into it it will come near enough +to make Horse's Neck worth dollars per share. It's a +heads-I-win-tails-you-lose proposition," commented Mr. Hunn dryly. "Who +controls Amphalula?" +</p> +<p> +"We do," snapped Greenbaum. +</p> +<p> +"Then it's a cinch," returned Hunn mildly. "Shake out the sleepers, +reorganize, and sell or hold as seems most advisable later on." +</p> +<p> +Mr. Elderberry cleared his throat tentatively. +</p> +<p> +"If you gentlemen will pardon me—I have been considering this matter +for some little time," he hazarded. Mr. Elderberry was not only the +professional salaried secretary of Horse's Neck but was also treasurer +of the Amphalula, and general factotum, representative and interlocking +director for Scherer, Hunn, Greenbaum & Beck in their various mining +enterprises, combining in his person almost as many offices as, Pooh-Bah +in "The Mikado." Though he could not have claimed to serve as "First +Lord of the Treasury, Lord Chief Justice, Commander-in-Chief, Lord High +Admiral, Master of the Buck Hounds, Groom of the Back Stairs, Archbishop +of Titipu and Lord Mayor, both acting and elect, all rolled into one," +he could with entire modesty have admitted the soft impeachment of being +simultaneously treasurer of Amphalula, vice-president of Hooligan Gulch +and Red Water, secretary of Horse's Neck, Holy Jo, Gargoyle Extension, +Cowhide Number Five, Consolidated Bimetallic, Nevada Mastodon, Leaping +Frog, Orelady Mine, Why Marry and Sol's Cliff Buttress, and president of +Blimp Consolidated. +</p> +<p> +All these various properties were either owned or controlled by Scherer, +Hunn, Greenbaum & Beck and had been acquired with the use of the same +original capital in various entirely legal ways, which at the present +moment are irrelevant. The firm was a strictly honorable business house, +from both their own point of view and that of the Street. Everything +they did was with and by the advice of counsel. Yet not one of these +active-minded gentlemen, including Mr. Greenbaum, the dolichocephalous +Scherer and the acephalous Hunn, had ever done a stroke of productive +work or contributed anything toward the common weal. In fact, distress +to somebody in some form, and usually to a large number of persons, +inevitably followed whatever deal they undertook, since their business +was speculating in mining properties and unloading the bad ones upon an +unsuspecting public which Scherer, Hunn, Greenbaum & Beck had permitted +to deceive itself. +</p> +<p> +Thus, when Greenbaum called upon Mr. Elderberry for advice, it savored +strongly of Koko's consulting Pooh-Bah and was sometimes almost as +confusing, for just as Pooh-Bah on these occasions was won't to reply, +"Certainly. In which of my capacities? As First Lord of the Treasury, +Lord Chamberlain, Attorney-General, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Privy +Purse or Private Secretary?" so the financial and corporate Elderberry +might equally well ask: "Exactly. But are you seeking my advice as +secretary of Horse's Neck, of Holy Jo, of Cowhide Number Five, or as +vice-president of Hooligan Gulch and Red Water, treasurer of Amphalula +or president of Blimp Consolidated?" +</p> +<p> +Just now it was, of course, obvious that he was addressing the company +in his capacity of secretary of Horse's Neck. +</p> +<p> +"It goes without saying, gentlemen, that this property is pretty nearly +down and out. You will recall that most of the insiders sold out on the +tail of the Goldfield Boom and waited for the market to sag until we +could buy in again. The mines are full of water, work was abandoned over +four years ago, and the property is practically defunct. The original +capitalization was ten million shares at one dollar a share. We own or +control at least four million shares, for which we paid ten to fifteen +cents, while we had sold our original holdings for one dollar sixty to +one dollar ninety-five a share. While Horse's Neck represents a handsome +profit—in my opinion"—he cleared his throat again as if deprecating +the vulgarity of his phrase—"it is good for another whirl." +</p> +<p> +"You say it's full of water?" inquired Hunn. +</p> +<p> +"It will cost about fifty thousand dollars to pump out the mines and a +hundred thousand to repair the machinery. Then there's quite an +indebtedness—about seventy-five thousand; and tax liens—another fifty. +Half a million dollars would put Horse's Neck on the map, and if the +Amphalula vein crosses the property it will be worth ten millions. If it +doesn't, the chance that it is going to will make a market for the +stock." +</p> +<p> +Mr. Elderberry swept with a bland inquiring eye the shore of the glassy +sea about which his associates were gathered. +</p> +<p> +"I've been over the ground," announced Greenbaum "and it's a good +gamble. We want Horse's Neck for ourselves—at any rate until we are +confident that it's a real lemon. Half a million will do it. I'll +personally put up a hundred thousand." +</p> +<p> +"How are you going to get rid of the fifty thousand other stockholders?" +asked Mr. Beck dubiously "We don't want them trailing along with us." +</p> +<p> +"I propose," answered Mr. Elderberry brightly, in his capacity as chief +conspirator for Scherer, Hunn, <i>et al.</i>, "that we organize a new +corporation to be called 'Lallapaloosa Limited' and capitalize it at a +million dollars—one million shares at a dollar a share. Then we will +execute a contract between Horse's Neck and Lallapaloosa by the terms of +which the old bankrupt corporation will sell to the new corporation all +its assets for one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars. We +underwrite the stock of Lallapaloosa at fifty cents a share, thus +supplying the new corporation with the funds with which to purchase the +properties of the old. In a word we shall get Horse's Neck for a hundred +and twenty-five thousand and have three hundred and seventy-five +thousand left out of what we subscribe to underwrite the stock to put +it on its feet." +</p> +<p> +"That's all right," debated Hunn. "But how about the other stockholders +in Horse's Neck that Beck referred to? Where do they come in?" +</p> +<p> +"I've thought of that," returned Elderberry. "Of course you can't just +squeeze 'em out entirely. That wouldn't be legal. They must be given the +chance to subscribe at par to the stock of the new corporation on the +basis of one share in the new for every ten they hold in the old; or, as +Horse's Neck is a Delaware corporation, to have their old stock +appraised under the laws of Delaware. In point of fact, they've all +written off their holdings in Horse's Neck as a total loss years ago and +you couldn't drag 'em into putting in any new money. They'll simply let +it go—forfeit their stock in Horse's Neck and be wiped out because they +were not willing to go in and reorganize the property with us." +</p> +<p> +"They would if they knew about Amphalula," remarked Beck. +</p> +<p> +"Well, they don't!" snapped Greenbaum, "and we're under no obligations +to tell 'em. They can infer what they like from the fact that Horse's +Neck has been selling for ten cents a share for the last three years." +</p> +<p> +"Is that right, Chippingham?" inquired Beck of the attorney who was in +attendance. "I mean—is it legal?" +</p> +<p> +"Perfectly legal," replied Mr. Chippingham conclusively. "A corporation +has a perfect right to dispose of its entire assets for a proper +consideration and if any minority stockholder feels aggrieved he can +take the matter to the Delaware courts and get his equity assessed. +Besides, everybody is treated alike—all the stockholders in Horse's +Neck can subscribe pro rata for Lallapaloosa." +</p> +<p> +"Only they won't," grinned Scherer. +</p> +<p> +"And so, as they are wiped out—the new corporation—that is us—in fact +gets their equity, just as much as if they had deeded it to us." +</p> +<p> +"That is, we get for nothing about one-half the value of the property," +agreed Elderberry. "Now, I've been over the list and I don't think +you'll hear a peep from any of them." +</p> +<pre> + "He's got 'em on the list—he's got 'em on the list; + And they'll none of 'em be missed—they'll none of 'em be missed!" +</pre> +<p> +hummed Mr. Beck. "It looks good to me! I'll take a hundred thousand." +</p> +<p> +"Mr. Chippingham has the papers drawn already," continued Elderberry. +"Of course you've got to give the old stockholders notice, but we can +rush the thing through and before anybody wakes up the thing will be +done. Then they can holler all they want." +</p> +<p> +"Well, I'll come in," announced Hunn complacently. +</p> +<p> +"So will I," echoed Scherer. "And the firm can underwrite the last +hundred thousand, and that will clean it up." +</p> +<p> +"Is it all right for us to underwrite the stock ourselves at half +price?" inquired Mr. Beck. "I mean—is it legal?" +</p> +<p> +"Sure!" reiterated Mr. Chippingham. "Somebody's got to underwrite it; +why not us?" +</p> +<p> +"Move we adjourn," said Mr. Greenbaum. "Elderberry—the usual." +</p> +<p> +Mr. Elderberry removed from his change pocket five glittering gold +pieces and slid one across the glass sheet to each director. +</p> +<p> +"Second motion. Carried! All up—seventh inning!" smiled Mr. Scherer; +and the directors, pocketing their gold pieces, arose. +</p> +<p> +If, as it has been defined, ethics consists of a "system of principles +and rules concerning moral obligations and regard for the rights of +others," it may be interesting to speculate as to whether or not these +gentlemen had any or not, and, if so, what it may have been. But in +considering this somewhat nice question it should be borne in mind that +Messrs. Scherer, Hunn, Greenbaum & Beck were bankers of standing, and +were advised by a firm of attorneys of the highest reputation. On its +face, and as it was about to be represented to the stockholders of +Horse's Neck, the proposition appeared fair enough. +</p> +<p> +The circular, shortly after sent out to all the names upon the list, +stated succinctly that financial and labor conditions had been such that +it had been found impossible to operate the mine profitably for several +years, that it had depreciated greatly in value owing to the water which +had accumulated in its lower levels, that it had exhausted its surplus, +that a heavy indebtedness had accumulated, that the corporation's +outstanding notes had been protested and that the property would be sold +under foreclosure unless money was immediately raised to pay them, the +interest due and taxes; that half a million dollars was needed to put +the property in operation and that there was no way to secure it, as +nobody was willing to loan money to a bankrupt mining concern. That +under these circumstances no practical method had been proposed except +to organize a new corporation capitalized at one million instead of ten, +to the stock of which each shareholder in Horse's Neck might subscribe +in proportion to his holdings, at par, and to which the assets of the +old corporation should be transferred practically for its debts. That +this, in a word, was the only way to save the situation and possibly +make a go of a bad business, and that it was a gamble in which the old +stockholders had a right, up to a certain date, to participate if they +saw fit. Those that did not would find their stock in Horse's Neck +entirely valueless as it would have no assets left which had not been +transferred to Lallapaloosa. Stockholders who were dissatisfied could +protest against the enabling resolution to be offered at the annual +meeting of the stockholders of Horse's Neck to be held the following +week at Wilmington, Delaware, and could avail themselves of the right to +have their equity assessed under the laws of Delaware, but as the +liabilities practically equaled the present value of the property that +equity would naturally be highly problematical. +</p> +<p> +Now, as a matter of morals or of law the only thing that made the +proposed reorganization unethical or inequitable was the single trifling +fact that those responsible for it were the only ones who knew of the +existence and proximity of the Amphalula vein. When a mining company, a +railroad, an oil well or any other enterprise is down and out it is only +fair that the majority stockholders, who are obliged to protect their +investment, should have the right to call upon the rest to come forward +and do their share or else drop out. A minority stockholder cannot +appeal to any canon of fair play whereby he should be entitled to sit +back and let the majority take all the risks and then claim his share of +the profits. +</p> +<p> +The imponderable element of injustice in the situation consisted in the +suppression of a fact which the directors concealed but concerning +which, however, they made no representation, false or otherwise. They +were going to risk half a million dollars of their own money and they +wanted the whole gamble for themselves. They sincerely felt that nobody +else was entitled to take that risk with them. Once they had floated +Horse's Neck they had come to look upon it as their own private affair. +The minority had no rights which they, the majority, were bound to +respect. The minority were nothing but a lot of piking gamblers, anyway, +who bought or sold for a rise or fall of a few cents. They knew nothing +of the property and cared less for its real value. They were merely +traders and if they lost they forgot it or tried to. On the other hand +Scherer, Hunn, Greenbaum & Beck were promoters, who contributed +something to the economic advancement of the nation. +</p> +<hr> +<p> +"Regarding my hat, which you suggested this morning should be pressed at +a cost of fifty cents," remarked Mr. Tutt to Miss Wiggin when he +returned to the office upon the adjournment of court in the afternoon +and replaced that ancient object in its accustomed +resting-place—"regarding that precious hat of mine"—he eyed it +affectionately—"I can only say that I would as soon send myself to a +dry-cleaning establishment as to permit its profanation by the iron of a +haberdasher." +</p> +<p> +Miss Wiggin laughed lightly. +</p> +<p> +"That doesn't explain your cryptic statement that it would probably cost +you a hundred thousand dollars," she replied. "Still—" +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt turned suddenly upon his heel and held her with an upraised +hand, the bony wrist of which was encircled, after an intervening space +of some five inches, by a frayed cuff confined with a black onyx button +the size of a quarter. +</p> +<p> +"Behold," he cried in the deep resonant voice that he used in addressing +juries at the climax of a peroration, "the integuments of my +personality—the ancient habiliments of an honorable profession—the +panoply of the legal warrior. Here, my corslet"—he touched his dingy +waistcoat with his left hand; "my greaves"—he brushed the baggy legs of +his pantaloons; "my halberd"—he raised his old mahogany cane with its +knot of yellow ivory; "my casque"—he indicated his ruffled stove-pipe +"Arrayed in these I am Mr. Ephraim Tutt, attorney and counselor at +law—the senior partner in Tutt & Tutt—a respected member of the bar +duly accredited and authorized to practise before the Supreme Court of +the State of New York, the Court of Appeals, the District Court of the +United States, the Circuit Court of Appeals, the Supreme Court of the +United States, the Court of Claims—" +</p> +<p> +"—the Police Court and the Coroner's Court," concluded Miss Wiggin, +making him a mock curtsy. +</p> +<p> +"Without these indicia of my profession and my individuality I should be +like David without his sling or Samson without his hair. I should be +merely Tutt, a criminal lawyer—one of a multitude—regarded perhaps as +a shyster. But in these robes of my high office I am a high priest of +the law; just as you, my dear girl, are one of its many devoted and +worthy priestesses. Can you imagine me going to court in a bowler hat or +arguing to the jury in a cutaway coat or bobtail business suit? Can you +picture Ephraim Tutt with his hair cut short or in an Ascot tie, any +more than you can envisage him in riding breeches or wearing lilacs? No! +There is but one Mr. Tutt, and these are his only garments. He who +steals my hat may steal trash, but without it I should be like a +disembodied spirit unable to return to my earthly dwelling-place. +</p> +<p> +"A paltry hundred thousand? +</p> +<p> +"Nay, without my hat—my helmet!—I should be valueless to myself and +everybody else; so estimate my worth and you can assay the value of my +hat. What am I worth in your opinion?" +</p> +<p> +And then Miss Wiggin, having glanced cautiously if quickly round, made a +most astonishing declaration. +</p> +<p> +"Just about a million times more than anybody else in the whole world, +you old dear!" she whispered and rising upon her toes she kissed his +wrinkled cheek. +</p> +<p> +"Dear me! You really mustn't do that!" gasped Mr. Tutt. +</p> +<p> +"Well," she retorted, "you can discharge me if you like. But first sit +down, light a cigar and let me tell you something." +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt did as he was bid, chuckling. +</p> +<p> +"Well," said Miss Wiggin, "there is such a thing as Horse's Neck +Extension after all!" +</p> +<p> +"Um—you don't say?" he answered, struggling to make his stogy draw. +</p> +<p> +"And it has an office with about a hundred other corporations of various +kinds—most of them with names that sound like the zoo—Yellow Wildcat, +Jumping Leapfrog, and that sort of thing. It seems Horse's Neck is +played out and they are going to reorganize it—" +</p> +<p> +"Who are?" demanded her employer, suddenly sitting erect. +</p> +<p> +"Scherer, Hunn, Greenbaum & Beck." +</p> +<p> +"The dickens they are!" he ejaculated. "That bunch of pirates? Not if I +know it!" +</p> +<p> +"Why not?" +</p> +<p> +"Reorganize! Reorganize? Reorganization is my middle name!" cried Mr. +Tutt. "So Scherer, Hunn, Greenbaum & Beck are going to reorganize +something, are they? Let 'em try! Not so long as I've got my hat!" +</p> +<p> +"This is all very enigmatical to me," replied Miss Wiggin. "But then, +I'm only a woman. Aren't they all right? Why shouldn't they reorganize a +mine if it's exhausted?" +</p> +<p> +"If it's exhausted why do they want to reorganize it?" he demanded, +climbing to his feet. "Let me tell you something, Minerva! All my life +I've been fighting against tyranny—the tyranny of the law, the tyranny +of power, the tyranny of money." +</p> +<p> +He drew fiercely on his stogy, which being desiccated flared like a +Roman candle. +</p> +<p> +"You don't need to tell me what this plan of reorganization is; because +they wouldn't propose one unless it was going to benefit them in some +way, and the only way it can be made to benefit them is at the expense +of the other stockholders. <i>Quod erat demonstrandum</i>." +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt seemed to have become distended somehow and to have spread over +the entire wall surface of his office like the genie which the +fisherman innocently permitted to escape from the bottle. +</p> +<p> +"There isn't one reorganization scheme in a hundred that isn't crooked +somewhere." +</p> +<p> +"According to that, if a business is unsuccessful it ought to be allowed +to go to pot for fear that somebody might make a profit in putting it on +its feet," she countered. "I think you're a violent, irascible, +prejudiced old man!" +</p> +<p> +"All the same," he retorted, "show me a reorganization scheme and I'll +show you a flimflam! What's this one? Bet you anything you like it's as +crooked as a ram's horn. I don't have to hear about it. Don't want to +read the plan. But I'll bust it—higher than Hades. See if I don't!" +</p> +<p> +He spat the remaining filaments of his stogy from the window and fished +out another. +</p> +<p> +"How do we come into it, anyhow?" he demanded. +</p> +<p> +"Doctor—I mean Mister Barrows," replied Miss Wiggin. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, yes. Of course. Well, you send for him to come down here and sign +the papers." +</p> +<p> +"What papers?" +</p> +<p> +"The complaint and order to show cause." +</p> +<p> +"But there isn't any." +</p> +<p> +"There will be, all right, by the time he gets here." +</p> +<p> +Miss Wiggin looked first puzzled and then pained. +</p> +<p> +"I don't understand," she said rather stiffly. "Do you mean that the +firm of Tutt & Tutt is going to engage in the enterprise of trying to +break up a plan of reorganization without knowing what it is? Won't you +lay us all open to the accusation of being strikers?" +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt's ordinarily brown complexion became slightly tinged with +purple. +</p> +<p> +"Let the court decide!" he cried hotly. "You say Scherer, Hunn, +Greenbaum & Beck are proposing to reorganize a mining company? You admit +we hold some of the stock? Well—as the natural-born and perennial +champion of the outraged minority—I'm going to attack it, and bust it, +and raise heck with it—on general principles. I'm going to throw that +damned old hat of mine into the ring, my child, and play hell with +everything." +</p> +<p> +And with a cluck Mr. Tutt leaned over, produced a dingy bottle wrapped +in a coat of many colors and poured himself out a glass of malt extract. +</p> +<hr> +<p> +When Mr. Greenbaum was summoned to the telephone and informed by Mr. +Elderberry in disgruntled tones that somebody had just served upon him +an order to show cause why the proposed reorganization of Horse's Neck +should not be set aside and enjoined, he not only became instantly +annoyed but highly excited. +</p> +<p> +"What!" he almost screamed. +</p> +<p> +"I'll read it to you, if you don't believe it!" said Mr. Elderberry. +</p> +<p> +"'United States District Court, Southern District of New York, Edward V. +Barrows, Complainant against Horse's Neck Extension Mining Company, +Defendant. +</p> +<p> +"'Upon the subpoena herein and the complaint duly verified the +nineteenth day of February, 1919, and the affidavit of Ephraim Tutt +and—'" +</p> +<p> +"Who in hell is Tutt?" shouted Greenbaum, interrupting. +</p> +<p> +"I don't know," retorted Elderberry; "or Barrows either." +</p> +<p> +"Well, skip all the legal rot and get to the point," directed Greenbaum. +</p> +<p> +"'Ordered—ordered, that the defendant, Horse's Neck Extension Mining +Company, show cause at a stated term to be held in and for—'" +</p> +<p> +"I said to cut the legal rot!" +</p> +<p> +"Um—um—'why an injunction order should not be issued herein pending +the trial of this action and enjoining the defendant from disposing of +its assets and for the appointment of a receiver of the assets of the +defendant corporation; and why the complainant should not have such +other, further and different relief as may be equitable.'" +</p> +<p> +There was a long pause during which Mr. Elderberry was under a +convincing delusion that he could actually hear the thoughts that were +rattling round in Mr. Greenbaum's brain. +</p> +<p> +"You there?" he inquired presently. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, yes, I'm here!" retorted Greenbaum. "This is the devil of a note! +Have you spoken to Chippingham?" +</p> +<p> +"Yes." +</p> +<p> +"What does he say?" +</p> +<p> +"He says it's awkward. They have got hold somewhere of one of our old +circulars of 1914 in which the property is described as worth about ten +million dollars—that was during the boom, you remember—and they claim +we are selling it to ourselves for less than one million and that on its +face it's a fraud on the minority stockholders who can't afford to buy +stock in the new corporation—as of course it would be if the mine was +really worth ten million or anything like it." +</p> +<p> +"Did we really ever get out any circular like that?" demanded Greenbaum +in a protesting voice. "I don't recall any." +</p> +<p> +"That was when we were making a market for the stock," Elderberry +reminded him. "We couldn't say enough. Honestly, to look at the thing +now is enough to make you sick!" +</p> +<p> +"Well, it's just a hold-up—that's what it is. Some crook like this +Tutt or this Barrows has found out about Amphalula and is bringing a +strike suit. You'll have to call a meeting right away. I'd like to +strangle all these shyster lawyers!" +</p> +<p> +And it never occurred to Mr. Greenbaum that the possible existence of +the Amphalula vein was what in fact made the order to show cause +justifiable—his actual ground of complaint being that anybody should, +as he assumed, have found out about it in defiance of his plans. +</p> +<hr> +<p> +"Yeronner," said Attendant Mike Horan as he helped Judge Pollak into his +black bombazine gown in his chambers in the old Post-Office Building on +the morning of the return day, "there's a great bunch out there in the +court room waitin' for ye, an' no mistake!" +</p> +<p> +"Indeed!" remarked His Honor. "And who are they? What is the case?" +</p> +<p> +"Hanged if I know," answered Mike, snipping a piece of fluff off his +judgeship's shoulder. "There's a white-bearded old guy, two or three +swell gents with tall hats, Counselor Tutt and an attorney named +Chippingham, besides that pretty Miss Wiggin; and they ain't speakin' +none to one another, neither." +</p> +<p> +"It must be that mining-reorganization case," answered the judge. "Well, +it's time to go in." +</p> +<p> +They walked down the dirty marble corridor and entered the court room, +while the clerk rapped on the railing. +</p> +<p> +"Hear ye! Hear ye! Hear ye! All persons having any business to do with +the District Court of the United States draw near, give your attention +and you will be heard," he intoned with unctuous authority. +</p> +<p> +The "bunch" rose and made obeisance. +</p> +<p> +"Good morning," said the judge pleasantly, sitting down with a side +switch of the bombazine. "Barrows against the—er—er—Horse's Neck +Mining Company. Do you represent the complainant, Mr. Tutt?" +</p> +<p> +"I do," answered Mr. Tutt with great dignity. "Your Honor, this is a +motion for an order to show cause why an injunction <i>pendente lite</i> +should not issue restraining the sale of the assets, of this corporation +to another in fraud of its minority stockholders—and for a receiver. My +client, an aged man living upon his farm in the northern part of the +state, is the owner of one hundred thousand shares in the Horse's Neck +Mining Company of the par value of one hundred thousand dollars. He has +owned these securities for many years. They represent his entire +capital. He is a bona fide stockholder—" +</p> +<p> +"May I be pardoned for interrupting?" sneered Chippingham, springing to +his feet. "I think the court should be informed at the outset that this +man, Barrows, is a notorious ex-convict." +</p> +<p> +Judge Pollak raised his eyebrows. +</p> +<p> +"This is an outrage!" thundered Mr. Tutt, his form rising ceilingward. +"My client—like all of us—has had his misfortunes, but they are +happily a thing of the past; he has the same rights as if he were an +archbishop, the president of a university or—a judge of this honorable +court." +</p> +<p> +"We are sitting in equity," remarked His Honor. "The question of <i>bona +fides</i> is a vital one. <i>Is</i> the complainant an ex-convict?" +</p> +<p> +"This is the complainant, sir," cried Mr. Tutt, indicating old Doc, now +for the first time in his life smartly arrayed in a new checked suit, +red tie, patent-leather shoes and suède gloves, and with his beard +neatly trimmed. "This is the unfortunate man whose honest savings of a +lifetime are being wrested from him by an unscrupulous group of +manipulators who—in my opinion—are more deserving of confinement +behind prison walls than he ever was." +</p> +<p> +The gentlemen with the tall hats bit their lips and showed signs of +poorly suppressed agitation. +</p> +<p> +"But <i>is</i> your client an ex-convict, Mr. Tutt?" repeated the judge +quietly. +</p> +<p> +"Yes, Your Honor, he is." +</p> +<p> +"When and how did he become possessed of his stock?" +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt turned to Doc with an air of ineffectually striving to master +his righteous indignation. +</p> +<p> +"Tell the court, Mr. Barrows," he cried, "in your own words." +</p> +<p> +Doc Barrows wonderingly rose. +</p> +<p> +"If you please, sir," he began, "it's quite a long story. You see, I was +the owner of all the stock of The Chicago Water Front and Terminal +Company—there was a flaw in the title deed which I can explain to you +privately if you wish—and when I was—er—visiting—up on the Hudson—I +met a man there who was the owner of a hundred thousand shares of +Horse's Neck, and we agreed to exchange." +</p> +<p> +The judge tried to hide a slight smile. +</p> +<p> +"I see," he replied pleasantly. "And what was the man's name?" +</p> +<p> +"Oscar Bloom, sir." +</p> +<p> +The gentlemen with the tall hats exchanged agitated glances. +</p> +<p> +"Do you know how he got his stock?" +</p> +<p> +"No, sir." +</p> +<p> +"That is all. Go on, Mr. Tutt." +</p> +<p> +Doc sat down while Mr. Tutt again unhooked his lank form. +</p> +<p> +"To resume where I was interrupted, Your Honor, the directors +controlling a majority of the stock of this corporation, the capital of +which is ten millions of dollars, have made a contract to sell all of +its properties to another corporation, organized by themselves and +capitalized for one million, for the sum of one hundred and twenty-five +thousand dollars! +</p> +<p> +"It is true that in their plan of reorganization they offer to permit +any stockholder in the old corporation to subscribe for stock in the new +at par—thus at first glance placing all upon what seems to be an +equality; but any stockholder who does not see fit to subscribe or +cannot afford to do so is wiped out, for there will be nothing left in +the way of assets in Horse's Neck after the transfer is completed. +</p> +<p> +"Now these gentlemen have underwritten the stock in the new Lallapaloosa +Company at fifty cents upon the dollar, and if this nefarious deal is +permitted to go through they will thus acquire a property worth ten +millions for five hundred thousand dollars, of which they will use only +one hundred and twenty-five thousand in payment of old indebtedness. In +effect, they confiscate the equity of all the minority stockholders in +Horse's Neck who cannot afford to subscribe for stock in Lallapaloosa." +He turned upon the uncomfortable tall hats with an arraigning eye. +</p> +<p> +"In the criminal courts, Your Honor, such a conspiracy would be +properly described as grand larceny; in Wall Street perchance it may be +viewed as high finance. But so long as there are courts of equity such a +wrong upon a helpless stockholder will not go unrebuked. Have I made +myself clear to Your Honor?" +</p> +<p> +Judge Pollak looked interested. He was a man famous for his protection +of helpless minorities and his court had been selected by Mr. Tutt on +this account. +</p> +<p> +"If the facts are as you state them, Mr. Tutt," he answered seriously, +"the plan on its face would seem to be inequitable. If the property is +worth ten million the consideration is palpably inadequate. Your +client's equity, worth on that basis at least one hundred thousand +dollars, would be entirely destroyed without any redress." +</p> +<p> +"Your Honor," burst out Mr. Chippingham, whose bald head had been +bobbing about in excited contiguity with the tall hats, "this is a most +misleading statement. The assets of Horse's Neck aren't worth a hundred +thousand dollars. And if any of the minority don't want to come into the +reorganization—and I assure Your Honor that we would welcome their +participation—they can have their equity appraised under the laws of +Delaware and the finding becomes a lien on the assets even after they +have been transferred." +</p> +<p> +"What relief does that give a man like Mr. Barrows?" shouted Mr. Tutt. +"He can't afford to go down to Wilmington with a carload of books and a +corps of experts to prove the value of Horse's Neck. It would cost him +more than his stock is worth!" +</p> +<p> +"That remedy is not exclusive, in any event," declared the judge. "If +this complainant is going to be defrauded I will enjoin this contract +<i>pendente lite</i> and appoint a receiver." +</p> +<p> +"Your Honor!" protested Chippingham in great agony. "It is not the fact +that this mine is worth ten million. It isn't worth at the most more +than one hundred thousand. It is, full of water, the machinery is rusted +and falling to pieces and the workings are practically exhausted. The +only way to rehabilitate this property is for everybody to come in and +put up enough money by subscribing to the stock of the new corporation +to pump it out, buy new engines and start producing again. Is it fair to +the majority, who are willing to go on, put up more money, and make an +attempt to save the property, to have this complainant—an ex-convict +who never paid a cent for his stock, dug up from heaven knows +where—enjoin their contract and throw the corporation into the hands of +a receiver? This is nothing but a strike suit. I repeat—a strike suit!" +</p> +<p> +He glowered breathless at his adversary. +</p> +<p> +"Oh! Oh!" groaned Mr. Tutt in horrified tones. +</p> +<p> +"Gentlemen! Gentlemen!" expostulated the court. "This will not do!" +</p> +<p> +"I beg pardon—of the court," stammered Mr. Chippingham. +</p> +<p> +"Your Honor," mourned Mr. Tutt, "I have practised here for thirty years +and this is the first time I have ever been insulted in open court. A +strike suit? I hold in my hand"—he waved it threateningly at the tall +hats—"a circular issued by these directors less than five years ago, in +which they give the itemized value of this property as ten million +dollars. Shortly after that circular was issued the stock sold in the +open market at one dollar and ninety cents a share. In two years it sank +to ten cents a share. Will a little water, a little rust, a little +trouble with labor reduce the value of a great property like this from +ten millions of dollars to one hundred thousand—one per cent of its +appraised value? Either"—he fixed Chippingham with an exultant and +terrifying glance—"they were lying then or they are lying now!" +</p> +<p> +"Let me look at that circular," directed Judge Pollak. He took it from +Mr. Tutt's eager hand, glanced through it and turned sharply upon the +quaking Chippingham. +</p> +<p> +"How long have you been attorney for Scherer, Hunn, Greenbaum & Beck?" +</p> +<p> +"Twelve years, Your Honor." +</p> +<p> +"Who is Wilson W. Elderberry?" +</p> +<p> +"He is the secretary of the Horse's Neck Extension, Your Honor." +</p> +<p> +"Is he in court?" +</p> +<p> +From a distant corner Mr. Elderberry bashfully rose. +</p> +<p> +"Come here!" ordered the court. And the Pooh-Bah of the +Scherer-Hunn-Greenbaum-Beck enterprises came cringing to the bar. +</p> +<p> +"Did you sign this circular in 1914?" demanded Judge Pollak. +</p> +<p> +"Yes, Your Honor." +</p> +<p> +"Were the statements contained in it true?" +</p> +<p> +Elderberry squirmed. +</p> +<p> +"Ye-es, Your Honor. That is—they were to the best of my knowledge and +belief. I was, of course, obliged to take what information was at +hand—and—er—and—" +</p> +<p> +"Did you sign the other circular, issued last month, to the effect that +the mine was practically valueless?" +</p> +<p> +"Yes, sir." Elderberry studiously examined the moldings on the cornice +of the judge's canopy. +</p> +<p> +"Um!" remarked the court significantly. +</p> +<p> +There was a flurry among the tall hats. Then Mr. Greenbaum sprang to his +feet. +</p> +<p> +"If you please, Your Honor," he announced, staccato, "we entirely +disavow Mr. Elderberry's circular of 1914. It was issued without our +knowledge or authority. It is no evidence that the mine was worth ten +millions or any other amount at that time." +</p> +<p> +"Oh! Oh!" choked Mr. Tutt, while Miss Wiggin giggled delightedly into +her brief case. +</p> +<p> +Judge Pollak bent upon Mr. Greenbaum a withering glance. +</p> +<p> +"Did your firm sell any of its holdings in Horse's Neck after the +issuance of that circular?" +</p> +<p> +Greenbaum hesitated. He would have liked to wring that judge's neck. +</p> +<p> +"Why—how do I know? We may have." +</p> +<p> +"<i>Did</i> you?" +</p> +<p> +"Say 'yes,' for God's sake," hissed Chippingham "or you'll land in the +pen!" +</p> +<p> +"I am informed that we did," answered Greenbaum defiantly. "That is, I +don't <i>say</i> we did. Very likely we did. Our books would show. But I +repeat—we disavow this circular and we deny any responsibility for this +man, Elderberry." +</p> +<p> +This man, Elderberry, who for twelve long years had writhed under the +biting lash of his employer's tongue, hating him with a hatred known +only to those in subordinate positions who are bribed to suffer the +"whips and scorns of time, the oppressor's wrong, the proud man's +contumely," quivered and saw red. He was going to be made the goat! +They expected him to take all the responsibility and give them a clean +slate! The nerve of it! To hell with them! Suddenly he began to cry, +shockingly, with deep stertorous suspirations. +</p> +<p> +"No—you won't!" he hiccuped. "You shan't lay the blame on me! I'll tell +the truth, I will! I won't stand for it! Your Honor, they want to +reorganize Horse's Neck because they think there's a vein in Amphalula +that crosses one of the old workings and that it'll make the property +worth millions and millions." +</p> +<p> +Utter silence descended upon the court room—silence broken only by the +slow ticktack of the self-winding clock on the rear wall and the whine +of the electric cars on Park Row. One of the tall hats crept quietly to +the door and vanished. The others sat like images. +</p> +<p> +Then the court said very quietly: "I will adjourn this matter for one +week. I need not point out that what has occurred has a very grave +interpretation. Adjourn court!" +</p> +<hr> +<p> +Old Doc Barrows, the two Tutts and Miss Wiggin were sitting in Mr. +Tutt's office an hour later when Willie announced that Mr. Tobias +Greenbaum was outside and would like an interview. +</p> +<p> +"Send him in!" directed Mr. Tutt, winking at Miss Wiggin. +</p> +<p> +Mr. Greenbaum entered, frowning and without salutation, while Doc +partially rose, moved by the acquired instinct of disciplinary +politeness, then changed his mind and sat down again. +</p> +<p> +"See here," snarled Greenbaum. "You sure have made a most awful hash of +this business. I don't want to argue about it. We could go ahead and +beat you, but Pollak is prejudiced and will probably give you your +injunction and appoint a receiver. If he does, that will knock the whole +property higher than a kite. Nobody would ever buy stock in it or even +finance it. Now how much do you want to call off your suit?" +</p> +<p> +"Have a stogy?" asked Mr. Tutt politely. +</p> +<p> +"Nope." +</p> +<p> +"We want exactly one hundred thousand dollars." +</p> +<p> +Greenbaum laughed derisively. +</p> +<p> +"A hundred thousand fiddlesticks! This old jailbird swindled another +crook, Bloom—" +</p> +<p> +"Oh, Bloom was a crook too, was he?" chuckled Mr. Tutt. "He worked for +your firm, didn't he?" +</p> +<p> +"That's nothing to do with it!" retorted Greenbaum angrily. "Your +swindling client traded some bum stock in a fake corporation for Bloom's +stock, which he received for bona fide services—" +</p> +<p> +"Like Elderberry's?" inquired Tutt innocently. +</p> +<p> +"Your man never paid a cent for his holdings. That alone would throw +him out of court. The mine isn't worth a cent without the Amphalula +vein. We're taking a big chance. You've got us down and we've got to +pay; but we'll pay only ten thousand dollars—that's final." +</p> +<p> +"I ain't any more of a swindler than you be!" said Doc with plaintive +indignation. +</p> +<p> +"What do you wish to do, Mr. Barrows?" asked Mr. Tutt, turning to him +deferentially. +</p> +<p> +"I leave it entirely to you, Mr. Tutt. It's your stock; I gave it all to +you months ago." +</p> +<p> +"Then," answered Mr. Tutt with fine scorn, "I shall tell this miserable +cheating rogue and rascal either to pay you a hundred thousand dollars +or go to hell." +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tobias Greenbaum clenched his fists and cast a black glance upon the +group. +</p> +<p> +"You can wreck this corporation if you choose, you bunch of dirty +blackmailers, but you'll get not a cent more than ten thousand. For the +last time, will you take it or not?" +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt rose and pointed toward the door. +</p> +<p> +"Kindly remove yourself before I call the police," he said coldly. "I +advise the firm of Scherer, Hunn, Greenbaum & Beck to retain criminal +counsel. Your ten thousand may come in handy for that purpose." +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tobias Greenbaum went. +</p> +<p> +"And now, Miss Wiggin, how about a cup of tea?" said Mr. Tutt. +</p> +<p> +The firm of Tutt & Tutt claimed to be the only law firm in the city of +New York which still maintained the historic English custom of having +tea at five o'clock. Whether the claim had any foundation or not the tea +was none the less an institution, undoubtedly generating a friendly, +sociable atmosphere throughout the office; and now Willie pulled aside +the screen in the corner and disclosed the gate-leg table over which +Miss Wiggin exercised her daily prerogative. Soon the room was filled +with the comfortable odor of Pekoe, of muffins toasted upon an electric +heater, of cigarettes and stogies. Yet there was, and had been ever +since their conversation about the hat, a certain restraint between Miss +Wiggin and Mr. Tutt, rising presumably out of her suggestion that his +course savored of blackmail, however justified it had afterward turned +out to be. +</p> +<p> +"My, isn't this nice!" murmured Doc, trying unsuccessfully to eat a +muffin, drink his tea and do justice to a stogy at the same time. "It's +so homy now, isn't it?" +</p> +<p> +"Doc," answered Mr. Tutt, "did you really want that ten thousand?" +</p> +<p> +"Me?" repeated Doc vaguely. "Why, I told you I gave that stock to you +long ago. It isn't mine any longer. Besides, I don't want any money. +I'm perfectly happy as I am." +</p> +<p> +Mr. Tutt laughed genially. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, well," he said, "it's no matter who owns it. Elderberry just +telephoned me that he had received a telegram from the Amphalula that +the vein had definitely run out. It's all over—including the shouting." +</p> +<p> +"Elderberry telephone you?" queried Miss Wiggin in astonishment. +</p> +<p> +"Yes, Elderberry. You see, he's done, he says, with Scherer, Hunn, +Greenbaum & Beck. Wants to turn state's evidence and put 'em all in +jail. I've said I'd help him." +</p> +<p> +"Then why didn't you take the ten thousand and call it quits while the +getting was good?" demanded his partner icily. +</p> +<p> +"Because I knew I'd never get the ten anyway," replied Mr. Tutt. +"Greenbaum would have learned about the vein on his return to the +office." +</p> +<p> +"Well, I must be getting along back to Pottsville!" mumbled Doc. "This +has been a very pleasant trip—very pleasant; and +quite—quite—exciting. I—" +</p> +<p> +"What I'd like to know, Mr. Tutt," interrupted Miss Wiggin, "is how you +justify your course in this matter. When you attempted to block this +proposed reorganization you knew nothing about the Elderberry circular +of 1914 valuing the property at ten million, or of the Amphalula vein. +On its face you were attempting to wreck a perfectly honest piece of +financiering, and unless it was a strike suit—which I hope and pray it +wasn't—" +</p> +<p> +"Strike suit!" protested Mr. Tutt with a slight twinkle in his eye. "How +can you suggest such a thing! Didn't the events demonstrate the wisdom +of my judgment?" +</p> +<p> +"But you didn't know what was going to happen when you began your suit!" +she argued firmly. "I hate to say it, but I should think that if +everything had not come out just as it has your motives might easily +have been misconstrued." +</p> +<p> +"It was a matter of principle with me, my dear," declared Mr. Tutt +solemnly. "Just to show there's no ill feeling, won't you give me +another cup of tea?" +</p> + +<p> </p> +<hr class="full"> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TUTT AND MR. TUTT***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 10440-h.txt or 10440-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/4/4/10440">https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/4/4/10440</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + + + + +Title: Tutt and Mr. Tutt + +Author: Arthur Train + +Release Date: December 12, 2003 [eBook #10440] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: US-ASCII + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TUTT AND MR. TUTT*** + + +E-text prepared by Steven desJardins and Project Gutenberg Distributed +Proofreaders + + + +TUTT AND MR. TUTT + +By Arthur Train + +1919 + + + + + + +CONTENTS + + +THE HUMAN ELEMENT + +MOCK HEN AND MOCK TURTLE + +SAMUEL AND DELILAH + +THE DOG ANDREW + +WILE _Versus_ GUILE + +HEPPLEWHITE TRAMP + +LALLAPALOOSA LIMITED + + + + +The Human Element + + + + Although men flatter themselves with their great actions, + they are not so often the result of great design as of chance. + --LA ROCHEFOUCAULD. + +"He says he killed him, and that's all there is about it!" said Tutt to +Mr. Tutt. "What are you going to do with a fellow like that?" The junior +partner of the celebrated firm of Tutt & Tutt, attorneys and counselors +at law, thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his yellow checked +breeches and, balancing himself upon the heels of his patent-leather +boots, gazed in a distressed, respectfully inquiring manner at his +distinguished associate. + +"Yes," he repeated plaintively. "He don't make any bones about it at +all. 'Sure, I killed him!' says he. 'And I'd kill him again, the ----!' +I prefer not to quote his exact language. I've just come from the Tombs +and had quite a talk with Serafino in the counsel room, with a +gum-chewing keeper sitting in the corner watching me for fear I'd slip +his prisoner a saw file or a shotgun or a barrel of poison. I'm all in! +These murder cases drive me to drink, Mr. Tutt. I don't mind grand +larceny, forgery, assault or even manslaughter--but murder gets my goat! +And when you have a crazy Italian for a client who says he's glad he did +it and would like to do it again--please excuse me! It isn't law; it's +suicide!" + +He drew out a silk handkerchief ornamented with the colors of the +Allies, and wiped his forehead despairingly. + +"Oh," remarked Mr. Tutt with entire good nature. "He's glad he did it +and he's quite willing to be hanged!" + +"That's it in a nutshell!" replied Tutt. + +The senior partner of Tutt & Tutt ran his bony fingers through the lank +gray locks over his left eye and tilted ceilingward the stogy between +his thin lips. Then he leaned back in his antique swivel chair, locked +his hands behind his head, elevated his long legs luxuriously, and +crossed his feet upon the fourth volume of the American and English +Encyclopedia of Law, which lay open upon the desk at Champerty and +Maintenance. Even in this inelegant and relaxed posture he somehow +managed to maintain the air of picturesque dignity which always made his +tall, ungainly figure noticeable in any courtroom. Indubitably Mr. +Ephraim Tutt suggested a past generation, the suggestion being +accentuated by a slight pedantry of diction a trifle out of character +with the rushing age in which he saw fit to practise his time-honored +profession. "Cheer up, Tutt," said he, pushing a box of stogies toward +his partner with the toe of his congress boot. "Have a weed?" + +Since in the office of Tutt & Tutt such an invitation like those of +royalty, was equivalent to a command, Tutt acquiesced. + +"Thank you, Mr. Tutt," said Tutt, looking about vaguely for a match. + +"That conscienceless brat of a Willie steals 'em all," growled Mr. Tutt. +"Ring the bell." + +Tutt obeyed. He was a short, brisk little man with a pronounced +abdominal convexity, and he maintained toward his superior, though but a +few years his junior, a mingled attitude of awe, admiration and +affection such as a dickey bird might adopt toward a distinguished owl. + +This attitude was shared by the entire office force. Inside the ground +glass of the outer door Ephraim Tutt was king. To Tutt the opinion of +Mr. Tutt upon any subject whatsoever was law, even if the courts might +have held to the contrary. To Tutt he was the eternal fount of wisdom, +culture and morality. Yet until Mr. Tutt finally elucidated his views +Tutt did not hesitate to hold conditional if temporary opinions of his +own. Briefly their relations were symbolized by the circumstance that +while Tutt always addressed his senior partner as "Mr. Tutt," the latter +accosted him simply as "Tutt." In a word there was only one Mr. Tutt in +the firm of Tutt & Tutt. + +But so far as that went there was only one Tutt. On the theory that a +lily cannot be painted, the estate of one seemingly was as dignified as +that of the other. At any rate there never was and never had been any +confusion or ambiguity arising out of the matter since the day, twenty +years before, when Tutt had visited Mr. Tutt's law office in search of +employment. Mr. Tutt was just rising into fame as a police-court lawyer. +Tutt had only recently been admitted to the bar, having abandoned his +native city of Bangor, Maine, for the metropolis. + +"And may I ask why you should come to me?" Mr. Tutt had demanded +severely from behind the stogy, which even at that early date had been +as much a part of his facial anatomy as his long ruminative nose. "Why +the devil should you come to me? I am nobody, sir--nobody! In this great +city certainly there are thousands far more qualified than I to further +your professional and financial advancement." + +"Because," answered the inspired Tutt with modesty, "I feel that with +you I should be associated with a good name." + +That had settled the matter. They bore no relationship to one another, +but they were the only Tutts in the city and there seemed to be a +certain propriety in their hanging together. Neither had regretted it +for a moment, and as the years passed they became indispensable to each +other. They were the necessary component parts of a harmonious legal +whole. Mr. Tutt was the brains and the voice, while Tutt was the eyes +and legs of a combination that at intervals--rare ones, it must be +confessed--made the law tremble, sometimes in fear and more often with +joy. + +At first, speaking figuratively, Tutt merely carried Mr. Tutt's +bag--rode on his coat tails, as it were; but as time went on his +activity, ingenuity and industry made him indispensable and led to a +junior partnership. Tutt prepared the cases for Mr. Tutt to try. Both +were well versed in the law if they were not profound lawyers, but as +the origin of the firm was humble, their practise was of a miscellaneous +character. + +"Never turn down a case," was Tutt's motto. + +"Our duty as sworn officers of the judicial branch of the Government +renders it incumbent upon us to perform whatever services our clients' +exigencies demand," was Mr. Tutt's way of putting it. + +In the end it amounted to exactly the same thing. As a result, in +addition to their own clientele, other members of the bar who found +themselves encumbered with matters which for one reason or another they +preferred not to handle formed the habit of turning them over to Tutt & +Tutt. A never-ending stream of peculiar cases flowed through the office, +each leaving behind it some residuum of golden dust, however small. The +stately or, as an unkind observer might have put it, the ramshackly form +of the senior partner was a constant figure in all the courts, from that +of the coroner on the one hand to the appellate tribunals upon the +other. It was immaterial to him what the case was about--whether it +dealt with the "next eventual estate" or the damages for a dog bite--so +long as he was paid and Tutt prepared it. Hence Tutt & Tutt prospered. +And as the law, like any other profession requires jacks-of-all-trades, +the firm acquired a certain peculiar professional standing of its own, +and enjoyed the good will of the bar as a whole. + +They had the reputation of being sound lawyers if not overafflicted with +a sense of professional dignity, whose word was better than their bond, +yet who, faithful to their clients' interests knew no mercy and gave no +quarter. They took and pressed cases which other lawyers dared not touch +lest they should be defiled--and nobody seemed to think any the less of +them for so doing. They raised points that made the refinements of the +ancient schoolmen seem blunt in comparison. No respecters of persons, +they harried the rich and taunted the powerful, and would have as soon +jailed a bishop or a judge as a pickpocket if he deserved it. Between +them they knew more kinds of law than most of their professional +brethren, and as Mr. Tutt was a bookworm and a seeker after legal and +other lore their dusty old library was full of hidden treasures, which +on frequent occasions were unearthed to entertain the jury or delight +the bench. They were loyal friends, fearsome enemies, high chargers, and +maintained their unique position in spite of the fact that at one time +or another they had run close to the shadowy line which divides the +ethical from that which is not. Yet Mr. Tutt had brought disbarment +proceedings against many lawyers in his time and--what is more--had them +disbarred. + +"Leave old Tutt alone," was held sage advice, and when other lawyers +desired to entertain the judiciary they were apt to invite Mr. Tutt to +be of the party. And Tutt gloried in the glories of Mr. Tutt. + +"That's it!" repeated Tutt as he lit his stogy, which flared up like a +burning bush, the cub of a Willie having foraged successfully in the +outer office for a match. "He's willing to be hanged or damned or +anything else just for the sake of putting a bullet through the other +fellow!" + +"What was the name of the unfortunate deceased?" + +"Tomasso Crocedoro--a barber." + +"That is almost a defense in itself," mused Mr. Tutt. "Anyhow, if I've +got to defend Angelo for shooting Tomasso you might as well give me a +short scenario of the melodrama. By the way, are we retained or assigned +by the court?" + +"Assigned," chirped Tutt. + +"So that all we'll get out of it is about enough to keep me in stogies +for a couple of months!" + +"And--if he's convicted, as of course he will be--a good chance of +losing our reputation as successful trial counsel. Why not beg off?" + +"Let me hear the story first," answered Mr. Tutt. "Angelo sounds like a +good sport. I have a mild affection for him already." + +He reached into the lower compartment of his desk and lifted out a +tumbler and a bottle of malt extract, which he placed carefully at his +elbow. Then he leaned back again expectantly. + +"It is a simple and naive story," began Tutt, seating himself in the +chair reserved for paying clients--that is to say, one which did not +have the two front legs sawed off an inch or so in order to make +lingering uncomfortable. "A plain, unvarnished tale. Our client is one +who makes an honest living by blacking shoes near the entrance to the +Brooklyn Bridge. He is one of several hundred original Tonys who conduct +shoe-shining emporiums." + +"Emporia," corrected his partner, pouring out a tumbler of malt extract. + +"He formed an attachment for a certain young lady," went on Tutt, +undisturbed, "who had previously had some sort of love affair with +Crocedoro, as a result of which her social standing had become slightly +impaired. In a word Tomasso jilted her. Angelo saw, pitied and loved +her, took her for better or for worse, and married her." + +"For which," interjected Mr. Tutt, "he is entitled to everyone's +respect." + +"Quite so!" agreed Tutt. "Now Tomasso, though not willing to marry the +girl himself, seems to have resented the idea of having anyone else do +so, and accordingly seized every opportunity which presented itself to +twit Angelo about the matter." + +"Dog in the manger, so to speak," nodded Mr. Tutt. + +"He not only jeered at Angelo for marrying Rosalina but he began to +hang about his discarded mistress again and scoff at her choice of a +husband. But Rosalina gave him the cold shoulder, with the result that +he became more and more insulting to Angelo. Finally one day our client +made up his mind not to stand it any longer, secured a revolver, sought +out Tomasso in his barber shop and put a bullet through his head. Now +however much you may sympathize with Angelo as a man and a husband there +isn't the slightest doubt that he killed Tomasso with every kind of +deliberation and premeditation." + +"If the case is as you say," replied Mr. Tutt, replacing the bottle and +tumbler within the lower drawer and flicking a stogy ash from his +waistcoat, "the honorable justice who handed it to us is no friend of +ours." + +"He isn't," assented his partner. "It was Babson and he hates Italians. +Moreover, he stated in open court that he proposed to try the case +himself next Monday and that we must be ready without fail." + +"So Babson did that to us!" growled Mr. Tutt. "Just like him. He'll pack +the jury and charge our innocent Angelo into the middle of hades." + +"And O'Brien is the assistant district attorney in charge of the +prosecution," mildly added Tutt. "But what can we do? We're assigned, +we've got a guilty client, and we've got to defend him." + +"Have you set Bonnie Doon looking up witnesses?" asked Mr. Tutt. "I +thought I saw him outside during the forenoon." + +"Yes," replied Tutt. "But Bonnie says it's the toughest case he ever had +to handle in which to find any witnesses for the defense. There aren't +any. Besides, the girl bought the gun and gave it to Angelo the same +day." + +"How do you know that?" demanded Mr. Tutt, frowning. + +"Because she told me so herself," said Tutt. "She's outside if you want +to see her." + +"I might as well give her what you call 'the once over,'" replied the +senior partner. + +Tutt retired and presently returned half leading, half pushing a +shrinking young Italian woman, shabbily dressed but with the features of +one of Raphael's madonnas. She wore no hat and her hands and finger +nails were far from clean, but from the folds of her black shawl her +neck rose like a column of slightly discolored Carrara marble, upon +which her head with its coils of heavy hair was poised with the grace of +a sulky empress. + +"Come in, my child, and sit down," said Mr. Tutt kindly. "No, not in +that one; in that one." He indicated the chair previously occupied by +his junior. "You can leave us, Tutt. I want to talk to this young lady +alone." + +The girl sat sullenly with averted face, showing in her attitude her +instinctive feeling that all officers of the law, no matter upon which +side they were supposed to be, were one and all engaged in a mysterious +conspiracy of which she and her unfortunate Angelo were the victims. A +few words from the old lawyer and she began to feel more confidence, +however. No one, in fact, could help but realize at first glance Mr. +Tutt's warmth of heart. The lines of his sunken cheeks if left to +themselves automatically tended to draw together into a whimsical smile, +and it required a positive act of will upon his part to adopt the stern +and relentless look with which he was wont to glower down upon some +unfortunate witness in cross-examination. + +Inside Mr. Tutt was a benign and rather mellow old fellow, with a dry +sense of humor and a very keen knowledge of his fellow men. He made a +good deal of money, but not having any wife or child upon which to +lavish it he spent it all either on books or surreptitiously in quixotic +gifts to friends or strangers whom he either secretly admired or whom he +believed to be in need of money. There were vague traditions in the +office of presents of bizarre and quite impossible clothes made to +office boys and stenographers; of ex-convicts reoutfitted and sent +rejoicing to foreign parts; of tramps gorged to repletion and then +pumped dry of their adventures in Mr. Tutt's comfortable, dingy old +library; of a fur coat suddenly clapped upon the rounded shoulders of +old Scraggs, the antiquated scrivener in the accountant's cage in the +outer office, whose alcoholic career, his employer alleged, was marked +by a trail of empty rum kegs, each one flying the white flag of +surrender. + +And yet old Ephraim Tutt could on occasion be cold as chiseled steel, +and as hard. Any appeal from a child, a woman or an outcast always met +with his ready response; but for the rich, successful and those in power +he seemed to entertain a deep and enduring grudge. He would burn the +midnight oil with equal zest to block a crooked deal on the part of a +wealthy corporation or to devise a means to extricate some no less +crooked rascal from the clutches of the law, provided that the rascal +seemed the victim of hard luck, inheritance or environment. His +weather-beaten conscience was as elastic as his heart. Indeed when under +the expansive influence of a sufficient quantity of malt extract or +ancient brandy from the cellaret on his library desk he had sometimes +been heard to enunciate the theory that there was very little difference +between the people in jail and those who were not. + +He would work weeks without compensation to argue the case of some +guilty rogue before the Court of Appeals, in order, as he said, to +"settle the law," when his only real object was to get the miserable +fellow out of jail and send him back to his wife and children. He went +through life with a twinkling eye and a quizzical smile, and when he did +wrong he did it--if such a thing is possible--in a way to make people +better. He was a dangerous adversary and judges were afraid of him, not +because he ever tricked or deceived them but because of the audacity and +novelty of his arguments which left them speechless. He had the +assurance that usually comes with age and with a lifelong knowledge of +human nature, yet apparently he had always been possessed of it. + +Once a judge having assigned him to look out for the interests of a +lawyerless prisoner suggested that he take his new client into the +adjoining jury room and give him the best advice he could. Mr. Tutt was +gone so long that the judge became weary, and to find out what had +become of him sent an officer, who found the lawyer reading a newspaper +beside an open window, but no sign of the prisoner. In great excitement +the officer reported the situation to the judge, who ordered Mr. Tutt to +the bar. + +"What has become of the prisoner?" demanded His Honor. + +"I do not know," replied the lawyer calmly. "The window was open and I +suspect that he used it as a means of exit." + +"Are you not aware that you are a party to an escape--a crime?" hotly +challenged the judge. + +"I most respectfully deny the charge," returned Mr. Tutt. + +"I told you to take the prisoner into that room and give him the best +advice you could." + +"I did!" interjected the lawyer. + +"Ah!" exclaimed the judge. "You admit it! What advice did you give him?" + +"The law does not permit me to state that," answered Mr. Tutt in his +most dignified tones. "That is a privileged communication from the +inviolate obligation to preserve which only my client can release me--I +cannot betray a sacred trust. Yet I might quote Cervantes and remind +Your Honor that 'Fortune leaves always some door open to come at a +remedy!'" + +Now as he gazed at the tear-stained cheeks of the girl-wife whose +husband had committed murder in defense of her self-respect, he vowed +that so far as he was able he would fight to save him. The more +desperate the case the more desperate her need of him--the greater the +duty and the greater his honor if successful. + +"Believe that I am your friend, my dear!" he assured her. "You and I +must work together to set Angelo free." + +"It's no use," she returned less defiantly. "He done it. He won't deny +it." + +"But he is entitled to his defense," urged Mr. Tutt quietly. + +"He won't make no defense." + +"We must make one for him." + +"There ain't none. He just went and killed him." + +Mr. Tutt shrugged his shoulders. + +"There is always a defense," he answered with conviction. "Anyhow we +can't let him be convicted without making an effort. Will they be able +to prove where he got the pistol?" + +"He didn't get the pistol," retorted the girl with a glint in her black +eyes. "I got it. I'd ha' shot him myself if he hadn't. I said I was +goin' to, but he wouldn't let me." + +"Dear, dear!" sighed Mr. Tutt. "What a case! Both of you trying to see +which could get hanged first!" + + * * * * * + +The inevitable day of Angelo's trial came. Upon the bench the Honorable +Mr. Justice Babson glowered down upon the cowering defendant flanked by +his distinguished counsel, Tutt & Tutt, and upon the two hundred good +and true talesmen who, "all other business laid aside," had been dragged +from the comfort of their homes and the important affairs of their +various livelihoods to pass upon the merits of the issue duly joined +between The People of the State of New York and Angelo Serafino, +charged with murder. + +One by one as his name was called each took his seat in the witness +chair upon the _voir dire_ and perjured himself like a gentleman in +order to escape from service, shyly confessing to an ineradicable +prejudice against the entire Italian race and this defendant in +particular, and to an antipathy against capital punishment which, so +each unhesitatingly averred, would render him utterly incapable of +satisfactorily performing his functions if selected as a juryman. Hardly +one, however, but was routed by the Machiavellian Babson. Hardly one, +however ingenious his excuse--whether about to be married or immediately +become a father, whether engaged in a business deal involving millions +which required his instant and personal attention whether in the last +stages of illness or obligated to be present at the bedside of a dying +wife--but was browbeaten into helplessness and ordered back to take his +place amidst the waiting throng of recalcitrant citizens so disinclined +to do their part in elevating that system of trial by jury the failure +of which at other times they so loudly condemned. + +This trifling preliminary having been concluded, the few jurymen who had +managed to wriggle through the judicial sieve were allowed to withdraw, +the balance of the calendar was adjourned, those spectators who were +standing up were ordered to sit down and those already sitting down were +ordered to sit somewhere else, the prisoners in the rear of the room +were sent back to the Tombs to await their fate upon some later day, the +reporters gathered rapaciously about the table just behind the +defendant, a corpulent Ganymede in the person of an aged court officer +bore tremblingly an opaque glass of yellow drinking water to the bench, +O'Brien the prosecutor blew his nose with a fanfare of trumpets, Mr. +Tutt smiled an ingratiating smile which seemed to clasp the whole world +to his bosom--and the real battle commenced; a game in which every card +in the pack had been stacked against the prisoner by an unscrupulous +pair of officials whose only aim was to maintain their record of +convictions of "murder in the first" and who laid their plans with +ingenuity and carried them out with skill and enthusiasm to habitual +success. + +They were a grand little pair of convictors, were Babson and O'Brien, +and woe unto that man who was brought before them. It was even alleged +by the impious that when Babson was in doubt what to do or what O'Brien +wanted him to do the latter communicated the information to his +conspirator upon the bench by a system of preconcerted signals. But +indeed no such system was necessary, for the judge's part in the drama +was merely to sustain his colleague's objections and overrule those of +his opponent, after which he himself delivered the _coup de grace_ with +unerring insight and accuracy. When Babson got through charging a jury +the latter had always in fact been instructed in brutal and sneering +tones to convict the defendant or forever after to regard themselves as +disloyal citizens, oath violators and outcasts though the stenographic +record of his remarks would have led the reader thereof to suppose that +this same judge was a conscientious, tender-hearted merciful lover of +humanity, whose sensitive soul quivered at the mere thought of a prison +cell, and who meticulously sought to surround the defendant with every +protection the law could interpose against the imputation of guilt. + +He was, as Tutt put it, "a dangerous old cuss." O'Brien was even worse. +He was a bull-necked, bullet-headed, pugnosed young ruffian with beery +eyes, who had an insatiable ambition and a still greater conceit, but +who had devised a blundering, innocent, helpless way of conducting +himself before a jury that deceived them into believing that his +inexperience required their help and his disinterestedness their loyal +support. Both of them were apparently fair-minded, honest public +servants; both in reality were subtly disingenuous to a degree beyond +ordinary comprehension, for years of practise had made them sensitive to +every whimsy of emotion and taught them how to play upon the psychology +of the jury as the careless zephyr softly draws its melody from the +aeolian harp. In a word they were a precious pair of crooks, who for +their own petty selfish ends played fast and loose with liberty, life +and death. + +Both of them hated Mr. Tutt, who had more than once made them ridiculous +before the jury and shown them up before the Court of Appeals, and the +old lawyer recognized well the fact that these two legal wolves were in +revenge planning to tear him and his helpless client to pieces, having +first deliberately selected him as a victim and assigned him to +officiate at a ceremony which, however just so far as its consummation +might be concerned, was nothing less in its conduct than judicial +murder. Now they were laughing at him in their sleeves, for Mr. Tutt +enjoyed the reputation of never having defended a client who had been +convicted of murder, and that spotless reputation was about to be +annihilated forever. + +Though the defense had thirty peremptory challenges Mr. Tutt well knew +that Babson would sustain the prosecutor's objections for bias until the +jury box would contain the twelve automata personally selected by +O'Brien in advance from what Tutt called "the army of the gibbet." Yet +the old war horse outwardly maintained a calm and genial exterior, +betraying none of the apprehension which in fact existed beneath his +mask of professional composure. The court officer rapped sharply for +silence. + +"Are you quite ready to proceed with the case?" inquired the judge with +a courtesy in which was ill concealed a leer of triumph. + +"Yes, Your Honor," responded Mr. Tutt in velvet tones. + +"Call the first talesman!" + +The fight was on, the professional duel between traditional enemies, in +which the stake--a human life--was in truth the thing of least concern, +had begun. Yet no casual observer would have suspected the actual +significance of what was going on or the part that envy, malice, +uncharitableness, greed, selfishness and ambition were playing in it. He +would have seen merely a partially filled courtroom flooded with +sunshine from high windows, an attentive and dignified judge in a black +silk robe sitting upon a dais below which a white-haired clerk drew +little slips of paper from a wheel and summoned jurymen to a service +which outwardly bore no suggestion of a tragedy. + +He would have seen a somewhat unprepossessing assistant district +attorney lounging in front of the jury box, taking apparently no great +interest in the proceedings, and a worried-looking young Italian sitting +at the prisoner's table between a rubicund little man with a round red +face and a tall, grave, longish-haired lawyer with a frame not unlike +that of Abraham Lincoln, over whose wrinkled face played from time to +time the suggestion of a smile. Behind a balustrade were the reporters, +scribbling on rough sheets of yellow paper. Then came rows of benches, +upon the first of which, as near the jury box as possible, sat Rosalina +in a new bombazine dress and wearing a large imitation gold cross +furnished for the occasion out of the legal property room of Tutt & +Tutt. Occasionally she sobbed softly. The bulk of the spectators +consisted of rejected talesmen, witnesses, law clerks, professional +court loafers and women seeking emotional sensations which they had not +the courage or the means to satisfy otherwise. The courtroom was +comparatively quiet, the silence broken only by the droning voice of the +clerk and the lazy interplay of question and answer between talesman and +lawyer. + +Yet beneath the humdrum, casual, almost indifferent manner in which the +proceedings seemed to be conducted each side was watching every move +made by the other with the tension of a tiger ready to spring upon its +prey. Babson and O'Brien were engaged in forcing upon the defense a jury +composed entirely of case-hardened convictors, while Tutt & Tutt were +fighting desperately to secure one so heterogeneous in character that +they could hope for a disagreement. + +By recess thirty-seven talesmen had been examined without a foreman +having been selected, and Mr. Tutt had exhausted twenty-nine of his +thirty challenges, as against three for the prosecution. The court +reconvened and a new talesman was called, resembling in appearance a +professional hangman who for relaxation leaned toward the execution of +Italians. Mr. Tutt examined him for bias and every known form of +incompetency, but in vain--then challenged peremptorily. Thirty +challenges! He looked on Tutt with slightly raised eyebrows. + +"Patrick Henry Walsh--to the witness chair, please, Mr. Walsh!" called +the clerk, drawing another slip from the box. + +Mr. Walsh rose and came forward heavily, while Tutt & Tutt trembled. He +was the one man they were afraid of--an old-timer celebrated as a +bulwark of the prosecution, who could always be safely counted upon to +uphold the arms of the law, who regarded with reverence all officials +connected with the administration of justice, and from whose +composition all human emotions had been carefully excluded by the +Creator. He was a square-jawed, severe, heavily built person, with a +long relentless upper lip, cheeks ruddy from the open air; engaged in +the contracting business; and he had a brogue that would have charmed a +mavis off a tree. Mr. Tutt looked hopelessly at Tutt. + +Babson and O'Brien had won. + +Once more Mr. Tutt struggled against his fate. Was Mr. Walsh sure he had +no prejudices against Italians or foreigners generally? Quite. Did he +know anyone connected with the case? No. Had he any objection to the +infliction of capital punishment? None whatever. The defense had +exhausted all its challenges. Mr. Tutt turned to the prospective foreman +with an endearing smile. + +"Mr. Walsh," said he in caressing tones, "you are precisely the type of +man in whom I feel the utmost confidence in submitting the fate of my +client. I believe that you will make an ideal foreman I hardly need to +ask you whether you will accord the defendant the benefit of every +reasonable doubt, and if you have such a doubt will acquit him." + +Mr. Walsh gazed suspiciously at Mr. Tutt. + +"Sure," he responded dryly, "Oi'll give him the benefit o' the doubt, +but if Oi think he's guilty Oi'll convict him." + +Mr. Tutt shivered. + +"Of course! Of course! That would be your duty! You are entirely +satisfactory, Mr. Walsh!" + +"Mr. Walsh is more than satisfactory to the prosecution!" intoned +O'Brien. + +"Be sworn, Mr. Walsh," directed the clerk; and the filling of the jury +box in the memorable case of People versus Serafino was begun. + +"That chap doesn't like us," whispered Mr. Tutt to Tutt. "I laid it on a +bit too thick." + +In fact, Mr. Walsh had already entered upon friendly relations with Mr. +O'Brien, and as the latter helped him arrange a place for his hat and +coat the foreman cast a look tinged with malevolence at the defendant +and his counsel, as if to say "You can't fool me. I know the kind of +tricks you fellows are all up to." + +O'Brien could not repress a grin. The clerk drew forth another name. + +"Mr. Tompkins--will you take the chair?" + +Swiftly the jury was impaneled. O'Brien challenged everybody who did not +suit his fancy, while Tutt & Tutt sat helpless. + +Ten minutes and the clerk called the roll, beginning with Mr. Walsh, and +they were solemnly sworn a true verdict to find, and settled themselves +to the task. + +The mills of the gods had begun to grind, and Angelo was being dragged +to his fate as inexorably and as surely, with about as much chance of +escape, as a log that is being drawn slowly toward a buzz saw. + +"You may open the case, Mr. O'Brien," announced Judge Babson, leaning +back and wiping his glasses. + +Then surreptitiously he began to read his mail as his fellow conspirator +undertook to tell the jury what it was all about. One by one the +witnesses were called--the coroner's physician, the policeman who had +arrested Angelo outside the barber shop with the smoking pistol in his +hand, the assistant barber who had seen the shooting, the customer who +was being shaved. Each drove a spike into poor Angelo's legal coffin. +Mr. Tutt could not shake them. This evidence was plain. He had come into +the shop, accused Crocedoro of making his wife's life unbearable +and--shot him. + +Yet Mr. Tutt did not lose any of his equanimity. With the tips of his +long fingers held lightly together in front of him, and swaying slightly +backward and forward upon the balls of his feet, he smiled benignly down +upon the customer and the barber's assistant as if these witnesses were +merely unfortunate in not being able to disclose to the jury all the +facts. His manner indicated that a mysterious and untold tragedy lay +behind what they had heard, a tragedy pregnant with primordial vital +passions, involving the most sacred of human relationships, which when +known would rouse the spirit of chivalry of the entire panel. + +On cross-examination the barber testified that Angelo had said: "You +maka small of my wife long enough!" + +"Ah!" murmured Mr. Tutt, waving an arm in the direction of Rosalina. Did +the witness recognize the defendant's young wife? The jury showed +interest and examined the sobbing Rosalina with approval. Yes, the +witness recognized her. Did the witness know to what incident or +incidents the defendant had referred by his remark--what the deceased +Crocedoro had done to Rosalina--if anything? No, the witness did not. +Mr. Tutt looked significantly at the row of faces in the jury box. + +Then leaning forward he asked significantly: "Did you see Crocedoro +threaten the defendant with his razor?" + +"I object!" shouted O'Brien, springing to his feet. "The question is +improper. There is no suggestion that Crocedoro did anything. The +defendant can testify to that if he wants to!" + +"Oh, let him answer!" drawled the judge. + +"No--" began the witness. + +"Ah!" cried Mr. Tutt. "You did not see Crocedoro threaten the defendant +with his razor! That will do!" + +But forewarned by this trifling experience, Mr. O'Brien induced the +customer, the next witness, to swear that Crocedoro had not in fact made +any move whatever with his razor toward Angelo, who had deliberately +raised his pistol and shot him. + +Mr. Tutt rose to the cross-examination with the same urbanity as before. +Where was the witness standing? The witness said he wasn't standing. +Well, where was he sitting, then? In the chair. + +"Ah!" exclaimed Mr. Tutt triumphantly. "Then you had your back to the +shooting!" + +In a moment O'Brien had the witness practically rescued by the +explanation that he had seen the whole thing in the glass in front of +him. The firm of Tutt & Tutt uttered in chorus a groan of outraged +incredulity. Several jurymen were seen to wrinkle their foreheads in +meditation. Mr. Tutt had sown a tiny--infinitesimally tiny, to be +sure--seed of doubt, not as to the killing at all but as to the complete +veracity of the witness. + +And then O'Brien made his coup. + +"Rosalina Serafino--take the witness stand!" he ordered. + +He would get from her own lips the admission that she bought the pistol +and gave it to Angelo! + +But with an outburst of indignation that would have done credit to the +elder Booth Mr. Tutt was immediately on his feet protesting against the +outrage, the barbarity, the heartlessness, the illegality of making a +wife testify against her husband! His eyes flashed, his disordered locks +waved in picturesque synchronization with his impassioned gestures +Rosalina, her beautiful golden cross rising and falling hysterically +upon her bosom, took her seat in the witness chair like a frightened, +furtive creature of the woods, gazed for one brief instant upon the +twelve men in the jury box with those great black eyes of hers, and then +with burning cheeks buried her face in her handkerchief. + +"I protest against this piece of cruelty!" cried Mr. Tutt in a voice +vibrating with indignation. "This is worthy of the Inquisition. Will not +even the cross upon her breast protect her from being compelled to +reveal those secrets that are sacred to wife and motherhood? Can the law +thus indirectly tear the seal of confidence from the Confessional? Mr. +O'Brien, you go too far! There are some things that even you--brilliant +as you are--may not trifle with." + +A juryman nodded. The eleven others, being more intelligent, failed to +understand what he was talking about. + +"Mr. Tutt's objection is sound--if he wishes to press it," remarked the +judge satirically. "You may step down, madam. The law will not compel a +wife to testify against her husband. Have you any more witnesses, Mister +District Attorney?" + +"The People rest," said Mr. O'Brien. "The case is with the defense." + +Mr. Tutt rose with solemnity. + +"The court will, I suppose, grant me a moment or two to confer with my +client?" he inquired. Babson bowed and the jury saw the lawyer lean +across the defendant and engage his partner in what seemed to be a +weighty deliberation. + +"I killa him! I say so!" muttered Angelo feebly to Mr. Tutt. + +"Shut up, you fool!" hissed Tutt, grabbing him by the leg. "Keep still +or I'll wring your neck." + +"If I could reach that old crook up on the bench I would twist his +nose," remarked Mr. Tutt to Tutt with an air of consulting him about the +Year Books. "And as for that criminal O'Brien, I'll get him yet!" + +With great dignity Mr. Tutt then rose and again addressed the court: + +"We have decided under all the circumstances of this most extraordinary +case, Your Honor, not to put in any defense. I shall not call the +defendant--" + +"I killa him--" began Angelo, breaking loose from Tutt and struggling +to his feet. It was a horrible movement. But Tutt clapped his hand over +Angelo's mouth and forced him back into his seat. + +"The defense rests," said Mr. Tutt, ignoring the interruption. "So far +as we are concerned the case is closed." + +"Both sides rest!" snapped Babson. "How long do you want to sum up?" + +Mr. Tutt looked at the clock, which pointed to three. The regular hour +of adjournment was at four. Delay was everything in a case like this. A +juryman might die suddenly overnight or fall grievously ill; or some +legal accident might occur which would necessitate declaring a mistrial. +There is, always hope in a criminal case so long as the verdict has not +actually been returned and the jury polled and discharged. If possible +he must drag his summing up over until the following day. Something +might happen. + +"About two hours, Your Honor," he replied. + +The jury stirred impatiently. It was clear that they regarded a two-hour +speech from him under the circumstances as an imposition. But Babson +wished to preserve the fiction of impartiality. + +"Very well," said he. "You may sum up until four-thirty, and have half +an hour more to-morrow morning. See that the doors are closed, Captain +Phelan. We do not want any interruption while the summations are going +on." + +"All out that's goin' out! Everybody out that's got no business, with +the court!" bellowed Captain Phelan. + +Mr. Tutt with an ominous heightening of the pulse realized that the real +ordeal was at last at hand, for the closing of the case had wrought in +the old lawyer an instant metamorphosis. With the words "The defense +rests" every suggestion of the mountebank, the actor or the shyster had +vanished. The awful responsibility under which he labored; the +overwhelming and damning evidence against his client; the terrible +consequences of the least mistake that he might make; the fact that only +the sword of his ability, and his alone, stood between Angelo and a +hideous death by fire in the electric chair--sobered and chastened him. +Had he been a praying man in that moment he would have prayed--but he +was not. + +For his client was foredoomed--foredoomed not only by justice but also +by trickery and guile--and was being driven slowly but surely towards +the judicial shambles. For what had he succeeded in adducing in his +behalf? Nothing but the purely apocryphal speculation that the dead +barber might have threatened Angelo with his razor and that the +witnesses might possibly have drawn somewhat upon their imaginations in +giving the details of their testimony. A sorry defense! Indeed, no +defense at all. All the sorrier in that he had not even been able to get +before the jury the purely sentimental excuses for the homicide, for he +could only do this by calling Rosalina to the stand, which would have +enabled the prosecution to cross-examine her in regard to the purchase +of the pistol and the delivery of it to her husband--the strongest +evidence of premeditation. Yet he must find some argument, some plea, +some thread of reason upon which the jury might hang a disagreement or a +verdict in a lesser degree. + +With a shuffling of feet the last of the crowd pushed through the big +oak doors and they were closed and locked. An officer brought a corroded +tumbler of brackish water and placed it in front of Mr. Tutt. The judge +leaned forward with malicious courtesy. The jury settled themselves and +turned toward the lawyer attentively yet defiantly, hardening their +hearts already against his expected appeals to sentiment. O'Brien, +ostentatiously producing a cigarette, lounged out through the side door +leading to the jury room and prison cells. The clerk began copying his +records. The clock ticked loudly. + +And Mr. Tutt rose and began going through the empty formality of +attempting to discuss the evidence in such a way as to excuse or +palliate Angelo's crime. For Angelo's guilt of murder in the first +degree was so plain that it had never for one moment been in the +slightest doubt. Whatever might be said for his act from the point of +view of human emotion only made his motive and responsibility under the +statues all the clearer. There was not even the unwritten law to appeal +to. Yet there was fundamentally a genuine defense, a defense that could +not be urged even by innuendo: the defense that no accused ought to be +convicted upon any evidence whatever, no matter how conclusive in a +trial conducted with essential though wholly concealed unfairness. + +Such was the case of Angelo. No one could demonstrate it, no one could +with safety even hint at it; any charge that the court was anything but +impartial would prove a boomerang to the defense; and yet the facts +remained that the whole proceeding from start to finish had been +conducted unfairly and with illegality, that the jury had been duped and +deceived, and that the pretense that the guilty Angelo had been given an +impartial trial was a farce. Every word of the court had been an +accusation, a sneer, an acceptance of the defendant's guilt as a matter +of course, an abuse far more subversive of our theory of government than +the mere acquittal of a single criminal, for it struck at the very +foundations of that liberty which the fathers had sought the shores of +the unknown continent to gain. + +Unmistakably the proceedings had been conducted throughout upon the +theory that the defendant must prove his innocence and that presumably +he was a guilty man; and this as well as his own impression that the +evidence was conclusive the judge had subtly conveyed to the jury in his +tone of speaking, his ironical manner and his facial expression. Guilty +or not Angelo was being railroaded. That was the real defense--the +defense that could never be established even in any higher court, except +perhaps in the highest court of all, which is not of earth. + +And so Mr. Tutt, boiling with suppressed indignation weighed down with +the sense of his responsibility, fully realizing his inability to say +anything based on the evidence in behalf of his client, feeling twenty +years older than he had during the verbal duel of the actual +cross-examination, rose with a genial smile upon his puckered old face +and with a careless air almost of gaiety, which seemed to indicate the +utmost confidence and determination, and with a graceful compliment to +his arch enemy upon the bench and the yellow dog who had hunted with +him, assured the jury that the defendant had had the fairest of fair +trials and that he, Mr. Tutt, would now proceed to demonstrate to their +satisfaction his client's entire innocence; nay, would show them that he +was a man not only guiltless of any wrong-doing but worthy of their +hearty commendation. + +With jokes not too unseemly for the occasion he overcame their +preliminary distrust and put them in a good humor. He gave a historical +dissertation upon the law governing homicide, on the constitutional +rights of American citizens, on the laws of naturalization, marriage, +and the domestic relations; waxed eloquent over Italy and the Italian +character, mentioned Cavour, Garibaldi and Mazzini in a way to imply +that Angelo was their lineal descendant; and quoted from D'Annunzio back +to Horace, Cicero and Plautus. + +"Bunk! Nothing but bunk!" muttered Tutt, studying the twelve faces +before him. "And they all know it!" + +But Mr. Tutt was nothing if not interesting. These prosaic citizens of +New York County, these saloon and hotel keepers, these contractors, +insurance agents and salesmen were learning something of history, of +philosophy, of art and beauty. They liked it. They felt they were +hearing something worth while, as indeed they were, and they forgot all +about Angelo and the unfortunate Crocedoro in their admiration for Mr. +Tutt, who had lifted them out of the dingy sordid courtroom into the +sunlight of the Golden Age. And as he led them through Greek and Roman +literature, through the early English poets, through Shakespeare and the +King James version, down to John Galsworthy and Rupert Brooke, he +brought something that was noble, fine and sweet into their grubby +materialistic lives; and at the same time the hand of the clock crept +steadily on until he and it reached Chateau-Thierry and half past four +together. + +"Bang!" went Babson's gavel just as Mr. Tutt was leading Mr. Walsh, Mr. +Tompkins and the others through the winding paths of the Argonne forests +with tin helmets on their heads in the struggle for liberty. + +"You may conclude your address in the morning, Mr. Tutt," said the judge +with supreme unction. "Adjourn court!" + +Gray depression weighed down Mr. Tutt's soul as he trudged homeward. He +had made a good speech, but it had had absolutely nothing to do with the +case, which the jury would perceive as soon as they thought it over. It +was a confession of defeat. Angelo would be convicted of murder in the +first degree and electrocuted, Rosalina would be a widow, and somehow he +would be in a measure responsible for it. The tragedy of human life +appalled him. He felt very old, as old as the dead-and-gone authors from +whom he had quoted with such remarkable facility. He belonged with them; +he was too old to practise his profession. + +"Law, Mis' Tutt," expostulated Miranda, his ancient negro handmaiden, as +he pushed away the chop and mashed potato, and even his glass of claret, +untasted, in his old-fashioned dining room on West Twenty-third Street, +"you ain't got no appetite at all! You's sick, Mis' Tutt." + +"No, no, Miranda!" he replied weakly. "I'm just getting old." + +"You's mighty spry for an old man yit," she protested. "You kin make dem +lawyer men hop mighty high when you tries. Heh, heh! I reckon dey ain't +got nuffin' on my Mistah Tutt!" + +Upstairs in his library Mr. Tutt strode up and down before the empty +grate, smoking stogy after stogy, trying to collect his thoughts and +devise something to say upon the morrow, but all his ideas had flown. +There wasn't anything to say. Yet he swore Angelo should not be offered +up as a victim upon the altar of unscrupulous ambition. The hours passed +and the old banjo clock above the mantel wheezed eleven, twelve; then +one, two. Still he paced up and down, up and down in a sort of trance. +The air of the library, blue with the smoke of countless stogies, +stifled and suffocated him. Moreover he discovered that he was hungry. +He descended to the pantry and salvaged a piece of pie, then unchained +the front door and stepped forth into the soft October night. + +A full moon hung over the deserted streets of the sleeping city. In +divers places, widely scattered, the twelve good and true men were +snoring snugly in bed. To-morrow they would send Angelo to his death +without a quiver. He shuddered, striding on, he knew not whither, into +the night. His brain no longer worked. He had become a peripatetic +automaton self-dedicated to nocturnal perambulation. + +With his pockets bulging with stogies and one glowing like a headlight +in advance of him he wandered in a sort of coma up Tenth Avenue, crossed +to the Riverside Drive, mounted Morningside Heights, descended again +through the rustling alleys of Central Park, and found himself at Fifth +Avenue and Fifty-ninth Street just as the dawn was paling the electric +lamps to a sickly yellow and the trees were casting strange unwonted +shadows in the wrong direction. He was utterly exhausted. He looked +eagerly for some place to sit down, but the doors of the hotels were +dark and tightly closed and it was too cold to remain without moving in +the open air. + +Down Fifth Avenue he trudged, intending to go home and snatch a few +hours' sleep before court should open, but each block seemed miles in +length. Presently he approached the cathedral, whose twin spires were +tinted with reddish gold. The sky had become a bright blue. Suddenly all +the street lamps went out. He told himself that he had never realized +before the beauty of those two towers reaching up toward eternity, +typifying man's aspiration for the spiritual. He remembered having heard +that a cathedral was never closed, and looking toward the door he +perceived that it was open. With utmost difficulty he climbed the steps +and entered its dark shadows. A faint light emanated from the tops of +the stained-glass windows. Down below a candle burned on either side of +the altar while a flickering gleam shone from the red cup in the +sanctuary lamp. Worn out, drugged for lack of sleep, faint for want of +food, old Mr. Tutt sank down upon one of the rear seats by the door, and +resting his head upon his arms on the back of the bench in front of him +fell fast asleep. + +He dreamed of a legal heaven, of a great wooden throne upon which sat +Babson in a black robe and below him twelve red-faced angels in a double +row with harps in their hands, chanting: "Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!" An +organ was playing somewhere, and there was a great noise of footsteps. +Then a bell twinkled and he raised his head and saw that the chancel was +full of lights and white-robed priests. It was broad daylight. Horrified +he looked at his watch, to find that it was ten minutes after ten. His +joints creaked as he pulled himself to his feet and his eyes were half +closed as he staggered down the steps and hailed a taxi. + +"Criminal Courts Building--side door. And drive like hell!" he muttered +to the driver. + +He reached it just as Judge Babson and his attendant were coming into +the courtroom and the crowd were making obeisance. Everybody else was in +his proper place. + +"You may proceed, Mr. Tutt," said the judge after the roll of the jury +had been called. + +But Mr. Tutt was in a daze, in no condition to think or speak. There was +a curious rustling in his ears and his sight was somewhat blurred. The +atmosphere of the courtroom seemed to him cold and hostile; the jury sat +with averted faces. He rose feebly and cleared his throat. + +"Gentlemen of the jury," he began, "I--I think I covered everything I +had to say yesterday afternoon. I can only beseech you to realize the +full extent of your great responsibility and remind you that if you +entertain a reasonable doubt upon the evidence you are sworn to give the +benefit of it to the defendant." + +He sank back in his chair and covered his eyes with his hands, while a +murmur ran along the benches of the courtroom. The old man had +collapsed--tough luck--the defendant was cooked! Swiftly O'Brien leaped +to his feet. There had been no defense. The case was as plain as a +pike-staff. There was only one thing for the jury to do--return a +verdict of murder in the first. It would not be pleasant, but that made +no difference! He read them the statute, applied it to the facts, and +shook his fist in their faces. They must convict--and convict of only +one thing--and nothing else--murder in the first degree. They gazed at +him like silly sheep, nodding their heads, doing everything but bleat. + +Then Babson cleared his decks and rising in dignity expounded the law to +the sheep in a rich mellow voice, in which he impressed upon them the +necessity of preserving the integrity of the jury system and the +sanctity of human life. He pronounced an obituary of great beauty upon +the deceased barber--who could not, as he pointed out, speak for +himself, owing to the fact that he was in his grave. He venomously +excoriated the defendant who had deliberately planned to kill an +unarmed man peacefully conducting himself in his place of business, and +expressed the utmost confidence that he could rely upon the jury, whose +character he well knew, to perform their full duty no matter how +disagreeable that duty might be. The sheep nodded. + +"You may retire, gentlemen." + +Babson looked down at Mr. Tutt with a significant gleam in his eye. He +had driven in the knife to the hilt and twisted it round and round. +Angelo had almost as much chance as the proverbial celluloid cat. Mr. +Tutt felt actually sick. He did not look at the jury as they went out. +They would not be long--and he could hardly face the thought of their +return. Never in his long experience had he found himself in such a +desperate situation. Heretofore there had always been some argument, +some construction of the facts upon which he could make an appeal, +however fallacious or illogical. + +He leaned back and closed his eyes. The judge was chatting with O'Brien, +the court officers were betting with the reporters as to the length of +time in which it would take the twelve to agree upon a verdict of murder +in the first. The funeral rites were all concluded except for the final +commitment of the corpse to mother earth. + +And then without warning Angelo suddenly rose and addressed the court in +a defiant shriek. + +"I killa that man!" he cried wildly. "He maka small of my wife! He no +good! He bad egg! I killa him once--I killa him again!" + +"So!" exclaimed Babson with biting sarcasm. "You want to make a +confession? You hope for mercy, do you? Well, Mr. Tutt, what do you wish +to do under the circumstances? Shall I recall the jury and reopen the +case by consent?" + +Mr. Tutt rose trembling to his feet. + +"The case is closed, Your Honor," he replied. "I will consent to a +mistrial and offer a plea of guilty of manslaughter. I cannot agree to +reopen the case. I cannot let the defendant go upon the stand." + +The spectators and reporters were pressing forward to the bar, anxious +lest they should lose a single word of the colloquy. Angelo remained +standing, looking eagerly at O'Brien, who returned his gaze with a grin +like that of a hyena. + +"I killa him!" Angelo repeated. "You killa me if you want." + +"Sit down!" thundered the judge. "Enough of this! The law does not +permit me to accept a plea to murder in the first degree, and my +conscience and my sense of duty to the public will permit me to accept +no other. I will go to my chambers to await the verdict of the jury. +Take the prisoner downstairs to the prison pen." + +He swept from the bench in his silken robes. Angelo was led away. The +crowd in the courtroom slowly dispersed. Mr. Tutt, escorted by Tutt, +went out in the corridor to smoke. + +"Ye got a raw deal, counselor," remarked Captain Phelan, amiably +accepting a stogy. "Nothing but an act of Providence c'd save that +Eyetalian from the chair. An' him guilty at that!" + +An hour passed; then another. At half after four a rumor flew along the +corridors that the jury in the Serafino case had reached a verdict and +were coming in. A messenger scurried to the judge's chambers. Phelan +descended the iron stairs to bring up the prisoner, while Tutt to +prevent a scene invented an excuse by which he lured Rosalina to the +first floor of the building. The crowd suddenly reassembled out of +nowhere and poured into the courtroom. The reporters gathered +expectantly round their table. The judge entered, his robes, gathered in +one hand. + +"Bring in the jury," he said sharply. "Arraign the prisoner at the bar." + +Mr. Tutt took his place beside his client at the railing, while the +jury, carrying their coats and hats, filed slowly in. Their faces were +set and relentless. They looked neither to the right nor to the left. +O'Brien sauntered over and seated himself nonchalantly with his back to +the court, studying their faces. Yes, he told himself, they were a +regular set of hangmen--he couldn't have picked a tougher bunch if he'd +had his choice of the whole panel. + +The clerk called the roll, and Messrs. Walsh, Tompkins, _et al._, stated +that they were all present. + +"Gentlemen of the jury, have you agreed upon a verdict?" inquired the +clerk. + +"We have!" replied Mr. Walsh sternly. + +"How say you? Do you find the defendant guilty or not guilty?" + +Mr. Tutt gripped the balustrade in front of him with one hand and put +his other arm round Angelo. He felt that now in truth murder was being +done. + +"We find the defendant not guilty," said Mr. Walsh defiantly. + +There was a momentary silence of incredulity. Then Babson and O'Brien +shouted simultaneously: "What!" + +"We find the defendant not guilty," repeated Mr. Walsh stubbornly. + +"I demand that the jury be polled!" cried the crestfallen O'Brien, his +face crimson. + +And then the twelve reiterated severally that that was their verdict and +that they hearkened unto it as it stood recorded and that they were +entirely satisfied with it. + +"You are discharged!" said Babson in icy tones. "Strike the names of +these men from the list of jurors--as incompetent. Haven't you any other +charge on which you can try this defendant?" + +"No, Your Honor," answered O'Brien grimly. "He didn't take the stand, so +we can't try him for perjury; and there isn't any other indictment +against him." + +Judge Babson turned ferociously upon Mr. Tutt: + +"This acquittal is a blot upon the administration of criminal justice; a +disgrace to the city! It is an unconscionable verdict; a reflection upon +the intelligence of the jury! The defendant is discharged. This court is +adjourned." + +The crowd surged round Angelo and bore him away, bewildered. The judge +and prosecutor hurried from the room. Alone Mr. Tutt stood at the bar, +trying to grasp the full meaning of what had occurred. + +He no longer felt tired; he experienced an exultation such as he had +never known before. Some miracle had happened! What was it? + +Unexpectedly the lawyer felt a rough warm hand clasped over his own upon +the rail and heard the voice of Mr. Walsh with its rich brogue saying: +"At first we couldn't see that there was much to be said for your side +of the case, Mr. Tutt; but when Oi stepped into the cathedral on me way +down to court this morning and spied you prayin' there for guidance I +knew you wouldn't be defendin' him unless he was innocent, and so we +decided to give him the benefit of the doubt." + + + + +Mock Hen and Mock Turtle + + + "Oh, East is East and West is West, and never the + twain shall meet." + --BALLAD OF EAST AND WEST. + + + "But the law of the jungle is jungle law only, and the + law of the pack is only for the pack." + --OTHER SAYINGS OF SHERE KHAN. + +A half turn from the clattering hubbub of Chatham Square and you are in +Chinatown, slipping, within ten feet, through an invisible wall, from +the glitter of the gin palace and the pawn-shop to the sinister shadows +of irregular streets and blind alleys, where yellow men pad swiftly +along greasy asphalt beneath windows glinting with ivory, bronze and +lacquer; through which float the scents of aloes and of incense and all +the subtle suggestion of the East. + +No one better than the Chink himself realizes the commercial value of +the taboo, the bizarre and the unclean. Nightly the rubber-neck car +swinging gayly with lanterns stops before the imitation joss house, the +spurious opium joint and tortuous passage to the fake fan-tan and faro +game, with a farewell call at Hong Joy Fah's Oriental restaurant and the +well-stocked novelty store of Wing, Hen & Co. The visitors see what they +expect to see, for the Chinaman always gives his public exactly what it +wants. + +But a dollar does not show you Chinatown. To some the ivories will +always be but crudely carven bone, the jades the potter's sham, the musk +and aloes the product of a soap factory, the joss but a cigar-store +Indian, and the Oriental dainties of Hong Fah the scrappings of a Yankee +grocery store. Yet behind the shoddy tinsel of Doyers and Pell Streets, +as behind Alice's looking-glass, there is another Chinatown--a strange, +inhuman, Oriental world, not necessarily of trapdoors and stifled +screams, but one moved by influences undreamed of in our banal +philosophies. Hearken then to the story of the avenging of Wah Sing. + + _'Tis a tale was undoubtedly true + In the reign of the Emperor Hwang_. + +In the murky cellar of a Pell Street tenement seventeen Chinamen sat +cross-legged in a circle round an octagonal teakwood table. To an +Occidental they would have appeared to differ in no detail except that +of a varying degree of fatness. An oil lamp flickered before a joss near +by, and the place reeked with the odor of starch, sweat, tobacco, rice +whisky and the incense that rose ceilingward in thin, shaking columns +from two bowls of Tibetan soapstone. An obese Chinaman with a walnutlike +countenance in which cunning and melancholy were equally commingled was +speaking monotonously through long, rat-tailed mustaches, while the +others listened with impassive decorum. It was a special meeting of the +Hip Leong Tong, held in their private clubrooms at the Great Shanghai +Tea Company, and conducted according to rule. + +"Therefore," said Wong Get, "as a matter of honor it is necessary that +our brother be avenged and that no chances be taken. A much too long +time has already elapsed. I have written the letter and will read it." + +He fumbled in his sleeve and drew forth a roll of brown paper covered +with heavy Chinese characters unwinding it from a strip of bamboo. + + + _To the Honorable Members of the On Gee Tong:_ + + Whereas it has pleased you to take the life of our beloved + friend and relative Wah Sing, it is with greatest courtesy + and the utmost regret that we inform you that it is + necessary for us likewise to remove one of your esteemed + society, and that we shall proceed thereto without delay. + + Due warning being thus honorably given I subscribe + myself with profound appreciation, + + For the Hip Leong Tong, + WONG GET. + +He ceased reading and there was a perfunctory grunt of approval from +round the circle. Then he turned to the official soothsayer and directed +him to ascertain whether the time were propitious. The latter tossed +into the air a handful of painted ivory sticks, carefully studied their +arrangement when fallen, and nodded gravely. + +"The omens are favorable, O honorable one!" + +"Then there is nothing left but the choice of our representatives," +continued Wong Get. "Pass the fateful box, O Fong Hen." + +Fong Hen, a slender young Chinaman, the official slipper, or messenger, +of the society, rose and, lifting a lacquered gold box from the table, +passed it solemnly to each member. + +"This time there will be four," said Wong Get. + +Each in turn averted his eyes and removed from the box a small sliver of +ivory. At the conclusion of the ceremony the four who had drawn red +tokens rose. Wong Get addressed them. + +"Mock Hen, Mock Ding, Long Get, Sui Sing--to you it is confided to +avenge the murder of our brother Wah Sing. Fail not in your purpose!" + +And the four answered unemotionally: "Those to whom it is confided will +not fail." + +Then pivoting silently upon their heels they passed out of the cellar. + +Wong Get glanced round the table. + +"If there is no further business the society will disperse after the +customary refreshment." + +Fong Hen placed thirteen tiny glasses upon the table and filled them +with rice whisky scented with aniseed and a dash of powdered ginger. At +a signal from Wong Get the thirteen Chinamen lifted the glasses and +drank. + +"The meeting is adjourned," said he. + + * * * * * + +Eighty years before, in a Cantonese rabbit warren two yellow men had +fought over a white woman, and one had killed the other. They had +belonged to different societies, or tongs. The associates of the +murdered man had avenged his death by slitting the throat of one of the +members of the other organization, and these in turn had retaliated thus +establishing a vendetta which became part and parcel of the lives of +certain families, as naturally and unavoidably as birth, love and death. +As regularly as the solstice they alternated in picking each other off. +Branches of the Hip Leong and On Gee tongs sprang up in San Francisco +and New York--and the feud was transferred with them to Chatham Square, +a feud imposing a sacred obligation rooted in blood, honor and religion +upon every member, who rather than fail to carry it out would have +knotted a yellow silken cord under his left ear and swung himself gently +off a table into eternal sleep. + +Young Mock Hen, one of the four avengers, had created a distinct place +for himself in Chinatown by making a careful study of New York +psychology. He was a good-looking Chink, smooth-faced, tall and supple; +he knew very well how to capitalize his attractiveness. By day he +attended Columbia University as a special student in applied +electricity, keeping a convenient eye meanwhile on three coolies whom he +employed to run The College Laundry on Morningside Heights. By night he +vicariously operated a chop-suey palace on Seventh Avenue, where +congregated the worst elements of the Tenderloin. But his heart was in +the gambling den which he maintained in Doyers Street, and where anyone +who knew the knock could have a shell of hop for the asking, once Mock +had given him the once-over through the little sliding panel. + +Mock was a Christian Chinaman. That is to say, purely for business +reasons--for what he got out of it and the standing that it gave him--he +attended the Rising Star Mission and also frequented Hudson House, the +social settlement where Miss Fanny Duryea taught him to play ping-pong +and other exciting parlor games, and read to him from books adapted to +an American child of ten. He was a great favorite at both places, for he +was sweet-tempered and wore an expression of heaven-born innocence. He +had even been to church with Miss Duryea, temporarily absenting himself +for that purpose of a Sunday morning from the steam-heated flat +where--unknown to her, of course--he lived with his white wife, Emma +Pratt, a lady of highly miscellaneous antecedents. + +Except when engaged in transacting legal or oilier business with the +municipal, sociologic or religious world--at which times his vocabulary +consisted only of the most rudimentary pidgin--Mock spoke a fluent and +even vernacular English learned at night school. Incidentally he was the +head of the syndicate which controlled and dispensed the loo, faro, +fan-tan and other gambling privileges of Chinatown. + + * * * * * + +Detective Mooney, of the Second, detailed to make good District Attorney +Peckham's boast that there had never been so little trouble with the +foreign element since the administration--of which he was an +ornament--came into office, saw Quong Lee emerge from his doorway in +Doyers Street just before four o'clock the following Thursday and slip +silently along under the shadow of the eaves toward Ah Fong's +grocery--and instantly sensed something peculiar in the Chink's walk. + +"Hello, Quong!" he called, interposing himself. "Where you goin'?" + +Quong paused with a deprecating gesture of widely spread open palms. + +"'Lo yourself!" replied blandly. "Me go buy li'l' glocery." + +Mooney ran his hands over the rotund body, frisking him for a possible +forty-four. + +"For the love of Mike!" he exclaimed, tearing open Quong's blouse. "What +sort of an undershirt is that?" Quong grinned broadly as the detective +lifted the suit of double-chain mail which swayed heavily under his blue +blouse from his shoulders to his knees. + +"So-ho!" continued the plain-clothes man. "Trouble brewin', eh?" + +He knew already that something was doing in the tongs from his +lobby-gow, Wing Foo. + +"Must weigh eighty pounds!" he whistled. "I'd like to see the pill that +would go through that!" It was, in fact, a medieval corselet of finest +steel mesh, capable of turning an elephant bullet. + +"Go'long!" ordered Mooney finally. "I guess you're safe!" + +He turned back in the direction of Chatham Square, while Quong resumed +his tortoiselike perambulation toward Ah Fong's. Pell and Doyers Streets +were deserted save for an Italian woman carrying a baby, and were +pervaded by an unnatural and suspicious silence. Most of the shutters on +the lower windows were down. Ah Fong's subsequent story of what happened +was simple, and briefly to the effect that Quong, having entered his +shop and priced various litchi nuts and pickled starfruit, had purchased +some powdered lizard and, with the package in his left hand, had opened +the door to go out. As he stood there with his right hand upon the knob +and facing the afternoon sun four shadows fell aslant the window and a +man whom he positively identified as Sui Sing emptied a bag of +powder--afterward proved to be red pepper--upon Quong's face; then +another, Long Get, made a thrust at him with a knife, the effect of +which he did not observe, as almost at the same instant Mock Hen felled +him with a blow upon the head with an iron bar, while a fourth, Mock +Ding, fired four shots at his crumpling body with a revolver one of +which glanced off and fractured a very costly Chien Lung vase and ruined +four boxes of mandarin-blossom tea. In his excitement he ducked behind +the counter, and when sufficiently revived he crawled forth to find what +had once been Quong lying across the threshold, the murderers gone, and +the Italian woman prostrate and shrieking with a hip splintered by a +stray bullet. On the sidewalk outside the window lay the remnants of the +bag of pepper, a knife broken short off at the handle, a heavy bar of +soft iron slightly bent, and a partially emptied forty-four-caliber +revolver. Quong's suit of mail had effectually protected him from the +knife thrust and the revolver shots, but his skull was crushed beyond +repair. Thus was the murder of Wah Sing avenged in due and proper form. + +Detective Mooney, distant not more than two hundred feet, rushed back to +the corner at the sound of the first shot--just in time to catch a side +glimpse of Mock Hen as he raced across Pell Street and disappeared into +the cellar of the Great Shanghai Tea Company. The Italian woman was +filling the air with her outcries, but the detective did not pause in +his hurtling pursuit. He was too late, however. The cellar door +withstood all his efforts to break it open. + +Bull Neck Burke, the wrestler, who tied Zabisko once on the stage of the +old Grand Opera House in 1913, had been promenading with Mollie Malone, +of the Champagne Girls and Gay Burlesquers Company. Both heard the +fusillade and saw Mock--a streak of flying blue--pass within a few feet +of them. + +"God!" ejaculated Mollie. "Sure as shootin', that's Mock Hen--and he's +murdered somebody!" + +"It's Mock all right!" agreed Bull Neck. "That puts us in as witnesses +or strike me!" And he looked at his watch--four one. + +"Here, Burke, put your shoulder to this!" shouted Mooney from the cellar +steps. "Now then!" + +The two of them threw their combined weight against it, the lock flew +open and they fell forward into the darkness. Three doors leading in +different directions met the glare of Mooney's match. But the fugitive +had a start of at least four minutes, which was three and a half more +than he required. + + * * * * * + +Mock Hen took the left-hand of the three doors and crept along a passage +opening into an empty opium parlor back of the Hip Leong clubroom. + +Diving beneath one of the bunks he inserted his body between the lower +planking at the back and the cellar wall, wormed his way some twelve +feet, raised a trap and emerged into a tunnel by means of which and +others he eventually reached the end of the block and the rooms of his +friend Hong Sue. + +Here he changed from the Oriental costume according to Chinese etiquette +necessary to the homicide, into a nobby suit of American clothes, put on +a false mustache, and walked boldly down Park Row, while just behind +him Doyers and Pell Streets swarmed with bluecoats and excited +citizenry. + +Hudson House, the social settlement presided over by Miss Fanny and +affected for business reasons by Mock Hen, was a mile and a half away. +But Mock took his time. Twenty-five full minutes elapsed before he +leisurely climbed the steps and slipped into the big reading room. There +was no one there and Mock deftly turned back the hand of the automatic +clock over the platform to three-fifty-five. Then he began to whistle. +Presently Miss Fanny entered from the rear room, her face lighting with +pleasure at the sight of her pet convert. + +"Good afternoon, Mock Hen! You are early to-day." + +Mock took her hand and stroked it affectionately. + +"I go Fulton Mark' buy li'l' terrapin. Stop in on way to see dear Miss +Fan'." + +They stood thus for a moment, and while they did so the clock struck +four. + +"I go now!" said Mock suddenly. "Four o'clock already." + +"It's early," answered Miss Fanny. "Won't you stay a little while?" + +"I go now," he repeated with resolution. "Good-by li'l' teacher!" + +She watched until his lithe figure passed through the door, and +presently returned to the back room. Mock waited outside until she had +disappeared. + +Then he changed back the clock. + + * * * * * + +"We've got you, you blarsted heathen!" cried Mooney hoarsely as he and +two others from the Central Office threw themselves upon Mock Hen on the +landing outside the door of his flat. "Look out, Murtha. Pipe that thing +under his arm!" + +"It's a bloody turtle!" gasped Murtha, shuddering + +"What's the matter, boys?" inquired Mock. "Leggo my arm, can't yer? +What'd yer want, anyway?" + +"We want you, you yellow skunk!" retorted Mooney. "Open that door! +Lively now!" + +"Sure!" answered Mock amiably. "Come on in! What's bitin' yer?" + +He unlocked the door and threw it open. + +"Take a chair," he invited them. "Have a cigar? You there, Emma?" + +Emma Pratt, clad in a wrapper and lying on the big double brass bedstead +in the rear room, raised herself on one elbow. + +"Yep!" she called through the passage. "Got the bird?" + +Mock looked at Murtha, who was carrying the terrapin. + +"Sure!" he called back. "Sit down, boys. What'd yer want? Can't yer +tell a feller?" + +"We want you for croaking Quong Lee!" snapped Mooney. "Where have you +been?" + +"Fulton Market--and Hudson House. I left here quarter of four. I haven't +seen Quong Lee. Where was he killed?" + +Mooney laughed sardonically. + +"That'll do for you, Mock! Your alibi ain't worth a damn this time. I +saw you myself." + +"You saw someone else," Mock assured him politely. "I haven't been in +Chinatown." + +"Say, what yer doin' wit' my Chink?" demanded Emma, appearing in the +doorway. "He was sittin' here wit' me all the afternoon, until about +just before four I sent him over to Fulton Market to buy a bird. Who's +been croaked, eh?" + +"Aw, cut it out, Emma!" replied Mooney. "That old stuff won't go here. +Your Chink's goin' to the chair. Murtha, look through the place while we +put Mock in the wagon. Hell!" he added under his breath. "Won't this +make Peckham sick!" + + * * * * * + +Mr. Ephraim Tutt just finished his morning mail when he was informed +that Mr. Wong Get desired an interview. Though the old lawyer did not +formally represent the Hip Leong Tong he was frequently retained by its +individual members, who held him in high esteem, for they had always +found him loyal to their interests and as much a stickler for honor as +themselves. Moreover, between him and Wong Get there existed a curious +sympathy as if in some previous state of existence Wong Get might have +been Mr. Tutt, and Mr. Tutt Wong Get. Perhaps, however, it was merely +because both were rather weary, sad and worldly wise. + +Wong Get did not come alone. He was accompanied by two other Hip Leongs, +the three forming the law committee appointed to retain the best +available counsel to defend Mock Hen. In his expansive frock coat and +bowler hat Wong might easily have excited mirth had it not been for the +extreme dignity of his demeanor. They were there, he stated, to request +Mr. Tutt to protect the interests of Mock Hen, and they were prepared to +pay a cash retainer and sign a written contract binding themselves to a +balance--so much if Mock should be convicted; so much if acquitted; so +much if he should die in the course of the trial without having been +either convicted or acquitted. It was, said Wong Get gently, a matter of +grave importance and they would be glad to give Mr. Tutt time to think +it over and decide upon his terms. Suppose, then, that they should +return at noon? With this understanding, accordingly, they departed. + +"There's no point in skinning a Chink just because he is a Chink," said +the junior Tutt when his partner had explained the situation to him. +"But it isn't the highest-class practise and they ought to pay well." + +"What do you call well?" inquired Mr. Tutt. + +"Oh, a thousand dollars down, a couple more if he's convicted, and five +altogether if he's acquitted." + +"Do you think they can raise that amount of money?" + +"I think so," answered Tutt. "It might be a good deal for an individual +Chink to cough up on his own account, but this is a cooeperative affair. +Mock Hen didn't kill Quong Lee to get anything out of it for himself, +but to save the face of his society." + +"He didn't kill him at all!" declared Mr. Tutt, hardly moving a muscle +of his face. + +"Well, you know what I mean!" said Tutt. + +"He wasn't there," insisted Mr. Tutt. "He was way over in Fulton Market +buying a terrapin." + +"That is what, if I were district attorney, I should call a Mock Hen +with a mockturtle defense!" grunted Tutt. + +Mr. Tutt chuckled. + +"I shall have to get that off myself at the beginning of the case, or it +might convict him," he remarked. "But he wasn't there--unless the jury +find that he was." + +"In which case he will--or shall--have been there--whatever the verb +is," agreed Tutt. "Anyhow they'll tax every laundry and chop-suey palace +from the Bronx to the Battery to pay us." + +"I'd hate to take our fee in bird's-nest soup, shark's fin, +bamboo-shoots salad and ya ko main," mused Mr. Tutt. + +"Or in ivory chopsticks, oolong tea, imitation jade, litchi nuts and +preserved leeches!" groaned Tutt. "Be sure and get the thousand down; it +may be all the cash we'll ever see!" + +Promptly at twelve the law committee of the Hip Leong Tong returned to +the office of Tutt & Tutt. With them came a venerable Chinaman in native +costume, his wrinkled face as inscrutable as that of a snapping turtle. +The others took chairs, but this high dignitary preferred to sit upon +his heels on the floor, creating something of the impression of an +ancient slant-eyed Buddha. + +Wong Get translated for his benefit the arrangement proposed by Mr. +Tutt, after which there was a long pause while His Eminence remained +immovable, without even the flicker of an eyelid. Then he delivered +himself in an interminable series of gargles and gurgles, supplemented +by a few cough-like hisses, while Wong Get translated with rapid +dexterity, running verbally in and out among his words like a carriage +dog between the wheels of a vehicle. + +It was, declared Buddha, an affair of great moment touching upon and +appertaining to the private honor of the Duck, the Wong, the Fong, the +Long, the Sui and various other families, both in America and China. The +life of one of their members was at stake. Their face required that the +proceedings should be as dignified as possible. The price named by Mr. +Tutt was quite inadequate. + +Mr. Tutt, repressing a smile, passed a box of stogies. What amount, he +inquired through Wong Get, would satisfy the face of the Duck family? A +somewhat lengthy discussion ensued. Then Buddha rendered his decision. + +The honor of the Ducks, Longs and Fongs would not be satisfied unless +Mr. Tutt received five thousand dollars down, five more if Mock Hen was +convicted, three more if he died before the conclusion of the trial, and +twenty thousand if he was acquitted. + +Mr. Tutt, assuming an equal impassivity, pondered upon the matter for +about an inch of stogy and then informed the committee that the terms +were eminently satisfactory. Buddha thereupon removed from the folds of +his tunic a gigantic roll of soiled bills of all denominations and +carefully counting out five thousand dollars placed it upon the table. + +"H'm!" remarked Tutt when he learned of the proceeding. "_His_ face is +_our_ fortune!" + + * * * * * + +"Look here," expostulated District Attorney Peckham in his office to Mr. +Tutt a month later. "What's the use of our both wasting a couple of +weeks trying a Chinaman who is bound to be convicted? Your time's too +valuable for that sort of thing, and so is mine. We've got three white +witnesses that saw him do it, and a couple of dozen Chinks besides. He +doesn't stand a chance; but just because he is a Chink, and to get the +case out of the way, I'll let you plead him to murder in the second +degree. What do you say?" + +He tried to conceal his anxiety by nervously lighting a cigar. He would +have given a year's salary to have Mock Hen safely up the river, even on +a conviction for manslaughter in the third, for the newspapers were +making his life a burden with their constant references to the seeming +inability of the police department and district attorney's office to +prevent the recurrence of feud killings in the Chinatown districts. What +use was it, they demanded, to maintain the expensive machinery of +criminal justice if the tongs went gayly on shooting each other up and +incidentally taking the lives of innocent bystanders? Wasn't the law +intended to cover Chinamen as much as Italians, Poles, Greeks and +niggers? And now that one of these murdering Celestials had been caught +red-handed it was up to the D.A. to go to it, convict him, and send him +to the chair! They did not express themselves precisely that way, but +that was the gist of it. But Peckham knew that it was one thing to catch +a Chinaman, even red-handed, and another to convict him. And so did Mr. +Tutt. + +The old lawyer smiled blandly--after the fashion of the Hip Leong Tong. +Of course, he admitted, it would be much simpler to dispose of the case +as Mr. Peckham suggested, but his client was insistent upon his +innocence and seemed to have an excellent alibi. He regretted, +therefore, that he had no choice except to go to trial. + +"Then," groaned Peckham, "we may as well take the winter for it. After +this there's going to be a closed season on Chinamen in New York City!" + +Now though it was true that Mock Hen insisted upon his innocence, he had +not insisted upon it to Mr. Tutt, for the latter had not seen him. In +fact, the old lawyer, recognizing what the law did not, namely that a +system devised for the trial and punishment of Occidentals is totally +inadequate to cope with the Oriental, calmly went about his affairs, +intrusting to Mr. Bonnie Doon of his office the task of interviewing the +witnesses furnished by Wong Get. There was but one issue for the jury to +pass upon. Quong Lee was dead and his honorable soul was with his +illustrious ancestors. He had died from a single blow upon the head, +delivered with an iron bar, there present, to be in evidence, marked +"Exhibit A." Mock Hen was alleged to have done the deed. Had he? There +would be nothing for Mr. Tutt to do but to cross-examine the witnesses +and then call such as could testify to Mock's alibi. So he made no +preparation at all and dismissed the case from his mind. He had hardly +seen a dozen Chinamen in his life--outside of a laundry. + + * * * * * + +On the morning set for the trial Mr. Tutt, having been delayed by an +accident in the Subway, entered the Criminal Courts Building only a +moment or two before the call of the calendar. Somewhat preoccupied, he +did not notice the numerous Chinamen who dawdled about the entrance or +the half dozen who crowded with him into the elevator, but when Pat the +elevator man called, "Second floor!--Part One to your right!--Part Two +to the left!" and he stepped out into the marble-floored corridor that +ran round the inside of the building, he was confronted with an unusual +and somewhat ominous spectacle. + +The entire hallway on two sides of the building was lined with +Chinamen! They sat there motionless as blue-coated images, faces front, +their hands in their laps, their legs crossed beneath them. If anyone +appeared in the offing a couple of hundred pairs of glinting eyes +shifted automatically and followed him until he disappeared, but +otherwise no muscle quivered. + +"Say," growled Hogan, Judge Bender's private attendant, who was the +first to run the gantlet, "those Chinks are enough to give you the +Willies! Their eyes scared me to death, sticking me through the back!" + +Even dignified Judge Bender himself as he stalked along the hall, +preceded by two police officers, was not immune from a slight feeling of +uncanniness, and he instinctively drew his robe round his legs that it +might not come into contact with those curious slippers with felt soles +that protruded across the marble slabs. + +"Eyes right!" They had picked him up the instant he stepped out of the +private elevator--the four hundred of them. If he turned and looked they +were seemingly not watching him, but if he dropped his glance they swung +back in a single moment and focused themselves upon him. And every one +of them probably had a gun hidden somewhere in his baggy pants! The +judge confessed to not liking these foreign homicide cases. You never +could tell what might happen or when somebody was going to get the death +sign. There was Judge Deasy--he had the whole front of his house blown +clean out by a bomb! That had been a close call! And these Chinks--with +their secret oaths and rituals--they'd think nothing at all of jabbing a +knife into you. He didn't fancy it at all and, as he hurried along, +supremely conscious of the deadly cumulative effect of those beady eyes, +he fancied it less and less. What was there to prevent one of them from +getting right up in court and putting a bullet through you? He shivered, +recalling the recent assassination of a judge upon the bench by a Hindu +whom he had sentenced. When he reached his robing room he sent for +Captain Phelan. + +"See here, captain," he directed sharply, "I want you to keep all those +Chinamen out in the corridor; understand?" + +"I've got to let some of 'em in, judge," urged Phelan. "You've got to +have an interpreter--and there's a Chinese lawyer associated with Tutt & +Tutt--and of course Mr. O'Brien has to have a couple of 'em so's he'll +know what's going on. Y' see, judge, the On Gee Tong is helping the +prosecution against the Hip Leongs, so both sides has to be more or less +represented." + +"Well, make sure none of 'em is armed," ordered Judge Bender. "I don't +like these cases." + +Now the judge, being recently elected and unfamiliar with the situation, +did not realize that nothing could have been farther from the Oriental +mind or intention than an attack upon the officers engaged in the +administration of local justice, whom they regarded merely as nuisances. +What these Chinamen supremely desired was to be allowed to settle their +own affairs in their own historic and traditional way--the way of the +revolver, the silken cord, the knife and the iron bar. Once enmeshed in +Anglo-Saxon juridical procedure, to be sure, they were not averse to +letting it run its course on the bare chance that it might automatically +accomplish their revenge. But they distrusted it, being brought up +according to a much more effective system--one which when it wanted to +punish anybody simply reached out, grabbed him by the pigtail, yanked +him to his knees and sliced off his head. This so-called American +justice was all talk--words, words, words! From their point of view +judges, jurymen and prosecutors were useless pawns in life's game of +chess. Perhaps they are! Who knows! + +When Judge Bender entered the court room it was, in spite of his +injunction, full of blue blouses. A special panel of two hundred +talesmen filled the first half dozen rows of benches, the others being +occupied by witnesses both Chinese and white, policemen and the +miscellaneous human flotsam and jetsam that always manages somehow or +other to find its way to a murder trial. Inside the rail O'Brien, the +assistant district attorney, was busy in conversation with three cueless +Chinamen in American clothes. At the bar sat Mock Hen with Mr. Tutt +beside him, flanked by Wong Get, Tutt, Bonnie Doon and Buddha. + +The judge beckoned Mr. Tutt and O'Brien to the front of the bench. + +"Is there any chance of disposing of this case by a plea?" he inquired. + +O'Brien looked expectantly at Mr. Tutt, who shook his head. The judge +shrugged his shoulders. + +"Well, how long is it going to take?" + +"About six weeks," answered the old lawyer quietly. + +"What!" ejaculated judge and prosecutor in unison. + +"A day or two less, perhaps," affirmed Mr. Tutt, "but, likely as not, +considerably longer." + +"I shall cut it down as much as I can," announced the judge, appalled at +the prospect. "I shall not permit this trial to be dragged out +indefinitely." + +"Nothing would please me better, Your Honor," said Mr. Tutt with the +shadow of a smile. "Shall we proceed to select the jury?" + +The accuracy of Mr. Tutt's prophecy as to the probable length of the +trial was partially demonstrated when it developed that most of the +talesmen had a pronounced antipathy to Chinese murder cases, and a +deep-rooted prejudice against the race as a whole. In fact, a certain +subconscious influence affecting most of them was formulated by the +thirty-ninth talesman to be rejected, who, in a moment of resentment, +burst forth, "I don't mind trying decent American criminals, but I hold +it isn't any part of a citizen's duty to try Chinamen!" and was promptly +struck off the jury list. + +"I say, chief," disgustedly declared O'Brien to Peckham at the noon +recess as they clinked glasses over the bar at Pont's, "you've handed me +a ripe, juicy Messina all right! I won't be able to get a jury. We've +been at it since ten o'clock and we haven't lured a single sucker into +the box!" + +"What's the matter?" inquired the D.A. apprehensively. + +"I can't quite make out," answered O'Brien. "But most of 'em seem to +have a sort of idea that to kill a Chinaman ain't a crime but a virtue!" + +"Well, don't tell anybody," whispered Peckham, "but I'm somewhat of that +way of thinking myself. Set 'em up again, John!" + +However, by invoking the utmost celerity a jury was at last selected and +sworn at the end of the nineteenth day of the trial. As a jury O'Brien +confidentially admitted to Peckham it wasn't much! But what could you +expect of a bunch who were willing to swear that they hadn't any +prejudice against a Chink and would as soon acquit him as a white man? +The truth was that they were all gentlemen who, having lost their jobs, +were willing to swear to anything that would bring them in two dollars a +day. The more days the better! And it is historic fact that during the +sixty-nine days of Mock Hen's prosecution not one of them protested at +being kept away from his wife and children, his business or his +pleasure. On the contrary they all slumbered peacefully from ten until +four--and when the trial ended, on the whole they rather regretted that +it was over, the only genuine opinion regarding the case being that the +Chinks were all as funny as hell and that Mr. Tutt was a bully old boy. + +The evidence respecting the death of the unfortunate Quong Lee made +little impression upon them. Seemingly they regarded the story much as +they did that of Elisha and the bears or Bel and the dragon--as a sort +of apocryphal narrative which they were required to listen to, but in no +wise bound to believe. They were much interested in Quong's suit of +chain mail, however, and from time to time awoke to enjoy the various +verbal encounters between the judge and Mr. Tutt. As factors in the +proceedings they did not count, except to receive their two dollars per +diem, board, lodging and hack fare. + +The trial of Mock Hen being conducted in a foreign language, the first +judicial step was the swearing of an interpreter. The On Gees had +promptly produced one, whom O'Brien told the court was a very learned +man; a graduate of the Imperial University at Peking, and a Son of the +Sacred Dragon. Be that as it may, he was not prepossessing in his +appearance and Mr. Tutt assured Judge Bender that far from being what +the district attorney pretended, the man was a well-known gambler, who +made his living largely by blackmail. He might be a son of a dragon or +he might not; anyway he was a son of Belial. An interpreter was the +conduit through which all the evidence must pass. If the official were +biased or corrupt the testimony would be distorted, colored or +suppressed. + +Now he--Mr. Tutt--had an interpreter, the well-known Dr. Hong Su, +against whom nothing could be said, and upon whose fat head rested no +imputation of partiality; a graduate of Harvard, a writer of note, a-- + +O'Brien sprang to his feet: "My interpreter says your interpreter is an +opium smuggler, that he murdered his aunt in Hong Kong, that he isn't a +doctor at all, and that he never graduated from anything except a +chop-suey joint," he interjected. + +"This is outrageous!" cried Mr. Tutt, palpably shocked at such language. + +"Gentlemen! Gentlemen!" groaned Judge Bender. "What am I to do? I don't +know anything about these men. One looks to me about the same as the +other. The court has no time to inquire into their antecedents. They may +both be learned scholars or they may each be what the other says he +is--I don't know. But we've got to begin to try this case sometime." + +It was finally agreed that in order that there might be no possible +question of partiality there should be two interpreters--one for the +prosecution and one for the defense. Both accordingly were sworn and the +first witness, Ah Fong, was called. + +"Ask him if he understands the nature of an oath," directed O'Brien. + +The interpreter for the state turned to Ah Fong and said something +sweetly to him in multitudinous words. + +Instantly Doctor Su rose indignantly. The other interpreter was not +putting the question at all, but telling the witness what to say. +Moreover, the other interpreter belonged to the On Gee Tong. He stood +waving his arms and gobbling like an infuriated turkey while his +adversary replied in similar fashion. + +"This won't do!" snapped the judge. "This trial will degenerate into +nothing but a cat fight if we are not careful." Then a bright idea +suggested itself to his Occidental mind. "Suppose I appoint an official +umpire to say which of the other two interpreters is correct--and let +them decide who he shall be?" + +This proposition was received with grunts of satisfaction by the two +antagonists, who conferred together with astonishing amiability and +almost immediately conducted into the court room a tall, emaciated +Chinaman who they alleged was entirely satisfactory to both of them. He +was accordingly sworn as a third interpreter, and the trial began again. + +It was observed that thereafter there was no dispute whatever regarding +the accuracy of the testimony, and as each interpreter was paid for his +services at the rate of ten dollars a day it was rumored that the whole +affair had been arranged by agreement between the two societies, which +divided the money, amounting to some eighteen hundred dollars, between +them. But, as O'Brien afterward asked Peckham, "How in thunder could you +tell?" + +The court's troubles had, however, only begun. Ah Fong was a +whimsical-looking person, who gave an impression of desiring to make +himself generally agreeable. He was, of course, the star witness--if a +Chinaman can ever be a star witness--and presumably had been carefully +schooled as to the manner in which he should give his testimony. He and +he alone had seen the whole tragedy from beginning to end. He it was, if +anybody, who would tuck Mock Hen comfortably into his coffin. + +The problem of the interpreters having been solved Fong settled himself +comfortably in the witness chair, crossed his hands upon his stomach and +looked complacently at Mock Hen. + +"Well, now let's get along," adjured His Honor. "Swear the witness." + +Mr. Tutt immediately rose. + +"If the court please," said he, "I object to the swearing of the witness +unless it is made to appear that he will regard himself as bound by the +oath as administered. Now this man is a Chinaman. I should like to ask +him a preliminary question or two." + +"That seems fair, Mr. O'Brien," agreed the court. "Do you see any reason +why Mr. Tutt shouldn't interrogate the witness?" + +"Oh, let me qualify my own witness!" retorted O'Brien fretfully. "Ah +Fong, will you respect the oath to testify truthfully, about to be +administered to you?" + +The interpreter delivered a broadside of Chinese at Ah Fong, who +listened attentively and replied at equal length. Then the interpreter +went at him again, and again Ah Fong affably responded. It was +interminable. + +The two muttered and chortled at each other until O'Brien, losing +patience, jumped up and called out: "What's all this? Can't you ask him +a simple question and get a simple answer? This isn't a debating +society." + +The interpreter held up his hand, indicating that the prosecutor should +have patience. + +"_Ah-ya-ya-oo-aroo-yung-ung-loy-a-a-ya oo-chu-a-oy-ah-ohay-tching_!" he +concluded. + + +"_A-yah-oy-a-yoo-oy-ah-chuck-uh-ung-loy-oo-ayah-a-yoo-chung-chung-szt- +oo-aha-oy-ou-ungaroo--yah-yah-yah!_" replied Ah Fong. + +"Thank heaven, that's over!" sighed O'Brien. + +The interpreter drew himself up to his full height. + +"He says yes," he declared dramatically. + +"It's the longest yes I ever heard!" audibly remarked the foreman, who +was feeling his oats. + +"Does not that satisfy you?" inquired the court of Mr. Tutt. + +"I am sorry to say it does not!" replied the latter. "Mr. O'Brien has +simply asked whether he will keep his oath. His reply sheds no light on +whether his religious belief is such that it would obligate him to +respect an oath." + +"Well, ask him yourself!" snorted O'Brien. + +"Ah Fong, do you believe in any god?" inquired Mr. Tutt. + +"He says yes," answered the interpreter after the usual interchange. + +"What god do you believe in?" persisted Mr. Tutt. + +Suddenly Ah Fong made answer without the intervention of the +interpreter. + +"When I in this country," he replied complacently in English, "I b'lieve +Gees Clist; when I in China I b'lieve Chinese god." + +"Does Your Honor hold that an obliging acquiescence in local theology +constitutes such a religious belief as to make this man's oath sacred?" +inquired Mr. Tutt. + +The judge smiled. + +"I don't see why not!" he declared. "There isn't any precedent as far as +I am aware. But he says he believes in the Deity. Isn't that enough?" + +"Not unless he believes that the Deity will punish him if he breaks his +oath," answered Mr. Tutt. "Let me try him on that?" + +"Ah Fong, do you think God will punish you if you tell a lie?" + +Fong looked blank. The interpreter fired a few salvos. + +"He says it makes a difference the kind of oath." + +"Suppose it is a promise to tell the truth?" + +"He says what kind of a promise?" + +"A promise on the Bible," answered Mr. Tutt patiently. + +"He says what god you mean!" countered the interpreter. + +"Oh, any god!" roared Mr. Tutt. + +The interpreter, after a long parley, made reply. + +"Ah Fong says there is no binding oath except on a chicken's head." + +Judge Bender, O'Brien and Mr. Tutt gazed at one another helplessly. + +"Well, there you are!" exclaimed the lawyer. "Mr. O'Brien's oath wasn't +any oath at all! What kind of a chicken's head?" + +"A white rooster." + +"Quite so!" nodded Mr. Tutt. "Your Honor, I object to this witness being +sworn by any oath or in any form except on the head of a white rooster!" + +"Well, I don't happen to have a white rooster about me!" remarked +O'Brien, while the jury rocked with glee. "Ask him if something else +won't do. A big book for instance?" + +The interpreter put the question and then shook his head. According to +Ah Fong there was no virtue in books whatever, either large or small. On +some occasions an oath could be properly taken on a broken plate--also +white--but not in murder cases. It was chicken or nothing. + +"Are you not willing to waive the formality of an oath, Mr. Tutt?" asked +the judge in slight impatience. + +"And wave my client into the chair?" demanded the lawyer. "No, sir!" + +"I don't see what we can do except to adjourn court until you can +procure the necessary poultry," announced Judge Bender. "Even then we +can't slaughter them in court. We'll have to find some suitable place!" + +"Why not kill one rooster and swear all the witnesses at once?" +suggested Mr. Tutt in a moment of inspiration. + + * * * * * + +"My God, chief!" exclaimed O'Brien at four o'clock. "There ain't a white +rooster to be had anywhere! Hens, yes! By the hundred! But roosters are +extinct! Tomorrow will be the twenty-first day of this prosecution and +not a witness sworn yet." + +However, a poultryman was presently discovered who agreed simply for +what advertising there was in it to furnish a crate of white roosters, +a hatchet and a headsman's block, and to have them in the basement of +the building promptly at ten o'clock. + +Accordingly, at that hour Judge Bender convened Part IX of the General +Sessions in the court room and then adjourned downstairs, where all the +prospective witnesses for the prosecution were lined up in a body and +told to raise their right hands. + +Meantime Clerk McGuire was handed the hatchet, and approached the coop +with obvious misgivings. Ah Fong had already given a dubious approval to +the sex and quality of the fowls inside and naught remained but to +submit the proper oath and remove the head of the unfortunate victim. A +large crowd of policemen, witnesses, reporters, loafers, truckmen and +others drawn by the unusual character of the proceedings had assembled +and now proceeded without regard for the requirements of judicial +dignity to encourage McGuire in his capacity of executioner, by profane +shouts and jeers, to do his deadly deed. + +But the clerk had had no experience with chickens and in bashfully +groping for the selected rooster allowed several other occupants of the +crate to escape. Instantly the air was filled with fluttering, squawking +fowls while fifty frenzied police officers and Chinamen attempted +vainly to reduce them to captivity again. In the midst of the melee +McGuire caught his rooster, and fearful lest it should escape him +managed somehow to decapitate it. The body, however, had been flopping +around spasmodically several seconds upon the floor before he realized +that the oath had not been administered, and his voice suddenly rose +above the pandemonium in an excited brogue. + +"Hold up your hands, you! You do solemnly swear that in the case of The +People against Mock Hen you will tell the truth, the whole truth and +nothing but the truth so help you God!" + +But the interpreter was at that moment engaged in clasping to his bosom +a struggling rooster and was totally unable to fulfill his functions. +Meantime the jury, highly edified at this illustration of the +administration of justice, gazed down upon the spectacle from the +stairs. + +"This farce has gone far enough!" declared Judge Bender disgustedly. "We +will return to the court room. Put those roosters back where they +belong!" + +Once more the participants ascended to Part IX and Ah Fong took his seat +in the witness chair. The interpreter's blouse was covered with +pin-feathers and one of his thumbs was bleeding profusely. + +"Ask the witness if the oath that he has now taken will bind his +conscience?" directed the court. + +Again the interpreter and Ah Fong held converse. + +"He says," translated that official calmly, "that the chicken oath is +all right in China, but that it is no good in United States, and that +anyway the proper form of words was not used." + +"Good Lord!" ejaculated O'Brien. "Where am I?" + +"Me tell truth, all light," suddenly announced Ah Fong in English. "Go +ahead! Shoot!" And he smiled an inscrutable age-long Oriental smile. + +The jury burst into laughter. + +"He's stringing you!" the foreman kindly informed O'Brien, who cursed +silently. + +"Go on, Mister District Attorney, examine the witness," directed the +judge. "I shall permit no further variations upon the established forms +of procedure." + +Then at last and not until then--on the morning of the twenty-first +day--did Ah Fong tell his simple story and the jury for the first time +learn what it was all about. But by then they had entirely ceased to +care, being engrossed in watching Mr. Tutt at his daily amusement of +torturing O'Brien into a state of helpless exasperation. + +Ah Fong gave his testimony with a clarity of detail that left nothing +to be desired, and he was corroborated in most respects by the Italian +woman, who identified Mock Hen as the Chinaman with the iron bar. Their +evidence was supplemented by that of Bull Neck Burke and Miss Malone, +who also were positive that they had seen Mock running from the scene of +the murder at exactly four-one o'clock. + +Mr. Tutt hardly cross-examined Fong at all, but with Mr. Burke he +pursued very different tactics, speedily rousing the wrestler to such a +condition of fury that he was hardly articulate, for the old lawyer +gently hinted that Mr. Burke was inventing the whole story for the +purpose of assisting his friends in the On Gee Tong. + +"But I tell yer I don't know no Chinks!" bellowed Burke, looking more +like a bull than ever. "This here Mock Hen run right by me. My goil saw +him too. I looked at me ticker to get the time!" + +"Ah! Then you expected to be a witness for the On Gee Tong!" + +"Naw! I tell yer I was walkin' wit' me goil!" + +"What is the lady's name?" + +"Miss Malone." + +"What is her occupation?" + +"She's a gay burlesquer." + +"A gay burlesquer?" + +"Sure--champagne goil and gay burlesquer." + +"A champagne girl!" + +"Dat's what I said." + +"You mean that she is upon the stage?" + +"Sure--dat's it!" + +"Oh!" Mr. Tutt looked relieved. + +"What had you and Miss Malone been doing that afternoon?" + +"I told yer--walkin'." + +Mr. Tutt coughed slightly. + +"Is that all?" + +"Say, watcha drivin' at?" + +Mr. Tutt elevated his bushy eyebrows. + +"How do you earn your living?" he demanded, changing his method of +attack. + +Bull Neck allowed his head to sink still farther into the vast bulk of +his immense torso, strangely resembling, in this position, the fabled +anthropophagi whose heads are reputed thus to "grow beneath their +shoulders." + +Then throwing out his jaw he announced proudly between set teeth: "I'm a +perfessor of physical sculture!" + +The jury sniggered. Mr. Tutt appeared politely puzzled. + +"A professor of what?" + +"A perfessor of physical sculture!" repeated Bull Neck with great +satisfaction. + +"Oh! A professor of physical sculpture!" exclaimed Mr. Tutt, light +breaking over his wrinkled countenance. "And what may that be?" + +Bull Neck looked round disgustedly at the jury as if to say: "What +ignorance!" + +"Trainin' an' developin' prominent people!" he explained. + +"Um!" remarked Mr. Tutt. "Who invited you to testify in this case?" + +"Mr. Mooney." + +"Oh, you're a friend of Mooney's! That is all!" + +Now it is apparent from these questions and answers that Mr. Burke had +testified to nothing to his discredit and had conducted himself as a +gentleman and a sportsman according to his best lights. Yet owing to the +subtle suggestions contained in Mr. Tutt's inflections and demeanor the +jury leaped unhesitatingly to the conclusion that here was a man so +ignorant and debased that if he were not deliberately lying he was being +made a cat's-paw by the police in the interest of the On Gee Tong. + +Miss Malone fared even worse, for after a preliminary skirmish she +flatly refused to give Mr. Tutt or the jury any information whatever +regarding her past life, while Mooney, of course, labored from the +beginning to the end of his testimony under the curse of being a +policeman, one of that class whom most jurymen take pride in saying they +hold in natural distrust. In a word, the white witnesses to the +dastardly murder of Quong Lee created a general impression of +unreliability upon the minds of the jury, who wholly failed to realize +the somewhat obvious truth that the witnesses to a crime in Chinatown +will naturally if not inevitably be persons who either reside in or +frequent that locality. + +Twenty-four days had now been consumed in the trial, and as yet no +Chinese witnesses except Ah Fong had been called. Now, however, they +appeared in cohorts. Though Mooney had sworn that the streets were +practically empty at the time of the homicide forty-one Chinese +witnesses swore positively that they had been within easy view, claiming +variously to have been behind doors, peeking through shutters, at upper +windows and even on the roofs. All had identified Mock Hen as the +murderer, and none of them had ever heard of either the On Gee or the +Hip Leong Tong! Mr. Tutt could not shake them upon cross-examination, +and O'Brien began to show signs of renewed confidence. Each testified to +substantially the same story and they occupied seventeen full days in +the telling, so that when the prosecution rested, forty-two days had +been consumed since the first talesman had been called. The trial had +sunk into a dull, unbroken monotony, as Mr. Tutt said, of the "vain +repetitions of the heathen." Yet the police and the district attorney +had done all that could reasonably have been expected of them. They were +simply confronted by the very obvious fact--a condition and not a +theory--that the legal processes of Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence are of +slight avail in dealing with people of another race. + +Now it is possible that even had Mr. Tutt put in no defense whatever the +jury might have refused to convict, for there was a curious air of +unreality surrounding the whole affair. It all seemed somehow as +if--assuming that it had ever taken place at all--it had occurred in +some other world and in some other age. Perhaps under what might have +been practically a direction of the court a verdict of conviction might +have been returned--but it is doubtful. The more witnesses testified to +exactly the same thing in precisely the same words the less likely it +appeared to be. + +But Mr. Tutt was taking no chances and, upon the forty-third day of the +trial, at a nod from the bench, he opened his case. Never had he been +more serious; never more persuasive. Abandoning every suggestion of +frivolity, he weighed the testimony of each white witness and pointed +out its obvious lack of probative value. Not one, he said, except the +Italian woman, had had more than a fleeting glance of the face of the +man now accused of the crime. Such an identification was useless. The +Chinamen were patently lying. They had not been there at all! Would any +member of the jury hang a dog, even a yellow one, on such testimony? Of +course not! Much less a human being. The people had called forty +witnesses to prove that Mock Hen had killed Quong Lee. It made no +difference. The On Gee could have just as easily produced four hundred. +Moreover, Mr. Tutt did a very daring thing. He pronounced all Chinese +testimony in an American court of justice as absolutely valueless, and +boasted that for every Chinaman who swore Mock Hen was guilty he would +bring forward two who would swear him innocent. + +The thing was, as he had carefully explained to Bonnie Doon, to prove +that Mock was a good Chinaman and, if the jury did not believe that +there was any such animal, to convince them that it was possible. His +first task, however, was to polish off the Chinese testimony by calling +the witnesses who had been secured under the guidance of Wong Get. He +admitted afterward that in view of the exclusion law he had not supposed +there were so many Chinamen in the United States, for they crowded the +corridors and staircases of the Criminal Courts Building, arriving in +companies--the Wong family, the Mocks, the Fongs, the Lungs, the Sues, +and others of the sacred Hip Sing Society from near at hand and from +distant parts--from Brooklyn and Flatbush, from Flushing and Far +Rockaway, from Hackensack and Hoboken, from Trenton and Scranton, from +Buffalo and Saratoga, from Chicago and St. Louis, and each and every one +of them swore positively upon the severed neck of the whitest +rooster--the broken fragments of the whitest of porcelain plates--the +holiest of books--that he had been present in person at Fulton Market in +New York City at precisely four-fifteen o'clock in the afternoon and +assisted Mock Hen, the defendant, in selecting and purchasing a terrapin +for stew. + +Mr. Tutt grinned at the jury and the jury grinned affectionately back at +Mr. Tutt. Indeed, after the length of time they had all been together +they had almost as much respect for him as for the judge upon the bench. +The whole court seemed to be a sort of Tutt Club, of which even O'Brien +was a member. + +"Now," said Mr. Tutt, "I will call a few witnesses to show you what kind +of a man this is whom these highbinders accuse of the crime of murder!" + +Mock, rolling his eyes heavenward, assumed an expression of infantile +helplessness and trust. + +"Don't overdo it!" growled Tutt. "Just look kind of gentle." + +So Mock looked as gentle as a suckling dove while two professors from +Columbia University, three of his landlords in his more reputable +business enterprises, the superintendent of the Rising Sun Mission, four +ex-police officers, a fireman, and an investigator for the Society for +the Suppression of Sin swore upon Holy Writ and with all sincerity that +Mock Hen was not only a person of the most excellent character and +reputation but a Christian and a gentleman. + +And then Mr. Tutt played his trump card. + +"I will call Miss Frances Duryea, of Hudson House," he announced. "Miss +Duryea, will you kindly take the witness chair?" + +Miss Fanny modestly rose from her seat in the rear of the room and came +forward. No one could for an instant doubt the honesty and impartiality +of this devoted middle-aged woman, who, surrendering the comforts and +luxuries of her home uptown, to which she was well entitled by reason of +her age, was devoting herself to a life of service. If a woman like +that, thought the jury, was ready to vouch for Mock's good character, +why waste any more time on the case? But Miss Fanny was to do much more. + +"Miss Duryea," began Mr. Tutt, "do you know the defendant?" + +"Yes, sir; I do," she answered quietly. + +"How long have you known him?" + +"Six years." + +"Do you know his reputation for peace and quiet?" + +Miss Fanny half turned to the judge and then faced the jury. + +"He is one of the sweetest characters I have ever known," she replied, +"and I have known many--" + +"Oh, I object!" interrupted O'Brien. "This lady can't be permitted to +testify to anything like that. She must be limited by the rules of +evidence!" + +With one movement the jury wheeled and glared at him. + +"I guess this lady can say anything she wants!" declared the foreman +chivalrously. + +O'Brien sank down in his seat. What was the use! + +"Go on, please," gently directed Mr. Tutt. + +"As I was saying, Mr. Mock Hen is a very remarkable character," +responded Miss Fanny. "He is devoted to the mission and to us at the +settlement. I would trust him absolutely in regard to anything." + +"Thank you," said Mr. Tutt, smiling benignly. "Now, Miss Duryea, did you +see Mock Hen at any time on May sixth?" + +Instantly the jury showed renewed signs of life. May sixth? That was +the day of the murder. + +"I did," answered Miss Fanny with conviction. "He came to see me at +Hudson House in the afternoon and while we were talking the clock struck +four." + +The jury looked at one another and nodded. + +"Well, I guess that settles this case!" announced the foreman. + +"Right!" echoed a talesman behind him. + +"I object!" wailed O'Brien. "This is entirely improper!" + +"Quite so!" ruled Judge Bender sternly. "The jurymen will not make any +remarks!" + +"But, Your Honor--we all agreed at recess there was nothing in this +case," announced the foreman. "And now this testimony simply clinches +it. Why go on with it!" + +"That's so!" ejaculated another. "Let us go, judge." + +Mr. Tutt's weather-beaten face was wreathed in smiles. + +"Easy, gentlemen!" he cautioned. + +The judge shrugged his shoulders, frowning. + +"This is very irregular!" he said. + +Then he beckoned to O'Brien, and the two whispered together for several +minutes, while all over the court room on the part of those who had sat +there so patiently for sixty-nine days there was a prolonged and +ecstatic wriggling of arms and legs. Instinctively they all knew that +the farce was over. + +The assistant district attorney returned to his table but did not sit +down. + +"If the court please," he said rather wearily, "the last witness, Miss +Duryea, by her testimony, which I personally am quite ready to accept as +truthful, has interjected a reasonable doubt of the defendant's guilt +into what otherwise would in my opinion be a case for the jury. If Mock +Hen was at Hudson House, nearly two miles from Pell and Doyers Streets, +at four o'clock on the afternoon of the homicide, manifestly he could +not have been one of the assailants of Quong Lee at one minute past +four. I am satisfied that no jury would convict--" + +"Not on your life!" snorted the foreman airily. + +"--and I therefore," went on O'Brien, "ask the court to direct an +acquittal." + + * * * * * + +In the grand banquet hall of the Shanghai and Hongkong American-Chinese +Restaurant, Ephraim Tutt, draped in a blue mandarin coat with a tasseled +pill box rakishly upon his old gray head, sat beside Wong Get and Buddha +at the head of a long table surrounded by three hundred Chinamen in +their richest robes of ceremony. Lanterns of party-colored glass +swaying from gilded rafters shed a strange light upon a silken cloth +marvelously embroidered and laden with the choicest of Oriental dishes, +and upon the pale faces of the Hip Leong Tong--the Mocks, the Wongs, the +Fongs and the rest--both those who had testified and also those who had +merely been ready if duty called to do so, all of whom were now gathered +together to pay honor where they felt honor to be due; namely, at the +shrine of Mr. Tutt. + +Deft Chinese waiters slipped silently from guest to guest with +bird's-nest soup, guy soo main, mon goo guy pan, shark's fin and lung +har made of shreds of lobster, water chestnuts, rice and the succulent +shoots of the young bamboo, while three musicians in a corner sang +through their nose a syncopated dirge. "Wang-ang-ang-ang!" it rose and +fell as Mr. Tutt, his neck encircled by a wreath of lilies, essayed to +manipulate a pair of long black chop-sticks. "Wang-ang-ang-ang!" About +him were golden limes, ginger in syrup, litchi nuts, pickled leeches. + +Then he felt a touch upon his shoulder and turned to see Fong Hen, the +slipper, standing beside him. It was the duty of Fong Hen to drink with +each guest--more than that, to drink as much as each guest drank! He +gravely offered Mr. Tutt a pony of rice brandy. It was not the fiery +lava he had anticipated, but a soft, caressing nectar, fragrant as if +distilled from celestial flowers of the time of Confucius. The slipper +swallowed the same quantity at a gulp, bowed and passed along. + +Mr. Tutt vainly tried to grasp the fact that he was in his own native +city of New York. Long sleeves covered with red and purple dragons hid +his arms and hands, and below the collar a smooth tight surface of silk +across his breast made access to his pockets quite impossible. In one of +them reposed twenty one-thousand-dollar bills--his fee for securing the +acquittal of Mock Hen. Yes, he was in New York! + +The monotonous wail of the instruments, the pungency of the incense, the +subdued light, the humid breath of the roses carried the thoughts of Mr. +Tutt far away. Before him, against the blue misty sunshine, rose the +yellow temples of Peking. He could hear the faint tintinnabulation of +bells. He was wandering in a garden fragrant with jasmine blossoms and +adorned with ancient graven stones and carved gilt statues. The air was +sweet. Mr. Tutt was very tired.... + +"Let him sleep!" nodded Buddha, deftly conveying to his wrinkled lips a +delicate morsel of guy yemg dun. "Let him sleep! He has earned his +sleep. He has saved our face!" + +It was after midnight when Mr. Tutt, heavily laden with princely gifts +of ivory and jade and boxes of priceless teas, emerged from the side +door of the Shanghai and Hongkong American-Chinese Restaurant. The sky +was brilliant with stars and the sidewalks of Doyers and Pell Streets +were crowded with pedestrians. Near by a lantern-bedecked rubber-neck +wagon was in process of unloading its cargo of seekers after the curious +and unwholesome. On either side of him walked Wong Get and Buddha. They +had hardly reached the corner when five shots echoed in quick succession +above the noise of the traffic and the crowd turned with one accord and +rushed in the direction from which he had just come. + +Mr. Tutt, startled, stopped and looked back. Courteously also stopped +Wong Get and Buddha. A throng was fast gathering in front of the +Shanghai and Hongkong Restaurant. + +Then Murtha appeared, shouldering his way roughly through the mob. +Catching sight of Mr. Tutt, he paused long enough to whisper hoarsely in +the lawyer's ear: "Well, they got Mock Hen! Five bullets in him! But if +they were going to, why in hell couldn't they have done it three months +ago?" + + + + +Samuel and Delilah + + + "And it came to pass, when she pressed him daily with + her words, and urged him, so that his soul was vexed + unto death; that he told her all his heart, and said unto + her, There hath not come a razor upon mine head; ... + if I be shaven, then my strength will go from me, and I + shall become weak and be like any other man." + --JUDGES XVI, 16, 17. + +"Have you seen '76 Fed.' anywhere, Mr. Tutt?" inquired Tutt, appearing +suddenly in the doorway of his partner's office. + +Mr. Tutt looked up from Page 364 of the opinion he was perusing in "The +United States vs. One Hundred and Thirty-two Packages of Spirituous +Liquors and Wines." + +"Got it here in front of me," he answered shortly. "What do you want it +for?" + +Tutt looked over his shoulder. + +"That's a grand name for a case, isn't it? 'Packages of Wines!'" he +chuckled. "I made a note once of a matter entitled 'United States vs. +Forty-three Cases of Frozen Eggs'; and of another called 'United States +vs. One Feather Mattress and One Hundred and Fifty Pounds of +Butter'--along in 197 Federal Reports, if I remember correctly. And you +recall that accident case we had--Bump against the Railroad?" + +"You can't tell me anything about names," remarked Mr. Tutt. "I once +tried a divorce action. Fuss against Fuss; and another, Love against +Love. Do you really want this book?" + +"Not if you are using it," replied Tutt. "I just wanted to show an +authority to Mr. Sorg, the president of the Fat and Skinny Club. You +know our application for a certificate of incorporation was denied +yesterday by Justice McAlpin." + +"No, I didn't know it," returned Mr. Tutt. "Why?" + +"Here's his memorandum in the Law Journal," answered his partner. "Read +it for yourself": + + + Matter of Fat and Skinny Club, Inc. This is an + application for approval of a certificate of incorporation + as a membership corporation. The stated purposes are + to promote and encourage social intercourse and good + fellowship and to advance the interests of the community. + The name selected is the Fat and Skinny Club. If this + be the most appropriate name descriptive of its membership + it is better that it remain unincorporated. Application + denied. + +"Now who says the law isn't the perfection of common sense?" ruminated +Mr. Tutt. "Its general principles are magnificent." + +"And yet," mused Tutt, "only last week Judge McAlpin granted the +petition of one Solomon Swackhamer to change his name to Phillips Brooks +Vanderbilt. Is that right? Is that justice? Is it equity? I ask +you!--when he turns down the Fat and Skinnies?" + +"Oh, yes it is," retorted Mr. Tutt. "When you consider that Mr. +Swackhamer could have assumed the appellation of P.B. Vanderbilt or any +other name he chose without asking the court's permission at all." + +"What!" protested Tutt incredulously. + +"That's the law," returned the senior partner. "A man can call himself +what he chooses and change his name as often as he likes--so long, of +course, as he doesn't do it to defraud. The mere fact that a statute +likewise gives him the right to apply to the courts to accomplish the +same result makes no difference." + +"Of course it might make him feel a little more comfortable about it to +do it that way," suggested Tutt. "Do you know, as long as I've practised +law in this town I've always assumed that one had to get permission to +change one's name." + +"You've learned something," said Mr. Tutt suavely. "I hope you will put +it to good account. Here's '76 Fed.' Take it out and console the Fat and +Skinny Club with it if you can." + +Mr. Tutt surrendered the volume without apparent regret and Tutt retired +to his own office and to the task of soothing the injured feelings of +Mr. Sorg. + +A simple-minded little man was Tutt, for all his professional shrewdness +and ingenuity. Like many a hero of the battlefield and of the bar, once +inside the palings of his own fence he became modest, gentle, even +timorous. For Abigail, his wife, had no illusions about him and did not +affect to have any. To her neither Tutt nor Mr. Tutt was any such great +shakes. Had Tutt dared to let her know of many of the schemes which he +devised for the profit or safety of his clients she would have thought +less of him still; in fact, she might have parted with him forever. In a +sense Mrs. Tutt was an exacting woman. Though she somewhat reluctantly +consented to view the hours from nine a.m. to five p.m. in her husband's +day as belonging to the law, she emphatically regarded the rest of the +twenty-four hours as belonging to her. + +The law may be, as Judge Holmes has called it, "a jealous mistress," but +in the case of Tutt it was not nearly so jealous as his wife. So Tutt +was compelled to walk the straight-and-narrow path whether he liked it +or not. On the whole he liked it well enough, but there were +times--usually in the spring--when without being conscious of what was +the matter with him he mourned his lost youth. For Tutt was only +forty-eight and he had had a grandfather who had lived strenuously to +upward of twice that age. He was vigorous, sprightly, bright-eyed and as +hard as nails, even if somewhat resembling in his contours the late Mr. +Pickwick. Mrs. Tutt was tall, spare, capable and sardonic. She made Tutt +comfortable, but she no longer appealed to his sense of romance. Still +she held him. As the playwright hath said "It isn't good looks they +want, but good nature; if a warm welcome won't hold them, cold cream +won't." + +However, Tutt got neither looks nor cold cream. His welcome, in fact, +was warm only if he stayed out too late, and then the later the warmer. +His relationship to his wife was prosaic, respectful. In his heart of +hearts he occasionally thought of her as exceedingly unattractive. In a +word Mrs. Tutt performed her wifely functions in a purely matter-of-fact +way. Anything else would have seemed to her unseemly. She dressed in a +manner that would have been regarded as conservative even on Beacon +Hill. She had no intention of making an old fool of herself or of +letting him be one either. When people had been married thirty years +they could take some things for granted. Few persons therefore had ever +observed Mr. Tutt in the act of caressing Mrs. Tutt; and there were +those who said that he never had. Frankly, she was a trifle forbidding: +superficially not the sort of person to excite a great deal of +sentiment; and occasionally, as we have hinted, in the spring Tutt +yearned for a little sentiment. + +He did his yearning, however, entirely on the side and within those +hours consecrated to the law. In his wife's society he yearned not at +all. In her company he carefully kept his thoughts and his language +inside the innermost circle of decorum. At home his talk was entirely +"Yea, yea," and "Nay, nay," and dealt principally with politics and the +feminist movement, in which Abigail was deeply interested. + +And by this we do not mean to suggest that at other times or places Tutt +was anything but conventionally proper. He was not. He only yearned to +be, well knowing that he was deficient in courage if not in everything +else. + +But habit or no habit, likely or unlikely, Mrs. Tutt had no intention of +taking any chances so far as Tutt was concerned. If he did not reach +home precisely at six explanations were in order, and if he came in half +an hour later he had to demonstrate his integrity beyond a reasonable +doubt according to the established rules of evidence. + +Perhaps Mrs. Tutt did wisely to hold Tutt thus in leash considering the +character of many of the firm's clients. For it was quite impossible to +conceal the nature of the practise of Tutt & Tutt; much of which figured +flamboyantly in the newspapers. Some women would have taken it for +granted under like circumstances that their husbands had acquired a +touch at least of the wisdom of the serpent even if they remained quite +harmless. Abigail countenanced no thought of any demoralization in her +spouse. To her he was like the artist who smears himself and his smock +with paint while in his studio, but appears at dinner in spotless linen +without even a whiff of benzine about him to suggest his occupation. So +Tutt, though hand and glove in his office with the most notorious of the +elite of Longacre Square, came home to supper with the naivete and +innocence of a theological student for whom an evening at a picture show +is the height of dissipation. + +Yet Tutt was no more of a Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde than most of us. +Merely, his daily transition was a little more abrupt. And when all is +said and done most of the devices invented by his fertile little brain +to further the interests of his clients were no more worthy of +condemnation than those put forward by far higher-priced and much more +celebrated attorneys. + +Not that Mrs. Tutt was blind to the dangers to which her husband by +virtue of his occupation was exposed. Far from it. Indeed she made it +her business to pay periodical visits to the office, ostensibly to see +whether or not it was properly cleaned and the windows washed, but in +reality--or at least so Tutt suspected--to find out whether the +personnel was entirely suitable for a firm of their standing and +particularly for a junior partner of his susceptibilities. + +But she never discovered anything to give her the slightest cause for +alarm. The dramatis personae of the offices of Tutt & Tutt were +characteristic of the firm, none of their employees--except Miss +Sondheim, the tumultous-haired lady stenographer--and Willie, the office +boy, being under forty years of age. + +When not engaged in running errands or fussing over his postage-stamp +album, Willie spent most of his time teasing old Scraggs, the scrivener, +an unsuccessful teetotaler. A faint odor of alcohol emanated from the +cage in which he performed his labors and lent an atmosphere of +cheerfulness to what might otherwise have seemed to Broadway clients an +unsympathetic environment, though there were long annual periods during +which he was as sober as a Kansas judge. The winds of March were apt, +however, to take hold of him. Perhaps it was the spring in his case +also. + +The backbone of the establishment was Miss Minerva Wiggin. In every law +office there is usually some one person who keeps the shop going. +Sometimes it is a man. If so, he is probably a sublimated stenographer +or law clerk who, having worked for years to get himself admitted to the +bar, finds, after achieving that ambition, that he has neither the +ability nor the inclination to brave the struggle for a livelihood by +himself. Perchance as a youth he has had visions of himself arguing test +cases before the Court of Appeals while the leaders of the bar hung upon +his every word, of an office crowded with millionaire clients and +servile employees, even as he is servile to the man for whom he labors +for a miserly ten dollars a week. + +His ambition takes him by the hand and leads him to high places, from +which he gazes down into the land of his future prosperity and +greatness. The law seems a mysterious, alluring, fascinating profession, +combining the romance of the drama with the gratifications of the +intellect. He springs to answer his master's bell; he sits up until all +hours running down citations and making extracts from opinions; he +rushes to court and answers the calendar and sometimes carries the +lawyer's brief case and attends him throughout a trial. Three years go +by--five--and he finds that he is still doing the same thing. He is now +a member of the bar, he has become the managing clerk, he attends to +fairly important matters, engages the office force, superintends +transfer of title, occasionally argues a motion. Five years more go by +and perhaps his salary is raised a trifle more. Then one day he awakes +to the realization that his future is to be only that of a trusted +servitor. + +Perchance he is married and has a baby. The time has come for him to +choose whether he will go forth and put his fortune to the test "to win +or lose it all" or settle down into the position of faithful legal hired +man. He is getting a bit bald, he has had one or two tussles with his +bank about accidental overdrafts. The world looks pretty bleak outside +and the big machine of the law goes grinding on heartless, inevitable. +Who is he to challenge the future? The old job is fairly easy; they +can't get on without him, they say; here is where he belongs; he knows +his business--give him his thirty-five hundred a year and let him stay! + +That is Binks, or Calkins, or Shivers, or any one of those worried +gray-haired men who sit in the outer office behind a desk strewn with +papers and make sure that no mistakes have been made. To them every +doubtful question of practise is referred and they answer +instantly--sometimes wrongly, but always instantly. They know the last +day for serving the demurrer in Bilbank against Terwilliger and whether +or not you can tax a referee's fee as a disbursement in a bill of costs; +they are experts on the precise form for orders in matrimonial actions +and the rule in regard to filing a summons and complaint in Oneida +County; they stand between the members of the firm and disagreeable +clients; they hire and discharge the office boys; they do everything +from writing a brief for the Supreme Court of the United States down to +making the contract with the window cleaners; they are the only lawyers +who really know anything and they were once promising young men, who +have found out at last that life and the Sunday-school books are very +far apart; but they run the works and make the law a gentleman's +profession for the rest of us. They are always there. Others come, grow +older, go away, but they remain. Many of them drink. All of which would +be irrelevant, incompetent and immaterial if this were not a legal +story. + +Scraggs had been one of these, but he had also been one of those who +drank, and now he was merely a bookkeeper. Miss Wiggin reigned in his +stead. + +A woman and not a man kept Tutt & Tutt on the map. When this sort of +thing occurs it is usually because the woman in question is the ablest +and very likely also the best person in the outfit, and she assumes the +control of affairs by a process of natural selection. Miss Wiggin was +the conscience, if Mr. Tutt was the heart, of Tutt & Tutt. Nobody, +unless it was Mr. Tutt, knew where she had come from or why she was +working if at all in only a semi-respectable law office. Without her +something dreadful would have happened to the general morale. Everybody +recognized that fact. + +Her very appearance gave the place tone--neutralized the faint odor of +alcohol from the cage. For in truth she was a fine-looking woman. Had +she been costumed by a Fifth Avenue dressmaker and done her coiffure +differently she would have been pretty. Because she drew her gray hair +straight back from her low forehead and tied it in a knob on the back of +her head, wore paper cuffs and a black dress, she looked nearer fifty +than forty-one, which she was. Two hundred dollars would have taken +twenty years off her apparent age--a year for every ten dollars; but she +would not have looked a particle less a lady. + +Her duties were ambiguous. She was always the first to arrive at the +office and was the only person permitted to open the firm mail outside +of its members. She overlooked the books that Scraggs kept and sent out +the bills. She kept the key to the cash box and had charge of the safe. +She made the entries in the docket and performed most of the duties of a +regular managing clerk. She had been admitted to the bar. She checked up +the charge accounts and on Saturdays paid off the office force. In +addition to all these things she occasionally took a hand at a brief, +drew most of the pleadings, and kept track of everything that was done +in the various cases. + +But her chief function, one which made her invaluable was that of +receiving clients who came to the office, and in the first instance +ascertaining just what their troubles were; and she was so sympathetic +and at the same time so sensible that many a stranger who casually +drifted in and would otherwise just as casually have drifted out again +remained a permanent fixture in the firm's clientele. Scraggs and +William adored her in spite of her being an utter enigma to them. She +was quiet but businesslike, of few words but with a latent sense of +humor that not infrequently broke through the surface of her gravity, +and she proceeded upon the excellent postulate that everyone with whom +she came in contact was actuated by the highest sense of honor. She +acted as a spiritual tonic to both Mr. Tutt and Tutt--especially to the +latter, who was the more in need of it. If they were ever tempted to +stray across the line of professional rectitude her simple assumption +that the thing couldn't be done usually settled the matter once and for +all. On delicate questions Mr. Tutt frankly consulted her. Without her, +Tutt & Tutt would have been shysters; with her they were almost +respectable. She received a salary of three thousand dollars a year and +earned double that amount, for she served where she loved and her first +thought was of Tutt & Tutt. If you can get a woman like that to run your +law office do not waste any time or consideration upon a man. Her price +is indeed above rubies. + +Yet even Miss Wiggin could not keep the shadow of the vernal equinox off +the simple heart of the junior Tutt. She had seen it coming for several +weeks, had scented danger in the way Tutt's childish eye had lingered +upon Miss Sondheim's tumultous black hair and in the rather rakish, +familiar way he had guided the ladies who came to get divorces out to +the elevator. And then there swam into his life the beautiful Mrs. +Allison, and for a time Tutt became not only hysterically young again, +but--well, you shall see. + +Yet, curiously enough, though we are a long way from where this story +opened, it all goes back to Phillips Brooks Vanderbilt and the Fat and +Skinny Club and the right to call ourselves by what names we please. +Moreover, as must be apparent, all that happened occurred beyond Miss +Wiggin's sphere of spiritual influence. Yet, had it not, even she could +not have harnessed Leviathan or loosed the bands of Orion--to say +nothing of counteracting the effect of spring. + +When Tutt returned with "76 Fed." after the departure of Mr. Sorg he +found his partner smoking the usual stogy and gazing pensively down upon +the harbor. The immediate foreground was composed of rectangular roofs +of divers colors, mostly reddish, ornamented with eccentrically shaped +chimney pots, pent-houses, skylights and water tanks, in addition to +various curious whistle-like protuberances from which white wraiths of +steam whirled and danced in the gay breeze. Beyond, in the middle +distance, a great highway of sparkling jewels led across the waves to +the distant faintly green hills of Staten Island. Three tiny aeroplanes +wove invisible threads against the blue woof of the sky above the New +Jersey shore. It was not a day to practise law at all. It was a day to +lie on one's back in the grass and watch the clouds or throw one's +weight against the tugging helm of a racing sloop and bite the spindrift +blown across her bows--not a day for lawyers but for lovers! + +"Here's '76 Fed.'," said Tutt. + +"What's become of Sorg?" + +"Gone. Mad. Says the whole point of the Fat and Skinny Club is in the +name." + +"I fancy--from looking at Mr. Sorg--that that is quite true," remarked +Mr. Tutt. He paused and reaching down into a lower compartment of his +desk, lifted out a tumbler and his bottle of malt extract, which he +placed carefully at his elbow and leaned back again contemplatively. +"Look here, Tutt," he said. "I want to ask you something. Is there +anything the matter with you?" + +Tutt regarded him with the air of a small boy caught peeking through a +knot hole. + +"Why,--no!" he protested lamely. "That is--nothing in particular. I do +feel a bit restless--sort of vaguely dissatisfied." + +Mr. Tutt nodded sympathetically. + +"How old are you, Tutt?" + +"Forty-eight." + +"And you feel just at present as if life were 'flat, stale and +unprofitable?'" + +"Why--yes; you might put it that way. The fact is every day seems just +like every other day. I don't even get any pleasure out of eating. The +very sight of a boiled egg beside my plate at breakfast gives me the +willies. I can't eat boiled eggs any more. They sicken me!" + +"Exactly!" Mr. Tutt poured out a glass of the malt extract. + +"I feel the same way about a lot of things," Tutt hurried on. "Special +demurrers, for instance. They bore me horribly. And supplementary +proceedings get most frightfully upon my nerves." + +"Exactly!" repeated Mr. Tutt. + +"What do you mean by 'exactly?'" snapped Tutt. + +"You're bored," explained his partner. + +"Rather!" agreed Tutt. "Bored to death. Not with anything special, you +understand; just everything. I feel as if I'd like to do something +devilish." + +"When a man feels like that he better go to a doctor," declared Mr. +Tutt. + +"A doctor!" exclaimed Tutt derisively. "What good would a doctor do me?" + +"He might keep you from getting into trouble." + +"Oh, you needn't be alarmed. I won't get into any trouble." + +"It's the dangerous age," said Mr. Tutt. "I've known a lot of +respectable married men to do the most surprising things round fifty." + +Tutt looked interested. + +"Have you now?" he inquired. "Well, I've no doubt it did some of 'em a +world of good. Tell you frankly sometimes I feel as if I'd rather like +to take a bit of a fling myself!" + +"Your professional experience ought to be enough to warn you of the +dangers of that sort of experiment," answered Mr. Tutt gravely. "It's +bad enough when it occurs inadvertently, so to speak, but when a man in +your condition of life deliberately goes out to invite trouble it's a +sad, sad spectacle." + +"Do you mean to imply that I'm not able to take care of myself?" +demanded Tutt. + +"I mean to imply that no man is too wise to be made a fool of by some +woman." + +"That every Samson has his Delilah?" + +"If you want to put it that way--yes." + +"And that in the end he'll get his hair cut?" + +Mr. Tutt took a sip from the tumbler of malt and relit his stogy. + +"What do you know about Samson and Delilah, Tutt?" he challenged. + +"Oh, about as much as you do, I guess, Mr. Tutt," answered his partner +modestly. + +"Well, who cut Samson's hair?" demanded the senior member. + +He emptied the dregs of the malt-extract bottle into his glass and +holding it to the light examined it critically. + +"Delilah, of course!" ejaculated Tutt. + +Mr. Tutt shook his head. + +"There you go off at half-cock again, Tutt!" he retorted whimsically. +"You wrong her. She did no such thing." + +"Why, I'll bet you a hundred dollars on it!" cried Tutt excitedly. + +"Make it a simple dinner at the Claridge Grill and I'll go you." + +"Done!" + +There were four books on the desk near Mr. Tutt's right hand--the New +York Code of Civil Procedure, an almanac, a Shakesperean concordance and +a Bible. + +"Look it up for yourself," said Mr. Tutt, waving his arm with a gesture +of the utmost impartiality. "That is, if you happen to know in what part +of Holy Writ said Delilah is to be found." + +Tutt followed the gesture and sat down at the opposite side of the desk. + +"There!" he exclaimed, after fumbling over the leaves for several +minutes. "What did I tell you? Listen, Mr. Tutt! It's in the sixteenth +chapter of Judges: 'And it came to pass, when she pressed him daily with +her words, and urged him, so that his soul was vexed unto death; That he +told her all his heart, and said unto her, There hath not come a razor +upon mine head.' Um--um." + +"Read on, Tutt!" ordered Mr. Tutt. + +"Um. 'And when Delilah saw that he had told her all his heart, she sent +and called for the lords of the Philistines, saying, Come up this once.' +Um-um." + +"Yes, go on!" + +"'And she made him sleep upon her knees; and she called for a man, and +she caused him to shave off the seven locks of his head.' Well, I'll be +hanged!" exclaimed Tutt. "Now, I would have staked a thousand dollars on +it. But look here, you don't win! Delilah did cut Samson's hair--through +her agent. '_Qui facit per alium facit per se!_'" + +"Your point is overruled," said Mr. Tutt. "A barber cut Samson's hair. +Let it be a lesson to you never to take anything on hearsay. Always look +up your authorities yourself. Moreover"--and he looked severely at +Tutt--"the cerebral fluid--like malt extract--tends to become cloudy +with age." + +"Well, anyhow, I'm no Samson," protested Tutt. "And I haven't met anyone +that looked like a Delilah. I guess after the procession of +adventuresses that have trailed through this office in the last twenty +years I'm reasonably safe." + +"No man is safe," meditated Mr. Tutt. "For the reason that no man knows +the power of expansion of his heart. He thinks it's reached its +limit--and then he finds to his horror or his delight that it hasn't. To +put it another way, a man's capacity to love may be likened to a +thermometer. At twenty-five or thirty he meets some young person, falls +in love with her, thinks his amatory thermometer has reached the +boiling-point and accordingly marries her. In point of fact it +hasn't--it's only marking summer heat--hasn't even registered the +temperature of the blood. Well, he goes merrily on life's way and some +fine day another lady breezes by, and this safe and sane citizen, who +supposes his capacity for affection was reached in early youth, suddenly +discovers to his amazement that his mercury is on the jump and presently +that his old thermometer has blown its top off." + +"Very interesting, Mr. Tutt," observed Tutt after a moment's silence. +"You seem to have made something of a study of these things." + +"Only in a business way--only in a business way!" Mr. Tutt assured him. +"Now, if you're feeling stale--and we all are apt to get that way this +time of year--why don't you take a run down to Atlantic City?" + +Now Tutt would have liked to go to Atlantic City could he have gone by +himself, but the idea of taking Abigail along robbed the idea of its +attraction. She had got more than ever on his nerves of late. But his +reply, whatever it might have been, was interrupted by the announcement +of Miss Wiggin, who entered at that moment, that a lady wished to see +him. + +"She asked for Mr. Tutt," explained Minerva. + +"But I think her case is more in your line," and she nodded to Tutt. + +"Good looking?" inquired Tutt roguishly. + +"Very," returned Miss Wiggin. "A blonde." + +"Thanks," answered Tutt, smoothing his hair; "I'm on my way." + +Now this free, almost vulgar manner of speech was in reality foreign to +both Tutt and Miss Wiggin and it was born of the instant, due doubtless +to some peculiar juxtaposition of astral bodies in Cupid's horoscope +unknown to them, but which none the less had its influence. Strange +things happen on the eve of St. Agnes and on Midsummer Night--even in +law offices. + +Mrs. Allison was sitting by the window in Tutt's office when he came in, +and for a full minute he paused upon the threshold while she pretended +she did not know that he was there. The deluge of sunlight that fell +upon her face betrayed no crack or wrinkle--no flaw of any kind--in the +white marble of its perfection. It was indeed a lovely face, classic in +the chiseling of its transparent alabaster; and when she turned, her +eyes were like misty lakes of blue. Bar none, she was the most beautiful +creature--and there had been many--that had ever wandered into the +offices of Tutt & Tutt. He sought for a word. "Wonderful"; that was, it, +she was "wonderful." His stale spirit soared in ecstasy, and left him +tongue-tied. In vulgar parlance he was rattled to death, this +commonplace little lawyer who for a score of years had dealt cynically +with the loves and lives of the flock of female butterflies who +fluttered annually in and out of the office. Throughout that period he +had sat unemotionally behind his desk and listened in an aloof, cold, +professional manner to the stories of their wrongs as they sobbed or +hissed them forth. Wise little lawyer that he was, he had regarded them +all as just what they were and nothing else--specimens of the Cecropia. +And he had not even patted them upon the shoulder or squeezed their +hands when he had bade them good-by--maintaining always an impersonal +and dignified demeanor. + +Therefore he was surprised to hear himself say in soothing, almost +cooing tones: + +"Well, my dear, what can I do for you?" + +Shades of Abigail! "Well, my dear!" Tutt--Tutt! Tutt! + +"I am in great trouble," faltered Mrs. Allison, gazing in misty +helplessness out of her blue grottoes at him while her beautiful red +lips trembled. + +"I hope I can help you!" he breathed. "Tell me all about it! Take your +time. May I relieve you of your wrap?" + +She wriggled out of it gratefully and he saw for the first time the +round, slender pillar of her neck. What a head she had--in its nimbus of +hazy gold. What a figure! His forty-eight-year-old lawyer's heart +trembled under its heavy layer of half-calf dust. He found difficulty in +articulating. He stammered, staring at her most shamelessly both of +which symptoms she did not notice. She was used to them in the other +sex. Tutt did not know what was the matter with him. He had in fact +entered upon that phase at which the wise man, be he old or young, turns +and runs. + +But Tutt did not run. In legal phrase he stopped, looked and listened, +experiencing a curious feeling of expansion. This enchanting creature +transmuted the dingy office lined with its rows of calfskin bindings +into a golden grot in which he stood spellbound by the low murmur of her +voice. A sense of infinite leisure emanated from her--a subtle denial of +the ordinary responsibilities--very relaxing and delightful to Tutt. But +what twitched his very heartstrings was the dimple that came and went +with that pathetic little twisted smile of hers. + +"I came to you," said Mrs. Allison, "because I knew you were both kind +and clever." + +Tutt smiled sweetly. + +"Kind, perhaps--not clever!" he beamed. + +"Why, everyone says you are one of the cleverest lawyers in New York," +she protested. Then, raising her innocent China-blue eyes to his she +murmured, "And I so need kindness!" + +Tutt's breast swelled with an emotion which he was forced to admit was +not altogether avuncular--that curious sentimental mixture that +middle-aged men feel of paternal pity, Platonic tenderness and +protectiveness, together with all those other euphemistic synonyms, that +make them eager to assist the weak and fragile, to try to educate and +elevate, and particularly to find out just how weak, fragile, uneducated +and unelevated a helpless lady may be. But in spite of his half century +of experience Tutt's knowledge of these things was purely vicarious. He +could have told another man when to run, but he didn't know when to run +himself. He could have saved another, himself he could not save--at any +rate from Mrs. Allison. + +He had never seen anyone like her. He pulled his chair a little nearer. +She was so slender, so supple, so--what was it?--svelte! And she had an +air of childish dignity that appealed to him tremendously. There was +nothing, he assured himself, of the vamp about her at all. + +"I only want to get my rights," she said, tremulously. "I'm nearly out +of my mind. I don't know what to do or where to turn!" + +"Is there"--he forced himself to utter the word with difficulty--"a--a +man involved?" + +She flushed and bowed her head sadly, and instantly a poignant rage +possessed him. + +"A man I trusted absolutely," she replied in a low voice. + +"His name?" + +"Winthrop Oaklander." + +Tutt gasped audibly, for the name was that of one of Manhattan's most +distinguished families, the founder of which had swapped glass beads and +red-flannel shirts with the aborigines for what was now the most +precious water frontage in the world--and moreover, Mrs. Allison +informed Tutt, he was a clergyman. + +"I don't wonder you're surprised!" agreed Mrs. Allison. + +"Why--I--I'm--not surprised at all!" prevaricated Tutt, at the same time +groping for his silk handkerchief. "You don't mean to say you've got a +case against this man Oaklander!" + +"I have indeed!" she retorted with firmly compressed lips. "That is, if +it is what you call a case for a man to promise to marry a woman and +then in the end refuse to do so." + +"Of course it is!" answered Tutt. "But why on earth wouldn't he?" + +"He found out I had been divorced," she explained. "Up to that time +everything had been lovely. You see he thought I was a widow." + +"Ah!" + +Mr. Tutt experienced another pang of resentment against mankind in +general. + +"I had a leading part in one of the season's successes on Broadway," she +continued miserably. "But when Mr. Oaklander promised to marry me I left +the stage; and now--I have nothing!" + +"Poor child!" sighed Tutt. + +He would have liked to take her in his arms and comfort her, but he +always kept the door into the outer office open on principle. + +"You know, Mr. Oaklander is the pastor of St. Lukes-Over-the-Way," said +Mrs. Allison. "I thought that maybe rather than have any publicity he +might do a little something for me." + +"I suppose you've got something in the way of evidence, haven't you? +Letters or photographs or something?" inquired Tutt, reverting +absent-mindedly to his more professional manner. + +"No," she answered. "We never wrote to one another. And when we went out +it was usually in the evening. I don't suppose half a dozen people have +ever seen us together." + +"That's awkward!" meditated Tutt, "if he denies it." + +"Of course he will deny it!" + +"You can't tell. He may not." + +"Oh, yes, he will! Why, he even refuses to admit that he ever met me!" +declared Mrs. Allison indignantly. + +Now, to Tutt's credit be it said that neither at this point nor at any +other did any suspicion of Mrs. Allison's sincerity enter his mind. For +the first time in his professional existence he accepted what a lady +client told him at its face value. Indeed he felt that no one, not even +a clergyman, could help loving so miraculous a woman, or that loving her +one could refrain from marrying her save for some religious or other +permanent obstacle He was sublimely, ecstatically happy in the mere +thought that he, Tutt, might be of help to such a celestial being, and +he desired no reward other than the privilege of being her willing slave +and of reading her gratitude in those melting, misty eyes. + +Mrs. Allison went away just before lunch time, leaving her telephone +number, her handkerchief, a pungent odor of violet talc, and a +disconsolate but highly excited Tutt. Never, at any rate within twenty +years, had he felt so young. Life seemed tinged with every color of the +spectrum. The radiant fact was that he would--he simply had to--see her +again. What he might do for her professionally--all that aspect of the +affair was shoved far into the background of his mind. His only thought +was how to get her back into his office at the earliest possible moment. + +"Shall I enter the lady's name in the address book?" inquired Miss +Wiggin coldly as he went out to get a bite of lunch. + +Tutt hesitated. + +"Mrs. Georgie Allison is her name," he said in a detached sort of way. + +"Address?" + +Tutt felt in his waistcoat pocket. + +"By George!" he muttered, "I didn't take it. But her telephone number is +Lincoln Square 9187." + +To chronicle the details of Tutt's second blooming would be needlessly +to derogate from the dignity of the history of Tutt & Tutt. There is a +silly season in the life of everyone--even of every lawyer--who can call +himself a man, and out of such silliness comes the gravity of knowledge. +Tutt found it necessary for his new client to come to the office almost +every day, and as she usually arrived about the noon hour what was more +natural than that he should invite her out to lunch? Twice he walked +home with her. The telephone was busy constantly. And the only thorn in +the rose of Tutt's delirious happiness was the fear lest Abigail might +discover something. The thought gave him many an anxious hour, cost him +several sleepless nights. At times this nervousness about his wife +almost exceeded the delight of having Mrs. Allison for a friend. Yet +each day he became on more and more cordial terms with her, and the +lunches became longer and more intimate. + +The Reverend Winthrop Oaklander gave no sign of life, however. The +customary barrage of legal letters had been laid down, but without +eliciting any response. The Reverend Winthrop must be a wise one, opined +Tutt, and he began to have a hearty contempt as well as hatred for his +quarry. The first letter had been the usual vague hint that the +clergyman might and probably would find it to his advantage to call at +the offices of Tutt & Tutt, and so on. The Reverend Winthrop, however +did not seem to care to secure said advantage whatever it might be. The +second epistle gave the name of the client and proposed a friendly +discussion of her affairs. No reply. The third hinted at legal +proceedings. Total silence. The fourth demanded ten thousand dollars +damages and threatened immediate suit. + +In answer to this last appeared the Reverend Winthrop himself. He was a +fine-looking young chap with a clear eye--almost as blue as +Georgie's--and a skin even pinker than hers, and he stood six feet five +in his Oxfords and his fist looked to Tutt as big as a coconut. + +"Are you the blackmailer who's been writing me those letters?" he +demanded, springing into Tutt's office. "If you are, let me tell you +something. You've got hold of the wrong monkey. I've been dealing with +fellows of your variety ever since I got out of the seminary. I don't +know the lady you pretend to represent, and I never heard of her. If I +get any more letters from you I'll go down and lay the case before the +district attorney; and if he doesn't put you in jail I'll come up here +and knock your head off. Understand? Good day!" + +At any other period in his existence Tutt could not have failed to be +impressed with the honesty of this husky exponent of the church +militant, but he was drugged as by the drowsy mandragora. The blatant +defiance of this muscular preacher outraged him. This canting hypocrite, +this wolf in priest's clothing must be brought to book. But how? Mrs. +Allison had admitted the literal truth when she had told him that there +were no letters, no photographs. There was no use commencing an action +for breach of promise if there was no evidence to support it. And once +the papers were filed their bolt would have been shot. Some way must be +devised whereby the Reverend Winthrop Oaklander could be made to +perceive that Tutt & Tutt meant business, and--equally imperative +--whereby Georgie would be impressed with the fact that not +for nothing had she come to them--that is, to him--for help. + +The fact of the matter was that the whole thing had become rather +hysterical. Tutt, though having nothing seriously to reproach himself +with, was constantly haunted by a sense of being rather ridiculous and +doing something behind his wife's back. He told himself that his +Platonic regard for Georgie was a noble thing and did him honor, but it +was an honor which he preferred to wear as an entirely private +decoration. He was conscious of being laughed at by Willie and Scraggs +and disapproved of by Miss Wiggin, who was very snippy to him. And in +addition there was the omnipresent horror of having Abigail unearth his +philandering. He now not only thought of Mrs. Allison as Georgie but +addressed her thus, and there was quite a tidy little bill at the +florist's for flowers that he had sent her. In one respect only did he +exhibit even the most elementary caution--he wrote and signed all his +letters to her himself upon the typewriter, and filed copies in the +safe. + +"So there we are!" he sighed as he gave to Mrs. Allison a somewhat +expurgated, or rather emasculated version of the Reverend Winthrop's +visit. "We have got to hand him something hot or make up our minds to +surrender. In a word we have got to scare him--Georgie." + +And then it was that, like the apocryphal mosquito, the Fat and Skinny +Club justified its attempted existence. For the indefatigable Sorg made +an unheralded reappearance in the outer office and insisted upon seeing +Tutt, loudly asserting that he had reason to believe that if a new +application were now made to another judge--whom he knew--it would be +more favorably received. Tutt went to the doorway and stood there +barring the entrance and expostulating with him. + +"All right!" shouted Sorg. "All right! I hear you! But don't tell me +that a man named Solomon Swackhamer can change his name to Phillips +Brooks Vanderbilt and in the same breath a reputable body of citizens be +denied the right to call themselves what they please!" + +"He don't understand!" explained Tutt to Georgie, who had listened with +wide, dreamy eyes. "He don't appreciate the difference between doing a +thing as an individual and as a group." + +"What thing?" + +"Why, taking a name." + +"I don't get you," said Georgie. + +"Sorg wanted to call his crowd the Fat and Skinny Club, and the court +wouldn't let him--thought it was silly." + +"Well?" + +"But he could have called himself Mr. Fat or Mr. Skinny or Mr. Anything +Else without having to ask anybody--Oh, I say!" + +Tutt had stiffened into sculpture. + +"What is it?" demanded Georgie fascinated. + +"I've got an idea," he cried. "You can call yourself anything you like. +Why not call yourself Mrs. Winthrop Oaklander?" + +"But what good would that do?" she asked vaguely. + +"Look here!" directed Tutt. "This is the surest thing you know! Just go +up to the Biltmore and register as Mrs. Winthrop Oaklander. You have a +perfect legal right to do it. You could call yourself Mrs. Julius Caesar +if you wanted to. Take a room and stay there until our young Christian +soldier offers you a suitable inducement to move along. Even if you're +violating the law somehow his first attempt to make trouble for you will +bring about the very publicity he is anxious to avoid. Why, it's +marvelous--and absolutely safe? They can't touch you. He'll come across +inside of two hours. If he doesn't a word to the reporters will start +things in the right direction." + +For a moment Mrs. Allison looked puzzled. Then her beautiful face broke +into an enthusiastic classic smile and she laid her little hand softly +on his arm. + +"What a clever boy you are--Sammy!" + +A subdued snigger came from the direction of the desk usually occupied +by William. Tutt flushed. It was one thing to call Mrs. Allison +"Georgie" in private and another to have her "Sammy" him within hearing +of the office force. And just then Miss Wiggin passed by with her nose +slightly in the air. + +"What a perfectly wonderful idea!" went on Mrs. Allison rapturously. "A +perfectly wonderful idea!" + +Then she smiled a strange, mysterious, significant smile that almost +tore Tutt's heart out by the roots. + +"Listen, Sammy," she whispered, with a new light in those beautiful +eyes. "I want five thousand dollars." + +"Five?" repeated Tutt simply. "I thought you wanted ten thousand!" + +"Only five from you, Sammy!" + +"Me!" he gagged. + +"You--dearest!" + +Tutt turned blazing hot; then cold, dizzy and sea-sick. His sight was +slightly blurred. Slowly he groped for the door and closed it +cautiously. + +"What--are--you--talking about?" he choked, though he knew perfectly +well. + +Georgie had thrown herself back in the leather chair by his desk and had +opened her gold mesh-bag. + +"About five thousand dollars," she replied with the careful enunciation +of a New England school-mistress. + +"What five thousand dollars?" + +"The five you're going to hand me before I leave this office, Sammy +darling," she retorted dazzlingly. + +Tutt's head swam and he sank weakly into his swivel chair. It was +incredible that he, a veteran of the criminal bar, should have been so +tricked. Instantly, as when a reagent is injected into a retort of +chemicals and a precipitate is formed leaving the previously cloudy +liquid like crystal, Tutt's addled brain cleared. He was caught! The +victim of his own asininity. He dared not look at this woman who had +wound him thus round her finger, innocent as he was of any wrongdoing; +he was ashamed to think of his wife. + +"My Lord!" he murmured, realizing for the first time the depth of his +weakness. + +"Oh, it isn't as bad as that!" she laughed. "Remember you were going to +charge Oaklander ten thousand. This costs you only five. Special rates +for physicians and lawyers!" + +"And suppose I don't choose to give it to you?" he asked. + +"Listen here, you funny little man!" she answered in caressing tones +that made him writhe. "You'd stand for twenty if I insisted on it. Oh, +don't jump! I'm not going to. You're getting off easy--too easy. But I +want to stay on good terms with you. I may need you sometime in my +business. Your certified check for five thousand dollars--and I leave +you." + +She struck a match and started to light a tiny gold-tipped cigarette. + +"Don't!" he gasped. "Not in the office." + +"Do I get the five thousand?" + +He ground his teeth, not yet willing to concede defeat. + +"You silly old bird!" she said. "Do you know how many times you've had +me down here in your office in the last three weeks? Fifteen. How many +times you've taken me out to lunch? Ten. How often you've called me on +the telephone? Eighty-nine How many times you've sent me flowers? +Twelve. How many letters you've written me? Eleven! Oh, I realize +they're typewritten, but a photograph enlargement would show they were +typed in your office. Every typewriter has its own individuality, you +know. Your clerks and office boy have heard me call you Sammy. Why, +every time you've moved with me beside you someone has seen you. That's +enough, isn't it? But now, on top of all that, you go and hand me +exactly what I need on a gold plate." + +He gazed at her stupidly. + +"Why, if now you don't give me that check I shall simply go up to the +Biltmore and register as Mrs. Samuel Tutt. I shall take a room and stay +there until you offer me a proper inducement to move on." She giggled +delightedly. "It's marvelous--absolutely safe," she quoted. "They can't +touch me. You'll come across inside of two hours. If you don't a word to +the reporters will start things in the right direction." + +"Don't!" he groaned. "I must have been crazy. That was simply +blackmail!" + +"That's exactly what it was!" she agreed. "There aren't any letters +except these typewritten ones, or photographs, or any evidence at all, +but you're going to give me five thousand dollars just the same. Just so +that your wife won't know what a silly old fool you've been. Where's +your check book, Sam?" + +Tutt pulled out the bottom drawer of his desk and slowly removed his +personal check book. With his fountain pen in his hand he paused and +looked at her. + +"Rather than give you another cent I'd stand the gaff," he remarked +defiantly. + +"I know it," she answered. "I looked you up before I came here the first +time. You are good for exactly five thousand dollars." + +Tutt filled out the check to cash and sent Willie across the street to +the bank to have it certified. The sun was just sinking over the Jersey +shore beyond the Statue of Liberty and the surface of the harbor +undulated like iridescent watered silk. The clouds were torn into +golden-purple rents, and the air was so clear that one could look down +the Narrows far out to the open sea. Standing there by the window Mrs. +Allison looked as innocently beautiful as the day Tutt had first beheld +her. After all, he thought, perhaps the experience had been worth the +money. + +Something of the same thought may have occurred to the lady, for as she +took the check and carefully examined the certification she remarked +with a distinct access of cordiality: "Really, Sammy, you're quite a +nice little man. I rather like you." + +Tutt stood after she had gone watching the sunset until the west was +only a mass of leaden shadows Then, strangely relieved, he took his hat +and started out of the office. Somewhat to his surprise he found Miss +Wiggin still at her desk. + +"By the way," she remarked casually as he passed her, "what shall I +charge that check to? The one you just drew to cash for five thousand +dollars?" + +"Charge it to life insurance," he said shortly. + +He felt almost gay as he threaded his way through the crowds along +Broadway. Somehow a tremendous load had been lifted from his shoulders +He would no longer be obliged to lead a sneaking, surreptitious +existence. He felt like shouting with joy now that he could look the +world frankly in the face. The genuine agony he had endured during the +past three weeks loomed like a sickness behind him. He had been a +fool--and there was no fool like an old one. Just let him get back to +his old Abigail and there'd be no more wandering-boy business for him! +Abigail might not have the figure or the complexion that Georgie had, +but she was a darn sight more reliable. Henceforth she could have him +from five p.m. to nine a.m. without reserve. As for kicking over the +traces, sowing wild oats and that sort of thing, there was nothing in it +for him. Give him Friend Wife. + +He stopped at the florist's and, having paid a bill of thirty-six +dollars for Georgie's flowers, purchased a double bunch of violets and +carried them home with him. Abigail was watching for him out of the +window. Something warm rushed to his heart at the sight of her. Through +the lace curtains she looked quite trim. + +"Hello, old girl!" he cried, as she opened the door. "Waiting for me, +eh? Here's a bunch of posies for you." + +And he kissed her on the cheek. + +"That's more than I ever did to Georgie," he said to himself. + +"Why, Samuel!" laughed Abigail with a faded blush. "What's ever got into +you?" + +"Dunno!" he retorted gaily. "The spring, I guess. What do you say to a +little dinner at a restaurant and then going to the play?" + +She bridled--being one of the generation who did such things--with +pleasure. + +"Seems to me you're getting rather extravagant." she objected. "Still--" + +"Oh, come along!" he bullied her. "One of my clients collected five +thousand dollars this afternoon." + +Tutt summoned a taxi and they drove to the brightest, most glittering of +Broadway hostelries. Abigail had never been in such a chic place before. +It half terrified and shocked her, all those women in dresses that +hardly came up to their armpits. Some of them were handsome though. That +slim one at the table by the pillar, for instance. She was really quite +lovely with that mass of yellow-golden hair, that startlingly white +skin, and those misty China-blue eyes. And the gentleman with her, the +tall man with the pink cheeks, was very handsome, too. + +"Look, Samuel," she said, touching his hand. "See that good-looking +couple over there." + +But Samuel was looking at them already--intently. And just then the +beautiful woman turned and, catching sight of the Tutts, smiled +cordially if somewhat roguishly and raised her glass, as did her +companion. Mechanically Tutt elevated his. The three drank to one +another. + +"Do you know those people, Samuel?" inquired Mrs. Tutt somewhat stiffly. +"Who are they?" + +"Oh, those over there?" he repeated absently. "I don't really know what +the lady's name is, she's been down to our office a few times. But the +man is Winthrop Oaklander--and the funny part of it is, I always thought +he was a clergyman." + +Later in the evening he turned to her between the acts and remarked +inconsequently: "Say, Abbie, do I look as if I'd just had my hair cut?" + + + + +The Dog Andrew + + + "Every dog is entitled to one bite."--UNREPORTED + OPINION OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION OF THE NEW + YORK SUPREME COURT. + +"Now see here!" shouted Mr. Appleboy, coming out of the boathouse, where +he was cleaning his morning's catch of perch, as his neighbor Mr. +Tunnygate crashed through the hedge and cut across Appleboy's parched +lawn to the beach. "See here, Tunnygate, I won't have you trespassing on +my place! I've told you so at least a dozen times! Look at the hole +you've made in that hedge, now! Why can't you stay in the path?" + +His ordinarily good-natured countenance was suffused with anger and +perspiration. His irritation with Mr. Tunnygate had reached the point of +explosion. Tunnygate was a thankless friend and he was a great cross to +Mr. Appleboy. Aforetime the two had been intimate in the fraternal, +taciturn intimacy characteristic of fat men, an attraction perhaps akin +to that exerted for one another by celestial bodies of great mass, for +it is a fact that stout people do gravitate toward one another--and hang +or float in placid juxtaposition, perhaps merely as a physical result of +their avoirdupois. So Appleboy and Tunnygate had swum into each other's +spheres of influence, either blown by the dallying winds of chance or +drawn by some mysterious animal magnetism, and, being both addicted to +the delights of the soporific sport sanctified by Izaak Walton, had +raised unto themselves portable temples upon the shores of Long Island +Sound in that part of the geographical limits of the Greater City known +as Throggs Neck. + +Every morn during the heat of the summer months Appleboy would rouse +Tunnygate or conversely Tunnygate would rouse Appleboy, and each in his +own wobbly skiff would row out to the spot which seemed most propitious +to the piscatorial art. There, under two green umbrellas, like two fat +rajahs in their shaking howdahs upon the backs of two white elephants, +the friends would sit in solemn equanimity awaiting the evasive cunner, +the vagrant perch or cod or the occasional flirtatious eel. They rarely +spoke and when they did the edifice of their conversation--their Tower +of Babel, so to speak--was monosyllabic. Thus: + +"Huh! Ain't had a bite!" + +"Huh!" + +"Huh!" + +Silence for forty minutes. Then: "Huh! Had a bite?" + +"Nope!" + +"Huh!" + +That was generally the sum total of their interchange Yet it satisfied +them, for their souls were in harmony. To them it was pregnant of +unutterable meanings, of philosophic mysteries more subtle than those of +the esoterics, of flowers and poetry, of bird-song and twilight, of all +the nuances of softly whispered avowals, of the elusive harmonies of +love's half-fainting ecstasy. + +"Huh!" + +"Huh!" + +And then into this Eden--only not by virtue of the excision of any +vertebra such as was originally necessary in the case of Adam--burst +woman. There was silence no longer. The air was rent with clamor; for +both Appleboy and Tunnygate, within a month of one another, took unto +themselves wives. Wives after their own image! + +For a while things went well enough; it takes ladies a few weeks to find +out each other's weak points. But then the new Mrs. Tunnygate +unexpectedly yet undeniably began to exhibit the serpent's tooth, the +adder's tongue or the cloven hoof--as the reader's literary traditions +may lead him to prefer. For no obvious reason at all she conceived a +violent hatred of Mrs. Appleboy, a hatred that waxed all the more +virulent on account of its object's innocently obstinate refusal to +comprehend or recognize it. Indeed Mrs. Tunnygate found it so difficult +to rouse Mrs. Appleboy into a state of belligerency sufficiently +interesting that she soon transferred her energies to the more worthy +task of making Appleboy's life a burden to him. + +To this end she devoted herself with a truly Machiavellian ingenuity, +devising all sorts of insults irritations and annoyances, and adding to +the venom of her tongue the inventive cunning of a Malayan witch doctor. +The Appleboys' flower-pots mysteriously fell off the piazza, their +thole-pins disappeared, their milk bottles vanished, Mr. Appleboy's fish +lines acquired a habit of derangement equaled only by barbed-wire +entanglements, and his clams went bad! But these things might have been +borne had it not been for the crowning achievement of her malevolence, +the invasion of the Appleboys' cherished lawn, upon which they lavished +all that anxious tenderness which otherwise they might have devoted to a +child. + +It was only about twenty feet by twenty, and it was bordered by a hedge +of moth-eaten privet, but anyone who has ever attempted to induce a +blade of grass to grow upon a sand dune will fully appreciate the +deviltry of Mrs. Tunnygate's malignant mind. Already there was a horrid +rent where Tunnygate had floundered through at her suggestion in order +to save going round the pathetic grass plot which the Appleboys had +struggled to create where Nature had obviously intended a floral vacuum. +Undoubtedly it had been the sight of Mrs. Appleboy with her small +watering pot patiently encouraging the recalcitrant blades that had +suggested the malicious thought to Mrs. Tunnygate that maybe the +Appleboys didn't own that far up the beach. They didn't--that was the +mockery of it. Like many others they had built their porch on their +boundary line, and, as Mrs. Tunnygate pointed out, they were claiming to +own something that wasn't theirs. So Tunnygate, in daily obedience to +his spouse, forced his way through the hedge to the beach, and daily the +wrath of the Appleboys grew until they were driven almost to +desperation. + +Now when the two former friends sat fishing in their skiffs they either +contemptuously ignored one another or, if they "Huh-Huhed!" at all the +"Huhs!" resembled the angry growls of infuriated beasts. The worst of it +was that the Appleboys couldn't properly do anything about it. Tunnygate +had, as Mrs. Tunnygate sneeringly pointed out, a perfect legal right to +push his way through the hedge and tramp across the lawn, and she didn't +propose to allow the Appleboys to gain any rights by proscription, +either. Not much! + +Therefore, when Mr. Appleboy addressed to Mr. Tunnygate the remarks with +which this story opens, the latter insolently replied in words, form or +substance that Mr. Appleboy could go to hell. Moreover, as he went by +Mr. Appleboy he took pains to kick over a clod of transplanted sea +grass, nurtured by Mrs. Appleboy as the darling of her bosom, and +designed to give an air of verisimilitude to an otherwise bare and +unconvincing surface of sand. Mr. Appleboy almost cried with vexation. + +"Oh!" he ejaculated, struggling for words to express the full content of +his feeling. "Gosh, but you're--mean!" + +He hit it! Curiously enough, that was exactly the word! Tunnygate was +mean--and his meanness was second only to that of the fat hippopotama +his wife. + +Then, without knowing why, for he had no formulated ideas as to the +future, and probably only intended to try to scare Tunnygate with vague +threats, Appleboy added: "I warn you not to go through that hedge again! +Understand--I warn you! And if you do I won't be responsible for the +consequences!" + +He really didn't mean a thing by the words, and Tunnygate knew it. + +"Huh!" retorted the latter contemptuously. "You!" + +Mr. Appleboy went inside the shack and banged the door. Mrs. Appleboy +was peeling potatoes in the kitchen-living room. + +"I can't stand it!" he cried weakly. "He's driving me wild!" + +"Poor lamb!" soothed Mrs. Appleboy, peeling an interminable rind. "Ain't +that just a sweetie? Look! It's most as long as your arm!" + +She held it up dangling between her thumb and fore-finger. Then, with a +groan she dropped it at his feet. "I know it's a real burden to you, +deary!" she sighed. + +Suddenly they both bent forward with startled eyes, hypnotized by the +peel upon the floor. + +Unmistakably it spelt "dog"! They looked at one another significantly. + +"It is a symbol!" breathed Mrs. Appleboy in an awed whisper. + +"Whatever it is, it's some grand idea!" exclaimed her husband. "Do you +know anybody who's got one? I mean a--a--" + +"I know just what you mean," she agreed. "I wonder we never thought of +it before! But there wouldn't be any use in getting any dog!" + +"Oh, no!" he concurred. "We want a real--dog!" + +"One you know about!" she commented. + +"The fact is," said he, rubbing his forehead, "if they know about 'em +they do something to 'em. It ain't so easy to get the right kind." + +"Oh, we'll get one!" she encouraged him. "Now Aunt Eliza up to Livornia +used to have one. It made a lot of trouble and they ordered her--the +selectmen did--to do away with it. But she only pretended she had--she +didn't really--and I think she's got him yet." + +"Gee!" said Mr. Appleboy tensely. "What sort was it?" + +"A bull!" she replied. "With a big white face." + +"That's the kind!" he agreed excitedly. "What was its name?" + +"Andrew," she answered. + +"That's a queer name for a dog!" he commented "Still, I don't care what +his name is, so long as he's the right kind of dog! Why don't you write +to Aunt Eliza to-night?" + +"Of course Andrew may be dead," she hazarded. "Dogs do die." + +"Oh, I guess Andrew isn't dead!" he said hopefully "That tough kind of +dog lasts a long time. What will you say to Aunt Eliza?" + +Mrs. Appleboy went to the dresser and took a pad and pencil from one of +the shelves. + +"Oh, something like this," she answered, poising the pencil over the +pad in her lap: + +"Dear Aunt Eliza: I hope you are quite well. It is sort of lonely living +down here on the beach and there are a good many rough characters, so we +are looking for a dog for companionship and protection Almost any kind +of healthy dog would do and you may be sure he would have a good home. +Hoping to see you soon. Your affectionate niece, Bashemath." + +"I hope she'll send us Andrew," said Appleboy fervently. + +"I guess she will!" nodded Bashemath. + + * * * * * + +"What on earth is that sign?" wrathfully demanded Mrs. Tunnygate one +morning about a week later as she looked across the Appleboys' lawn from +her kitchen window. "Can you read it, Herman?" + +Herman stopped trying to adjust his collar and went out on the piazza. + +"Something about 'dog'," he declared finally. + +"Dog!" she exclaimed. "They haven't got a dog!" + +"Well," he remarked, "that's what the sign says: 'Beware of the dog'! +And there's something above it. Oh! 'No crossing this property. +Trespassing forbidden.'" + +"What impudence!" avowed Mrs. Tunnygate. "Did you ever know such +people! First they try and take land that don't belong to them, and then +they go and lie about having a dog. Where are they, anyway?" + +"I haven't seen 'em this morning," he answered. "Maybe they've gone away +and put up the sign so we won't go over. Think that'll stop us!" + +"In that case they've got another think comin'!" she retorted angrily. +"I've a good mind to have you go over and tear up the whole place!" + +"'N pull up the hedge?" he concurred eagerly. "Good chance!" + +Indeed, to Mr. Tunnygate it seemed the supreme opportunity both to +distinguish himself in the eyes of his blushing bride and to gratify +that perverse instinct inherited from our cave-dwelling ancestors to +destroy utterly--in order, perhaps, that they may never seek to avenge +themselves upon us--those whom we have wronged. Accordingly Mr. +Tunnygate girded himself with his suspenders, and with a gleam of +fiendish exultation in his eye stealthily descended from his porch and +crossed to the hole in the hedge. No one was in sight except two +barefooted searchers after clams a few hundred yards farther up the +beach and a man working in a field half a mile away. The bay shimmered +in the broiling August sun and from a distant grove came the rattle and +wheeze of locusts. Throggs Neck blazed in silence, and utterly silent +was the house of Appleboy. + +With an air of bravado, but with a slightly accelerated heartbeat, +Tunnygate thrust himself through the hole in the hedge and looked +scornfully about the Appleboy lawn. A fierce rage worked through his +veins. A lawn! What effrontery! What business had these condescending +second-raters to presume to improve a perfectly good beach which was +satisfactory to other folks? He'd show 'em! He took a step in the +direction of the transplanted sea grass. Unexpectedly the door of the +Appleboy kitchen opened. + +"I warned you!" enunciated Mr. Appleboy with unnatural calmness, which +with another background might have struck almost anybody as suspicious. + +"Huh!" returned the startled Tunnygate, forced under the circumstances +to assume a nonchalance that he did not altogether feel. "You!" + +"Well," repeated Mr. Appleboy. "Don't ever say I didn't!" + +"Pshaw!" ejaculated Mr. Tunnygate disdainfully. + +With premeditation and deliberation, and with undeniable malice +aforethought, he kicked the nearest bunch of sea grass several feet in +the air. His violence carried his leg high in the air and he partially +lost his equilibrium. Simultaneously a white streak shot from beneath +the porch and something like a red-hot poker thrust itself savagely into +an extremely tender part of his anatomy. + +"Ouch! O--o--oh!" he yelled in agony. "Oh!" + +"Come here, Andrew!" said Mr. Appleboy mildly. "Good doggy! Come here!" + +But Andrew paid no attention. He had firmly affixed himself to the base +of Mr. Tunnygate's personality without any intention of being +immediately detached. And he had selected that place, taken aim, and +discharged himself with an air of confidence and skill begotten of +lifelong experience. + +"Oh! O--o--oh!" screamed Tunnygate, turning wildly and clawing through +the hedge, dragging Andrew after him. "Oh! O--oh!" + +Mrs. Tunnygate rushed to the door in time to see her spouse lumbering up +the beach with a white object gyrating in the air behind him. + +"What's the matter?" she called out languidly. Then perceiving the +matter she hastily followed. The Appleboys were standing on their lawn +viewing the whole proceeding with ostentatious indifference. + +Up the beach fled Tunnygate, his cries becoming fainter and fainter. The +two clam diggers watched him curiously, but made no attempt to go to his +assistance. The man in the field leaned luxuriously upon his hoe and +surrendered himself to unalloyed delight. Tunnygate was now but a white +flicker against the distant sand. His wails had a dying fall: +"O--o--oh!" + +"Well, we warned him!" remarked Mr. Appleboy to Bashemath with a smile +in which, however, lurked a slight trace of apprehension. + +"We certainly did!" she replied. Then after a moment she added a trifle +anxiously: "I wonder what will happen to Andrew!" + +Tunnygate did not return. Neither did Andrew. Secluded in their kitchen +living-room the Appleboys heard a motor arrive and through a crack in +the door saw it carry Mrs. Tunnygate away bedecked as for some momentous +ceremonial. At four o'clock, while Appleboy was digging bait, he +observed another motor making its wriggly way along the dunes. It was +fitted longitudinally with seats, had a wire grating and was marked +"N.Y.P.D." Two policemen in uniform sat in front. Instinctively Appleboy +realized that the gods had called him. His heart sank among the clams. +Slowly he made his way back to the lawn where the wagon had stopped +outside the hedge. + +"Hey there!" called out the driver. "Is your name Appleboy?" + +Appleboy nodded. + +"Put your coat on, then, and come along," directed the other. "I've got +a warrant for you." + +"Warrant?" stammered Appleboy dizzily. + +"What's that?" cried Bashemath, appearing at the door. "Warrant for +what?" + +The officer slowly descended and handed Appleboy a paper. + +"For assault," he replied. "I guess you know what for, all right!" + +"We haven't assaulted anybody," protested Mrs. Appleboy heatedly. +"Andrew--" + +"You can explain all that to the judge," retorted the cop. "Meantime put +on your duds and climb in. If you don't expect to spend the night at the +station you'd better bring along the deed of your house so you can give +bail." + +"But who's the warrant for?" persisted Mrs. Appleboy. + +"For Enoch Appleboy," retorted the cop wearily. "Can't you read?" + +"But Enoch didn't do a thing!" she declared. "It was Andrew!" + +"Who's Andrew?" inquired the officer of the law mistrustfully. + +"Andrew's a dog," she explained. + + * * * * * + +"Mr. Tutt," announced Tutt, leaning against his senior partner's door +jamb with a formal-looking paper in his hand, "I have landed a case +that will delight your legal soul." + +"Indeed?" queried the elder lawyer. "I have never differentiated between +my legal soul and any other I may possess. However, I assume from your +remark that we have been retained in a matter presenting some peculiarly +absurd, archaic or otherwise interesting doctrine of law?" + +"Not directly," responded Tutt. "Though you will doubtless find it +entertaining enough, but indirectly--atmospherically so to speak--it +touches upon doctrines of jurisprudence, of religion and of philosophy, +replete with historic fascination." + +"Good!" exclaimed Mr. Tutt, laying down his stogy. "What kind of a case +is it?" + +"It's a dog case!" said the junior partner, waving the paper. "The dog +bit somebody." + +"Ah!" exclaimed Mr. Tutt, perceptibly brightening. "Doubtless we shall +find a precedent in Oliver Goldsmith's famous elegy: + + "And in that town a dog was found, + As many dogs there be, + Both mongrel, puppy, whelp, and hound, + And curs of low degree." + +"Only," explained Tutt, "in this case, though the man recovered of the +bite, the dog refused to die!" + +"And so they want to prosecute the dog? It can't be done. An animal +hasn't been brought to the bar of justice for several centuries." + +"No, no!" interrupted Tutt. "They don't--" + +"There was a case," went on Mr. Tutt reminiscently "Let me see--at +Sauvigny, I think it was--about 1457, when they tried a sow and three +pigs for killing a child. The court assigned a lawyer to defend her, but +like many assigned counsel he couldn't think of anything to say in her +behalf. As regards the little pigs he did enter the plea that no animus +was shown, that they had merely followed the example of their mother, +and that at worst they were under age and irresponsible. However, the +court found them all guilty, and the sow was publicly hanged in the +market place." + +"What did they do with the three little pigs?" inquired Tutt with some +interest. + +"They were pardoned on account of their extreme youth," said Mr. Tutt, +"and turned loose again--with a warning." + +"I'm glad of that!" sighed Tutt. "Is that a real case?" + +"Absolutely," replied his partner. "I've read it in the Sauvigny +records." + +"I'll be hanged!" exclaimed Tutt. "I never knew that animals were ever +held personally responsible." + +"Why, of course they were!" said Mr. Tutt. "Why shouldn't they be? If +animals have souls why shouldn't they be responsible for their acts?" + +"But they haven't any souls!" protested Tutt. + +"Haven't they now?" remarked the elder lawyer. "I've seen many an old +horse that had a great deal more conscience than his master. And on +general principles wouldn't it be far more just and humane to have the +law deal with a vicious animal that had injured somebody than to leave +its punishment to an irresponsible and arbitrary owner who might be +guilty of extreme brutality?" + +"If the punishment would do any good--yes!" agreed Tutt. + +"Well, who knows?" meditated Mr. Tutt. "I wonder if it ever does any +good? But anybody would have to agree that responsibility for one's acts +should depend upon the degree of one's intelligence--and from that point +of view many of our friends are really much less responsible than +sheep." + +"Which, as you so sagely point out, would, however be a poor reason for +letting their families punish them in case they did wrong. Just think +how such a privilege might be abused! If Uncle John didn't behave +himself as his nephews thought proper they could simply set upon him and +briskly beat him up." + +"Yes, of course, the law even to-day recognizes the right to exercise +physical discipline within the family. Even homicide is excusable, under +Section 1054 of our code, when committed in lawfully correcting a child +or servant." + +"That's a fine relic of barbarism!" remarked Tutt. "But the child soon +passes through that dangerous zone and becomes entitled to be tried for +his offenses by a jury of his peers; the animal never does." + +"Well, an animal couldn't be tried by a jury of his peers, anyhow," said +Mr. Tutt. + +"I've seen juries that were more like nanny goats than men!" commentated +Tutt. "I'd like to see some of our clients tried by juries of geese or +woodchucks." + +"The field of criminal responsibility is the No Man's Land of the law," +mused Mr. Tutt. "Roughly, mental capacity to understand the nature of +one's acts is the test, but it is applied arbitrarily in the case of +human beings and a mere point of time is taken beyond which, +irrespective of his actual intelligence, a man is held accountable for +whatever he does. Of course that is theoretically unsound. The more +intelligent a person is the more responsible he should be held to be and +the higher the quality of conduct demanded of him by his fellows. Yet +after twenty-one all are held equally responsible--unless they're +actually insane. It isn't equity! In theory no man or animal should be +subject to the power of discretionary punishment on the part of +another--even his own father or master. I've often wondered what earthly +right we have to make the animals work for us--to bind them to slavery +when we denounce slavery as a crime. It would horrify us to see a human +being put up and sold at auction. Yet we tear the families of animals +apart, subject them to lives of toil, and kill them whenever we see fit. +We say we do this because their intelligence is limited and they cannot +exercise any discrimination in their conduct, that they are always in +the zone of irresponsibility and so have no rights. But I've seen +animals that were shrewder than men, and men who were vastly less +intelligent than animals." + +"Right-o!" assented Tutt. "Take Scraggs, for instance. He's no more +responsible than a chipmunk." + +"Nevertheless, the law has always been consistent," said Mr. Tutt, "and +has never discriminated between animals any more than it has between men +on the ground of varying degrees of intelligence. They used to try 'em +all, big and little, wild and domesticated, mammals and invertebrates." + +"Oh, come!" exclaimed Tutt. "I may not know much law, but--" + +"Between 1120 and 1740 they prosecuted in France alone no less than +ninety-two animals. The last one was a cow." + +"A cow hasn't much intelligence," observed Tutt. + +"And they tried fleas," added Mr. Tutt. + +"They have a lot!" commented his junior partner. "I knew a flea once, +who--" + +"They had a regular form of procedure," continued Mr. Tutt, brushing the +flea aside, "which was adhered to with the utmost technical accuracy. +You could try an individual animal, either in person or by proxy, or you +could try a whole family, swarm or herd. If a town was infested by rats, +for example, they first assigned counsel--an advocate, he was +called--and then the defendants were summoned three times publicly to +appear. If they didn't show up on the third and last call they were +tried _in absentia_, and if convicted were ordered out of the country +before a certain date under penalty of being exorcised." + +"What happened if they were exorcised?" asked Tutt curiously. + +"It depended a good deal on the local power of Satan," answered the old +lawyer dryly. "Sometimes they became even more prolific and destructive +than they were before, and sometimes they promptly died. All the leeches +were prosecuted at Lausanne in 1451. A few selected representatives +were brought into court, tried, convicted and ordered to depart within +a fixed period. Maybe they didn't fully grasp their obligations or +perhaps were just acting contemptuously, but they didn't depart and so +were promptly exorcised. Immediately they began to die off and before +long there were none left in the country." + +"I know some rats and mice I'd like to have exorcised," mused Tutt. + +"At Autun in the fifteenth century the rats won their case," said Mr. +Tutt. + +"Who got 'em off?" asked Tutt. + +"M. Chassensee, the advocate appointed to defend them. They had been a +great nuisance and were ordered to appear in court. But none of them +turned up. M. Chassensee therefore argued that a default should not be +taken because _all_ the rats had been summoned, and some were either so +young or so old and decrepit that they needed more time. The court +thereupon granted him an extension. However, they didn't arrive on the +day set, and this time their lawyer claimed that they were under duress +and restrained by bodily fear--of the townspeople's cats. That all these +cats, therefore should first be bound over to keep the peace! The court +admitted the reasonableness of this, but the townsfolk refused to be +responsible for their cats and the judge dismissed the case!" + +"What did Chassensee get out of it?" inquired Tutt. + +"There is no record of who paid him or what was his fee." + +"He was a pretty slick lawyer," observed Tutt. "Did they ever try +birds?" + +"Oh, yes!" answered Mr. Tutt. "They tried a cock at Basel in 1474--for +the crime of laying an egg." + +"Why was that a crime?" asked Tutt. "I should call it a _tour de +force_." + +"Be that as it may," said his partner, "from a cock's egg is hatched the +cockatrice, or basilisk, the glance of whose eye turns the beholder to +stone. Therefore they tried the cock, found him guilty and burned him +and his egg together at the stake. That is why cocks don't lay eggs +now." + +"I'm glad to know that," said Tutt. "When did they give up trying +animals?" + +"Nearly two hundred years ago," answered Mr. Tutt. "But for some time +after that they continued to try inanimate objects for causing injury to +people. I've heard they tried one of the first locomotives that ran over +a man and declared it forfeit to the crown as a deodand." + +"I wonder if you couldn't get 'em to try Andrew," hazarded Tutt, "and +maybe declare him forfeited to somebody as a deodand." + +"Deodand means 'given to God,'" explained Mr. Tutt. + +"Well, I'd give Andrew to God--if God would take him," declared Tutt +devoutly. + +"But who is Andrew?" asked Mr. Tutt. + +"Andrew is a dog," said Tutt, "who bit one Tunnygate, and now the Grand +Jury have indicted not the dog, as it is clear from your historical +disquisition they should have done, but the dog's owner, Mr. Enoch +Appleboy." + +"What for?" + +"Assault in the second degree with a dangerous weapon." + +"What was the weapon?" inquired Mr. Tutt simply. + +"The dog." + +"What are you talking about?" cried Mr. Tutt. "What nonsense!" + +"Yes, it is nonsense!" agreed Tutt. "But they've done it all the same. +Read it for yourself!" And he handed Mr. Tutt the indictment. + + * * * * * + +"The Grand Jury of the County of New York by this indictment accuse +Enoch Appleboy of the crime of assault in the second degree, committed +as follows: + +"Said Enoch Appleboy, late of the Borough of Bronx, City and County +aforesaid, on the 21st day of July, in the year of our Lord one +thousand nine hundred and fifteen, at the Borough and County aforesaid, +with force and arms in and upon one Herman Tunnygate, in the peace of +the State and People then and there being, feloniously did willfully and +wrongfully make an assault in and upon the legs and body of him the said +Herman Tunnygate, by means of a certain dangerous weapon, to wit: one +dog, of the form, style and breed known as 'bull,' being of the name of +'Andrew,' then and there being within control of the said Enoch +Appleboy, which said dog, being of the name of 'Andrew,' the said Enoch +Appleboy did then and there feloniously, willfully and wrongfully +incite, provoke, and encourage, then and there being, to bite him, the +said Herman Tunnygate, by means whereof said dog 'Andrew' did then and +there grievously bite the said Herman Tunnygate in and upon the legs and +body of him, the said Herman Tunnygate, and the said Enoch Appleboy thus +then and there feloniously did willfully and wrongfully cut, tear, +lacerate and bruise, and did then and there by the means of the dog +'Andrew' aforesaid feloniously, willfully and wrongfully inflict +grievous bodily harm upon the said Herman Tunnygate, 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." + +"That," asserted Mr. Tutt, wiping his spectacles, "is a document worthy +of preservation in the Congressional Library. Who drew it?" + +"Don't know," answered Tutt, "but whoever he was he was a humorist!" + +"It's no good. There isn't any allegation of _scienter_ in it," affirmed +Mr. Tutt. + +"What of it? It says he assaulted Tunnygate with a dangerous weapon. You +don't have to set forth that he knew it was a dangerous weapon if you +assert that he did it willfully. You don't have to allege in an +indictment charging an assault with a pistol that the defendant knew it +was loaded." + +"But a dog is different!" reasoned Mr. Tutt. "A dog is not _per se_ a +dangerous weapon. Saying so doesn't make it so, and that part of the +indictment is bad on its face--unless, to be sure, it means that he hit +him with a dead dog, which it is clear from the context that he didn't. +The other part--that he set the dog on him--lacks the allegation that +the dog was vicious and that Appleboy knew it; in other words an +allegation of _scienter_. It ought to read that said Enoch Appleboy +'well knowing that said dog Andrew was a dangerous and ferocious animal +and would, if incited, provoked and encouraged, bite the legs and body +of him the said Herman--did then and there feloniously, willfully and +wrongfully incite, provoke and encourage the said Andrew, and so +forth.'" + +"I get you!" exclaimed Tutt enthusiastically. "Of course an allegation +of _scienter_ is necessary! In other words you could demur to the +indictment for insufficiency?" + +Mr. Tutt nodded. + +"But in that case they'd merely go before the Grand Jury and find +another--a good one. It's much better to try and knock the case out on +the trial once and for all." + +"Well, the Appleboys are waiting to see you," said Tutt. "They are in my +office. Bonnie Doon got the case for us off his local district leader, +who's a member of the same lodge of the Abyssinian Mysteries--Bonnie's +been Supreme Exalted Ruler of the Purple Mountain for over a year--and +he's pulled in quite a lot of good stuff, not all dog cases either! +Appleboy's an Abyssinian too." + +"I'll see them," consented Mr. Tutt, "but I'm going to have you try the +case. I shall insist upon acting solely in an advisory capacity. Dog +trials aren't in my line. There are some things which are _infra +dig_--even for Ephraim Tutt." + + * * * * * + +Mr. Appleboy sat stolidly at the bar of justice, pale but resolute. +Beside him sat Mrs. Appleboy, also pale but even more resolute. A jury +had been selected without much manifest attention by Tutt, who had +nevertheless managed to slip in an Abyssinian brother on the back row, +and an ex-dog fancier for Number Six. Also among those present were a +delicatessen man from East Houston Street, a dealer in rubber novelties, +a plumber and the editor of Baby's World. The foreman was almost as fat +as Mr. Appleboy, but Tutt regarded this as an even break on account of +the size of Tunnygate. As Tutt confidently whispered to Mrs. Appleboy, +it was as rotten a jury as he could get. + +Mrs. Appleboy didn't understand why Tutt should want a rotten jury, but +she nevertheless imbibed some vicarious confidence from this statement +and squeezed Appleboy's hand encouragingly. For Appleboy, in spite of +his apparent calm, was a very much frightened man, and under the creases +of his floppy waistcoat his heart was beating like a tom-tom. The +penalty for assault in the second degree was ten years in state's +prison, and life with Bashemath, even in the vicinity of the Tunnygates, +seemed sweet. The thought of breaking stones under the summer sun--it +was a peculiarly hot summer--was awful. Ten years! He could never live +through it! And yet as his glance fell upon the Tunnygates, arrayed in +their best finery and sitting with an air of importance upon the front +bench of the court room, he told himself that he would do the whole +thing all over again--yes, he would! He had only stood up for his +rights, and Tunnygate's blood was upon his own head--or wherever it was. +So he squeezed Bashemath's hand tenderly in response. + +Upon the bench Judge Witherspoon, assigned from somewhere upstate to +help keep down the ever-lengthening criminal calendar of the +Metropolitan District, finished the letter he was writing to his wife in +Genesee County, sealed it and settled back in his chair. An old war +horse of the country bar, he had in his time been mixed up in almost +every kind of litigation, but as he looked over the indictment he with +difficulty repressed a smile. Thirty years ago he'd had a dog case +himself; also of the form, style and breed known as bull. + +"You may proceed, Mister District Attorney!" he announced, and little +Pepperill, the youngest of the D.A.'s staff, just out of the law school, +begoggled and with his hair plastered evenly down on either side of his +small round head, rose with serious mien, and with a high piping voice +opened the prosecution. + +It was, he told them, a most unusual and hence most important case. The +defendant Appleboy had maliciously procured a savage dog of the most +vicious sort and loosed it upon the innocent complainant as he was on +his way to work, with the result that the latter had nearly been torn to +shreds. It was a horrible, dastardly, incredible, fiendish crime, he +would expect them to do their full duty in the premises, and they should +hear Mr. Tunnygate's story from his own lips. + +Mr. Tunnygate limped with difficulty to the stand, and having been sworn +gingerly sat down--partially. Then turning his broadside to the gaping +jury he recounted his woes with indignant gasps. + +"Have you the trousers which you wore upon that occasion?" inquired +Pepperill. + +Mr. Tunnygate bowed solemnly and lifted from the floor a paper parcel +which he untied and from which he drew what remained of that now +historic garment. + +"These are they," he announced dramatically. + +"I offer them in evidence," exclaimed Pepperill, "and I ask the jury to +examine them with great care." + +They did so. + +Tutt waited until the trousers had been passed from hand to hand and +returned to their owner; then, rotund, chipper and birdlike as ever, +began his cross-examination much like a woodpecker attacking a stout +stump. The witness had been an old friend of Mr. Appleboy's, had he not? +Tunnygate admitted it, and Tutt pecked him again. Never had done him +any wrong, had he? Nothing in particular. Well, any wrong? Tunnygate +hesitated. Why, yes, Appleboy had tried to fence in the public beach +that belonged to everybody. Well, did that do the witness any harm? The +witness declared that it did; compelled him to go round when he had a +right to go across. Oh! Tutt put his head on one side and glanced at the +jury. How many feet? About twenty feet. Then Tutt pecked a little +harder. + +"Didn't you tear a hole in the hedge and stamp down the grass when by +taking a few extra steps you could have reached the beach without +difficulty?" + +"I--I simply tried to remove an illegal obstruction," declared Tunnygate +indignantly. + +"Didn't Mr. Appleboy ask you to keep off?" + +"Sure--yes!" + +"Didn't you obstinately refuse to do so?" + +Mr. Pepperill objected to "obstinately" and it was stricken out. + +"I wasn't going to stay off where I had a right to go," asserted the +witness. + +"And didn't you have warning that the dog was there?" + +"Look here!" suddenly burst out Tunnygate. "You can't hector me into +anything. Appleboy never had a dog before. He got a dog just to sic him +on me! He put up a sign 'Beware of the dog,' but he knew that I'd think +it was just a bluff. It was a plant, that's what it was! And just as +soon as I got inside the hedge that dog went for me and nearly tore me +to bits. It was a rotten thing to do and you know it!" + +He subsided, panting. + +Tutt bowed complacently. + +"I move that the witness' remarks be stricken out on the grounds first, +that they are unresponsive; second, that they are irrelevant, +incompetent and immaterial; third, that they contain expressions of +opinion and hearsay; and fourth, that they are abusive and generally +improper." + +"Strike them out!" directed Judge Witherspoon. Then he turned to +Tunnygate. "The essence of your testimony is that the defendant set a +dog on you, is it not? You had quarreled with the defendant, with whom +you had formerly been on friendly terms. You entered on premises claimed +to be owned by him, though a sign warned you to beware of a dog. The dog +attacked and bit you? That's the case, isn't it?" + +"Yes, Your Honor." + +"Had you ever seen that dog before?" + +"No, sir." + +"Do you know where he got it?" + +"My wife told me--" + +"Never mind what your wife told you. Do you--" + +"He don't know where the dog came from, judge!" suddenly called out Mrs. +Tunnygate in strident tones from where she was sitting. "But I know!" +she added venomously. "That woman of his got it from--" + +Judge Witherspoon fixed her coldly with an impassive and judicial eye. + +"Will you kindly be silent, madam? You will no doubt be given an +opportunity to testify as fully as you wish. That is all, sir, unless +Mr. Tutt has some more questions." + +Tutt waved the witness from the stand contemptuously. + +"Well, I'd like a chance to testify!" shrilled Mrs. Tunnygate, rising in +full panoply. + +"This way, madam," said the clerk, motioning her round the back of the +jury box. And she swept ponderously into the offing like a full-rigged +bark and came to anchor in the witness chair, her chin rising and +falling upon her heaving bosom like the figurehead of a vessel upon a +heavy harbor swell. + +Now it has never been satisfactorily explained just why the character of +an individual should be in any way deducible from such irrelevant +attributes as facial anatomy, bodily structure or the shape of the +cranium. Perhaps it is not, and in reality we discern disposition from +something far more subtle--the tone of the voice, the expression of the +eyes, the lines of the face or even from an aura unperceived by the +senses. However that may be, the wisdom of the Constitutional safeguard +guaranteeing that every person charged with crime shall be confronted by +the witnesses against him was instantly made apparent when Mrs. +Tunnygate took the stand, for without hearing a word from her firmly +compressed lips the jury simultaneously swept her with one comprehensive +glance and turned away. Students of women, experienced adventurers in +matrimony, these plumbers, bird merchants "delicatessens" and the rest +looked, perceived and comprehended that here was the very devil of a +woman--a virago, a shrew, a termagant, a natural-born trouble-maker; and +they shivered and thanked God that she was Tunnygate's and not theirs; +their unformulated sentiment best expressed in Pope's immortal couplet: + + Oh woman, woman! when to ill thy mind + Is bent, all hell contains no fouler fiend. + +She had said no word. Between the judge and jury nothing had passed, and +yet through the alpha rays of that mysterious medium of communication +by which all men as men are united where woman is concerned, the +thought was directly transmitted and unanimously acknowledged that here +for sure was a hell cat! + +It was as naught to them that she testified to the outrageous illegality +of the Appleboys' territorial ambitions, the irascibility of the wife, +the violent threats of the husband; or that Mrs. Appleboy had been +observed to mail a suspicious letter shortly before the date of the +canine assault. They disregarded her. Yet when Tutt upon +cross-examination sought to attack her credibility by asking her various +pertinent questions they unhesitatingly accepted his implied accusations +as true, though under the rules of evidence he was bound by her denials. + +Peck 1: "Did you not knock Mrs. Appleboy's flower pots off the piazza?" +he demanded significantly. + +"Never! I never did!" she declared passionately + +But they knew in their hearts that she had. + +Peck 2: "Didn't you steal her milk bottles?" + +"What a lie! It's absolutely false!" + +Yet they knew that she did. + +Peck 3: "Didn't you tangle up their fish lines and take their +thole-pins?" + +"Well, I never! You ought to be ashamed to ask a lady such questions!" + +They found her guilty. + +"I move to dismiss, Your Honor," chirped Tutt blithely at the conclusion +of her testimony. + +Judge Witherspoon shook his head. + +"I want to hear the other side," he remarked. "The mere fact that the +defendant put up a sign warning the public against the dog may be taken +as some evidence that he had knowledge of the animal's vicious +propensities. I shall let the case go to the jury unless this evidence +is contradicted or explained. Reserve your motion." + +"Very well, Your Honor," agreed Tutt, patting himself upon the abdomen. +"I will follow your suggestion and call the defendant. Mr. Appleboy, +take the stand." + +Mr. Appleboy heavily rose and the heart of every fat man upon the jury, +and particularly that of the Abyssinian brother upon the back row, went +out to him. For just as they had known without being told that the new +Mrs. Tunnygate was a vixen, they realized that Appleboy was a kind, +good-natured man--a little soft, perhaps, like his clams, but no more +dangerous. Moreover, it was plain that he had suffered and was, indeed, +still suffering, and they had pity for him. Appleboy's voice shook and +so did the rest of his person as he recounted his ancient friendship for +Tunnygate and their piscatorial association, their common matrimonial +experiences, the sudden change in the temperature of the society of +Throggs Neck, the malicious destruction of their property and the +unexplained aggressions of Tunnygate upon the lawn. And the jury, +believing, understood. + +Then like the sword of Damocles the bessemer voice of Pepperill severed +the general atmosphere of amiability: "Where did you get that dog?" + +Mr. Appleboy looked round helplessly, distress pictured in every +feature. + +"My wife's aunt lent it to us." + +"How did she come to lend it to you?" + +"Bashemath wrote and asked for it." + +"Oh! Did you know anything about the dog before you sent for it?" + +"Of your own knowledge?" interjected Tutt sharply. + +"Oh, no!" returned Appleboy. + +"Didn't you know it was a vicious beast?" sharply challenged Pepperill. + +"Of your own knowledge?" again warned Tutt. + +"I'd never seen the dog." + +"Didn't your wife tell you about it?" + +Tutt sprang to his feet, wildly waving his arms: "I object; on the +ground that what passed between husband and wife upon this subject must +be regarded as confidential." + +"I will so rule," said Judge Witherspoon, smiling. "Excluded." + +Pepperill shrugged his shoulders. + +"I would like to ask a question," interpolated the editor of Baby's +World. + +"Do!" exclaimed Tutt eagerly. + +The editor, who was a fat editor, rose in an embarrassed manner. + +"Mr. Appleboy!" he began. + +"Yes, sir!" responded Appleboy. + +"I want to get this straight. You and your wife had a row with the +Tunnygates. He tried to tear up your front lawn. You warned him off. He +kept on doing it. You got a dog and put up a sign and when he +disregarded it you sicked the dog on him. Is that right?" + +He was manifestly friendly, merely a bit cloudy in the cerebellum. The +Abyssinian brother pulled him sharply by the coat tails. + +"Sit down," he whispered hoarsely. "You're gumming it all up." + +"I didn't sic Andrew on him!" protested Appleboy. + +"But I say, why shouldn't he have?" demanded the baby's editor. "That's +what anybody would do!" + +Pepperill sprang frantically to his feet. + +"Oh, I object! This juryman is showing bias. This is entirely improper." + +"I am, am I?" sputtered the fat editor angrily. "I'll show you--" + +"You want to be fair, don't you?" whined Pepperill. "I've proved that +the Appleboys had no right to hedge in the beach!" + +"Oh, pooh!" sneered the Abyssinian, now also getting to his feet. +"Supposing they hadn't? Who cares a damn? This man Tunnygate deserved +all he's got!" + +"Gentlemen! Gentlemen!" expostulated the judge firmly. "Take your seats +or I shall declare a mistrial. Go on, Mr. Tutt. Call your next witness." + +"Mrs. Appleboy," called out Tutt, "will you kindly take the chair?" And +that good lady, looking as if all her adipose existence had been devoted +to the production of the sort of pies that mother used to make, placidly +made her way to the witness stand. + +"Did you know that Andrew was a vicious dog?" inquired Tutt. + +"No!" answered Mrs. Appleboy firmly. "I didn't." + +O woman! + +"That is all," declared Tutt with a triumphant smile. + +"Then," snapped Pepperill, "why did you send for him?" + +"I was lonely," answered Bashemath unblushingly. + +"Do you mean to tell this jury that you didn't know that that dog was +one of the worst biters in Livornia?" + +"I do!" she replied. "I only knew Aunt Eliza had a dog. I didn't know +anything about the dog personally." + +"What did you say to your aunt in your letter?" + +"I said I was lonely and wanted protection." + +"Didn't you hope the dog would bite Mr. Tunnygate?" + +"Why, no!" she declared. "I didn't want him to bite anybody." + +At that the delicatessen man poked the plumber in the ribs and they both +grinned happily at one another. + +Pepperill gave her a last disgusted look and sank back in his seat. + +"That is all!" he ejaculated feebly. + +"One question, if you please, madam," said Judge Witherspoon. "May I be +permitted to"--he coughed as a suppressed snicker ran round the +court--"that is--may I not--er--Oh, look here! How did you happen to +have the idea of getting a dog?" + +Mrs. Appleboy turned the full moon of her homely countenance upon the +court. + +"The potato peel came down that way!" she explained blandly. + +"What!" exploded the dealer in rubber novelties. + +"The potato peel--it spelled 'dog,'" she repeated artlessly. + +"Lord!" deeply suspirated Pepperill. "What a case! Carry me out!" + +"Well, Mr. Tutt," said the judge, "now I will hear what you may wish to +say upon the question of whether this issue should be submitted to the +jury. However, I shall rule that the indictment is sufficient." + +Tutt elegantly rose. + +"Having due respect to Your Honor's ruling as to the sufficiency of the +indictment I shall address myself simply to the question of _scienter_. +I might, of course, dwell upon the impropriety of charging the defendant +with criminal responsibility for the act of another free agent even if +that agent be an animal--but I will leave that, if necessary, for the +Court of Appeals. If anybody were to be indicted in this case I hold it +should have been the dog Andrew. Nay, I do not jest! But I can see by +Your Honor's expression that any argument upon that score would be +without avail." + +"Entirely," remarked Witherspoon. "Kindly go on!" + +"Well," continued Tutt, "the law of this matter needs no elucidation. It +has been settled since the time of Moses." + +"Of whom?" inquired Witherspoon. "You don't need to go back farther +than Chief Justice Marshall so far as I am concerned." + +Tutt bowed. + +"It is an established doctrine of the common law both of England and +America that it is wholly proper for one to keep a domestic animal for +his use, pleasure or protection, until, as Dykeman, J., says in Muller +vs. McKesson, 10 Hun., 45, 'some vicious propensity is developed and +brought out to the knowledge of the owner.' Up to that time the man who +keeps a dog or other animal cannot be charged with liability for his +acts. This has always been the law. + +"In the twenty-first chapter of Exodus at the twenty-eighth verse it is +written: 'If an ox gore a man or a woman, that they die; then the ox +shall be surely stoned, and his flesh shall not be eaten; but the owner +of the ox shall be quit. But if the ox were wont to push with his horn +in time past, and it hath been testified to his owner, and he hath not +kept him in, but that he hath killed a man or a woman; the ox shall be +stoned, and his owner also shall be put to death.' + +"In the old English case of Smith vs. Pehal, 2 Strange, 1264, it was +said by the court: 'If a dog has once bit a man, and the owner having +notice thereof keeps the dog, and lets him go about or lie at his door, +an action will lie against him at the suit of a person who is bit, +though it happened by such person's treading on the dog's toes; for it +was owing to his not hanging the dog on the first notice. And the safety +of the king's subjects ought not afterwards to be endangered.' That is +sound law; but it is equally good law that 'if a person with full +knowledge of the evil propensities of an animal wantonly excites him or +voluntarily and unnecessarily puts himself in the way of such an animal +he would be adjudged to have brought the injury upon himself, and ought +not to be entitled to recover. In such a case it cannot be said in a +legal sense that the keeping of the animal, which is the gravamen of the +offense, produced the injury.' + +"Now in the case at bar, first there is clearly no evidence that this +defendant knew or ever suspected that the dog Andrew was otherwise than +of a mild and gentle disposition. That is, there is no evidence whatever +of _scienter_. In fact, except in this single instance there is no +evidence that Andrew ever bit anybody. Thus, in the word of Holy Writ +the defendant Appleboy should be quit, and in the language of our own +courts he must be held harmless. Secondly, moreover, it appears that the +complainant deliberately put himself in the way of the dog Andrew, after +full warning. I move that the jury be directed to return a verdict of +not guilty." + +"Motion granted," nodded Judge Witherspoon, burying his nose in his +handkerchief. "I hold that every dog is entitled to one bite." + +"Gentlemen of the jury," chanted the clerk: "How say you? Do you find +the defendant guilty or not guilty?" + +"Not guilty," returned the foreman eagerly, amid audible evidences of +satisfaction from the Abyssinian brother, the Baby's World editor and +the others. Mr. Appleboy clung to Tutt's hand, overcome by emotion. + +"Adjourn court!" ordered the judge. Then he beckoned to Mr. Appleboy. +"Come up here!" he directed. + +Timidly Mr. Appleboy approached the dais. + +"Don't do it again!" remarked His Honor shortly. + +"Eh? Beg pardon, Your Honor, I mean--" + +"I said: 'Don't do it again!'" repeated the judge with a twinkle in his +eye. Then lowering his voice he whispered: "You see I come from +Livornia, and I've known Andrew for a long time." + +As Tutt guided the Appleboys out into the corridor the party came face +to face with Mr. and Mrs. Tunnygate. + +"Huh!" sneered Tunnygate. + +"Huh!" retorted Appleboy. + + + + +Wile Versus Guile + + + For 'tis the sport to have the engineer + Hoist with his own petar.--HAMLET. + +It was a mouse by virtue of which Ephraim Tutt had leaped into fame. It +is true that other characters famous in song and story--particularly in +"Mother Goose"--have similarly owed their celebrity in whole or part to +rodents, but there is, it is submitted, no other case of a mouse, as +mouse _per se_, reported in the annals of the law, except Tutt's mouse, +from Doomsday Book down to the present time. + +Yet it is doubtful whether without his mouse Ephraim Tutt would ever +have been heard of at all, and same would equally have been true if when +pursued by the chef's gray cat the mouse aforesaid had jumped in another +direction. But as luck would have it, said mouse leaped foolishly into +an open casserole upon a stove in the kitchen of the Comers Hotel, and +Mr. Tutt became in his way a leader of the bar. + +It is quite true that the tragic end of the mouse in question has +nothing to do with our present narrative except as a side light upon the +vagaries of the legal career, but it illustrates how an attorney if he +expects to succeed in his profession, must be ready for anything that +comes along--even if it be a mouse. + +The two Tutts composing the firm of Tutt & Tutt were both, at the time +of the mouse case, comparatively young men. Tutt was a native of Bangor, +Maine, and numbered among his childhood friends one Newbegin, a +commercial wayfarer in the shingle and clapboard line; and as he hoped +at some future time to draw Newbegin's will or to incorporate for him +some business venture Tutt made a practise of entertaining his +prospective client at dinner upon his various visits to the metropolis, +first at one New York hostelry and then at another. + +Chance led them one night to the Comers, and there amid the imitation +palms and imitation French waiters of the imitation French restaurant +Tutt invited his friend Newbegin to select what dish he chose from those +upon the bill of fare; and Newbegin chose kidney stew. It was at about +that moment that the adventure which has been referred to occurred in +the hotel kitchen. The gray cat was cheated of its prey, and in due +course the casserole containing the stew was borne into the dining room +and the dish was served. + +Suddenly Mr. Newbegin contorted his mouth and exclaimed: + +"Heck! A mouse!" + +It was. The head waiter was summoned, the manager, the owner. Guests and +garcons crowded about Tutt and Mr. Newbegin to inspect what had so +unexpectedly been found. No one could deny that it was, mouse--cooked +mouse; and Newbegin had ordered kidney stew. Then Tutt had had his +inspiration. + +"You shall pay well for this!" he cried, frowning at the distressed +proprietor, while Newbegin leaned piteously against a papier-mache +pillar. "This is an outrage! You shall be held liable in heavy damages +for my client's indigestion!" + +And thus Tutt & Tutt got their first case out of Newbegin, for under the +influence of the eloquence of Mr. Tutt a jury was induced to give him a +verdict of one thousand dollars against the Comers Hotel, which the +Court of Appeals sustained in the following words, quoting verbatim from +the learned brief furnished by Tutt & Tutt, Ephraim Tutt of counsel: + +"The only legal question in the case, or so it appears to us, is whether +there is such a sale of food to a guest on the part of the proprietor +as will sustain a warranty. If we are not in error, however, the law is +settled and has been since the reign of Henry the Sixth. In the Ninth +Year Book of that Monarch's reign there is a case in which it was held +that 'if I go to a tavern to eat, and the taverner gives and sells me +meat and it corrupted, whereby I am made very sick, action lies against +him without any express warranty, for there is a warranty in law'; and +in the time of Henry the Seventh the learned Justice Keilway said, 'No +man can justify selling corrupt victual, but an action on the case lies +against the seller, whether the victual was warranted to be good or +not.' Now, certainly, whether mouse meat be or be not deleterious to +health a guest at a hotel who orders a portion of kidney stew has the +right to expect, and the hotel keeper impliedly warrants, that such dish +will contain no ingredients beyond those ordinarily placed therein." + + * * * * * + +"A thousand dollars!" exulted Tutt when the verdict was rendered. "Why, +anyone would eat mouse for a thousand dollars!" + +The Comers Hotel became in due course a client of Tutt & Tutt, and the +mouse which made Mr. Tutt famous did not die in vain, for the case +became celebrated throughout the length and breadth of the land, to the +glory of the firm and a vast improvement in the culinary conditions +existing in hotels. + +"Come in, Mr. Barrows! Come right in! I haven't seen you for--well, how +long is it?" exclaimed Mr. Tutt, extending a long welcoming arm toward a +human scarecrow upon the threshold. + +"Five years," answered the visitor. "I only got out day before +yesterday. Fourteen months off for good behavior." + +He coughed and put down carefully beside him a large dress-suit case +marked E.V.B., Pottsville, N.Y. + +"Well, well!" sighed Mr. Tutt. "So it is. How time flies!" + +"Not in Sing Sing!" replied Mr. Barrows ruefully. + +"I suppose not. Still, it must feel good to be out!" + +Mr. Barrows made no reply but dusted off his felt hat. He was but the +shadow of a man, an old man at that, as was attested by his long gray +beard, his faded blue eyes, and the thin white hair about his fine +domelike forehead. + +"I forget what your trouble was about," said Mr. Tutt gently. "Won't you +have a stogy?" + +Mr. Barrows shook his head. + +"I ain't used to it," he answered. "Makes me cough." He gazed about him +vaguely. + +"Something about bonds, wasn't it?" asked Mr. Tutt. + +"Yes," replied Mr. Barrows; "Great Lakes and Canadian Southern." + +"Of course! Of course!" + +"A wonderful property," murmured Mr. Barrows regretfully. "The bonds +were perfectly good. There was a defect in the foreclosure proceedings +which made them a permanent underlying security of the reorganized +company--under The Northern Pacific R.R. Co. vs. Boyd; you know--but the +court refused to hold that way. They never will hold the way you want, +will they?" He looked innocently at Mr. Tutt. + +"No," agreed the latter with conviction, "they never will!" + +"Now those bonds were as good as gold," went on the old man; "and yet +they said I had to go to prison. You know all about it. You were my +lawyer." + +"Yes," assented Mr. Tutt, "I remember all about it now." + +Indeed it had all come back to him with the vividness of a landscape +seen during a lightning flash--the crowded court, old Doc Barrows upon +the witness stand, charged with getting money on the strength of +defaulted and outlawed bonds--picked up heaven knows where--pathetically +trying to persuade an unsympathetic court that for some reason they +were still worth their face value, though the mortgage securing the debt +which they represented had long since been foreclosed and the money +distributed. + +"I'd paid for 'em--actual cash," he rambled on. "Not much, to be +sure--but real money. If I got 'em cheap that was my good luck, wasn't +it? It was because my brain was sharper than other folks'! I said they +had value and I say so now--only nobody will believe it or take the +trouble to find out. I learned a lot up there in Sing Sing too," he +continued, warming to his subject. "Do you know, sir, there are fortunes +lying all about us? Take gold, for instance! There's a fraction of a +grain in every ton of sea water. But the big people don't want it taken +out because it would depress the standard of exchange. I say it's a +conspiracy--and yet they jailed a man for it! There's great mineral +deposits all about just waiting for the right man to come along and +develop 'em." + +His lifted eye rested upon the engraving of Abraham Lincoln over Mr. +Tutt's desk. "There was a man!" he exclaimed inconsequently; then +stopped and ran his transparent, heavily veined old hand over his +forehead. "Where was I? Let me see. Oh, yes--gold. All those great +properties could be bought at one time or another for a song. It needed +a pioneer! That's what I was--a pioneer to find the gold where other +people couldn't find it. That's not any crime; it's a service to +humanity! If only they'd have a little faith--instead of locking you up. +The judge never looked up the law about those Great Lakes bonds! If he +had he'd have found out I was right! I'd looked it up. I studied law +once myself." + +"I know," said Mr. Tutt, almost moved to tears by the sight of the wreck +before him. "You practised up state, didn't you?" + +"Yes," responded Doc Barrows eagerly. "And in Chicago too. I'm a member +of the Cook County bar. I'll tell you something! If the Supreme Court of +Illinois hadn't been wrong in its law I'd be the richest man in the +world--in the whole world!" He grabbed Mr. Tutt by the arm and stared +hard into his eyes. "Didn't I show you my papers? I own seven feet of +water front clean round Lake Michigan all through the city of Chicago I +got it for a song from the man who found out the flaw in the original +title deed of 1817; he was dying. 'I'll sell my secret to you,' he says, +'because I'm passing on. May it bring you luck!' I looked it all up and +it was just as he said. So I got up a corporation--The Chicago Water +Front and Terminal Company--and sold bonds to fight my claim in the +courts. But all the people who had deeds to my land conspired against +me and had me arrested! They sent me to the penitentiary. There's +justice for you!" + +"That was too bad!" said Mr. Tutt in a soothing voice. "But after all +what good would all that money have done you?" + +"I don't want money!" affirmed Doc plaintively. "I've never needed +money. I know enough secrets to make me rich a dozen times over. Not +money but justice is what I want--my legal rights. But I'm tired of +fighting against 'em. They've beaten me! Yes, they've beaten me! I'm +going to retire. That's why I came in to see you, Mr. Tutt. I never paid +you for your services as my attorney. I'm going away. You see my married +daughter lost her husband the other day and she wants me to come up and +live with her on the farm to keep her from being lonely. Of course it +won't be much like life in Wall Street--but I owe her some duty and I'm +getting on--I am, Mr. Tutt, I really am!" + +He smiled. + +"And I haven't seen Louisa for three years--my only daughter. I shall +enjoy being with her. She was such a dear little girl! I'll tell you +another secret"--his voice dropped to a whisper--"I've found out there's +a gold mine on her farm, only she doesn't know it. A rich vein runs +right through her cow pasture. We'll be rich! Wouldn't it be fine, Mr. +Tutt, to be rich? Then I'm going to pay you in real money for all you've +done for me--thousands! But until then I'm going to let you have +these--all my securities; my own, you know, every one of them." + +He placed the suitcase in front of Mr. Tutt and opened the clasps with +his shaking old fingers. It bulged with bonds, and he dumped them forth +until they covered the top of the desk. + +"These are my jewels!" he said. "There's millions represented here!" He +lifted one tenderly and held it to the light, fresh as it came from the +engraver's press--a thousand dollar first-mortgage bond of The Chicago +Water Front and Terminal Company. "Look at that! Good as gold--if the +courts only knew the law." + +He took up a yellow package of valueless obligations upon the top of +which an old-fashioned locomotive from whose bell-shaped funnel the +smoke poured in picturesque black clouds, dragging behind it a chain of +funny little passenger coaches, drove furiously along beside a rushing +river through fields rich with corn and wheat amid a border of dollar +signs. + +"The Great Lakes and Canadian Southern," he crooned lovingly. "The child +of my heart! The district attorney kept all the rest--as evidence, he +claimed, but some day you'll see he'll bring an action against the Lake +Shore or the New York Central based on these bonds. Yes, sir! They're +all right!" + +He pawed them over, picking out favorites here and there and excitedly +extolling the merits of the imaginary properties they represented. There +were the repudiated bonds of Southern states and municipalities of +railroads upon whose tracks no wheel had ever turned; of factories never +built except in Doc Barrows' addled brain; of companies which had +defaulted and given stock for their worthless obligations; certificates +of oil, mining and land companies; deeds to tracts now covered with sky +scrapers in Pittsburgh, St. Louis and New York--each and every one of +them not worth the paper they were printed on except to some crook who +dealt in high finance. But they were exquisitely engraved, quite lovely +to look at, and Doc Barrows gloated upon them with scintillating eyes. + +"Ain't they beauties?" he sighed. "Some day--yes sir!--some day they'll +be worth real money. I paid it for some of 'em. But they're yours--all +yours." + +He gathered them up with care and returned them to the suitcase, then +fastened the clasps and patted the leather cover with his hand. + +"They are yours, sir!" he exclaimed dramatically. + +"As you say," agreed Mr. Tutt, "there's gold lying round everywhere if +we only had sense enough to look for it. But I think you're wise to +retire. After all, you have the satisfaction of knowing that your +enterprises were sound even if other people disagreed with you." + +"If this was 1819 instead of 1919 I'd own Chicago," began Doc, a gleam +appearing in his eye. "But they don't want to upset the status +quo--that's why I haven't got a fair chance. But they needn't worry! I'd +be generous with 'em--give 'em easy terms--long leases and nominal +rents." + +"But you'll like living with your daughter, I'm sure," said Mr. Tutt. +"It will make a new man of you in no time." + +"Healthiest spot in northern New York," exclaimed Doc. "Within two miles +of a lake--fishing, shooting, outdoor recreation of all kinds, an ideal +site for a mammoth summer hotel." + +Mr. Tutt rose and laid his arms round old Doc Barrows' shoulders. + +"Thank you a thousand times," he said gratefully, "for the securities. +I'll be glad to keep them for you in my vault." His lips puckered in a +stealthy smile which he tried hard to conceal. + +"Louisa may want to repaper the farmhouse some time," he added to +himself. + +"Oh, they're all yours to keep!" insisted Doc. "I want you to have +them!" His voice trembled. + +"Well, well!" answered Mr. Tutt. "Leave it that way; but if you ever +should want them they'll be here waiting for you." + +"I'm no Indian giver!" replied Doc with dignity. "Give, give, give a +thing--never take it back again." + +He laughed rather childishly. He was evidently embarrassed. + +"Could--could you let me have the loan of seventy-five cents?" he asked +shyly. + + * * * * * + +Down below, inside a doorway upon the other side of the street, Sergeant +Murtha of the Detective Bureau waited for Doc Barrows to come out and be +arrested again. Murtha had known Doc for fifteen years as a harmless old +nut who had rarely succeeded in cheating anybody, but who was regarded +as generally undesirable by the authorities and sent away every few +years in order to keep him out of mischief. There was no danger that the +public would accept Doc's version of the nature or value of his +securities, but there was always the chance that some of his worthless +bonds--those bastard offsprings of his cracked old brain--would find +their way into less honest but saner hands. So Doc rattled about from +penitentiary to prison and from prison to madhouse and out again, +constantly taking appeals and securing writs of habeas corpus, and +feeling mildly resentful, but not particularly so, that people should be +so interfering with his business. Now as from force of long habit he +peered out of the doorway before making his exit; he looked like one of +the John Sargent's prophets gone a little madder than usual--a Jeremiah +or a Habakkuk. + +"Hello, Doc!" called Murtha in hearty, friendly tones. "Hie spy! Come on +out!" + +"Oh, how d'ye do, captain!" responded Doc. "How are you? I was just +interviewing my solicitor." + +"Sorry," said Murtha. "The inspector wants to see you." + +Doc flinched. + +"But they've just let me go!" he protested faintly. + +"It's one of those old indictments--Chicago Water Front or something. +Anyhow--Here! Hold on to yourself!" + +He threw his arms around the old man, who seemed on the point of +falling. + +"Oh, captain! That's all over! I served time for that out in Illinois!" +For some strange reason all the insanity had gone out of his bearing. + +"Not in this state," answered Murtha. New pity for this poor old wastrel +took hold upon him. "What were you going to do?" + +"I was going to retire, captain," said Doc faintly. "My daughter's +husband--he owned a farm up in Cayuga County--well, he died and I was +planning to go up there and live with her." + +"And sting all the boobs?" grinned Murtha not unsympathetically. "How +much money have you got?" + +"Seventy-five cents." + +"How much is the ticket?" + +"About nine dollars," quavered Doc. "But I know a man down on Chatham +Square who might buy a block of stock in the Last Chance Gold Mining +Company; I could get the money that way." + +"What's the Last Chance Gold Mining Company?" asked Murtha sharply. + +"It's a company I'm going to organize. I'll tell you a secret, Murtha. +There's a vein of gold runs right through my daughter Louisa's cow +pasture--she doesn't know anything about it--" + +"Oh, hell!" exclaimed Murtha. "Come along to the station. I'll let you +have the nine bones. And you can put me down for half a million of the +underwriting." + + * * * * * + +That same evening Mr. Tutt was toasting his carpet slippers before the +sea-coal fire in his library, sipping a hot toddy and rereading for the +eleventh time the "Lives of the Chancellors" when Miranda, who had not +yet finished washing the few dishes incident to her master's meager +supper, pushed open the door and announced that a lady was calling. + +"She said you'd know her sho' enough, Mis' Tutt," grinned Miranda, +swinging her dishrag, "'case you and she used to live tergidder when you +was a young man." + +This scandalous announcement did not have the startling effect upon the +respectable Mr. Tutt which might naturally have been anticipated, since +he was quite used to Miranda's forms of expression. + +"It must be Mrs. Effingham," he remarked, closing the career of Lord +Eldon and removing his feet from the fender. + +"Dat's who it is!" answered Miranda. "She's downstairs waitin' to come +up." + +"Well, let her come," directed Mr. Tutt, wondering what his old +boarding-house keeper could want of him, for he had not seen Mrs. +Effingham for more than fifteen years, at which time she was well +provided with husband, three children and a going business. Indeed, it +required some mental adjustment on his part to recognize the withered +little old lady in widow's weeds and rusty black with a gold star on her +sleeve who so timidly, a moment later, followed Miranda into the room. + +"I'm afraid you don't recognize me," she said with a pitiful attempt at +faded coquetry. "I don't blame you, Mr. Tutt. You don't look a day older +yourself. But a great deal has happened to me!" + +"I should have recognized you anywhere," he protested gallantly. "Do sit +down, Mrs. Effingham won't you? I am delighted to see you. How would you +like a glass of toddy? Just to show there's no ill-feeling!" + +He forced a glass into her hand and filled it from the teakettle +standing on the hearth, while Miranda brought a sofa cushion and tucked +it behind the old lady's back. + +Mrs. Effingham sighed, tasted the toddy and leaned back deliciously. She +was very wrinkled and her hair under the bonnet was startlingly white in +contrast with the crepe of her veil, but there were still traces of +beauty in her face. + +"I've come to you, Mr. Tutt," she explained apologetically, "because I +always said that if I ever was in trouble you'd be the one to whom I +should go to help me out." + +"What greater compliment could I receive?" + +"Well, in those days I never thought that time would come," she went on. +"You remember my husband--Jim? Jim died two years ago. And little +Jimmy--our eldest--he was only fourteen when you boarded with us--he was +killed at the Front last July." She paused and felt for her +handkerchief, but could not find it. "I still keep the house; but do you +know how old I am, Mr. Tutt? I'm seventy-one! And the two older girls +got married long ago and I'm all alone except for Jessie, the +youngest--and I haven't told her anything about it." + +"Yes?" said Mr. Tutt sympathetically. "What haven't you told her about?" + +"My trouble. You see, Jessie's not a well girl--she really ought to live +out West somewhere, the doctor says--and Jim and I had saved up all +these years so that after we were gone she would have something to live +on. We saved twelve thousand dollars--and put it into Government bonds." + +"You couldn't have anything safer, at any rate," remarked the lawyer. "I +think you did exceedingly well." + +"Now comes the awful part of it all!" exclaimed Mrs. Effingham, clasping +her hands. "I'm afraid it's gone--gone forever. I should have consulted +you first before I did it, but it all seemed so fair and above-board +that I never thought." + +"Have you got rid of your bonds?" + +"Yes--no--that is, the bank has them. You see I borrowed ten thousand +dollars on them and gave it to Mr. Badger to invest in his oil company +for me." + +Mr. Tutt groaned inwardly. Badger was the most celebrated of Wall +Street's near-financiers. + +"Where on earth did you meet Badger?" he demanded. + +"Why, he boarded with me--for a long time," she answered. "I've no +complaint to make of Mr. Badger. He's a very handsome polite gentleman. +And I don't feel altogether right about coming to you and saying +anything that might be taken against him--but lately I've heard so many +things--" + +"Don't worry about Badger!" growled Mr. Tutt. "How did you come to +invest in his oil stock?" + +"I was there when he got the telegram telling how they had found oil on +the property; it came one night at dinner. He was tickled to death. The +stock had been selling at three cents a share, and, of course, after the +oil was discovered he said it would go right up to ten dollars. But he +was real nice about it--he said anybody who had been living there in the +house could share his good fortune with him, come in on the ground +floor, and have it just the same for three cents. A week later there +came a photograph of the gusher and almost all of us decided to buy +stock." + +At this point in the narrative Mr. Tutt kicked the coal hod violently +and uttered a smothered ejaculation. + +"Of course I didn't have any ready money," explained Mrs. Effingham, +"but I had the bonds--they only paid two per cent and the oil stock was +going to pay twenty--and so I took them down to the bank and borrowed +ten thousand dollars on them. I had to sign a note and pay five per cent +interest. I was making the difference--fifteen hundred dollars every +year." + +"What has it paid?" demanded Mr. Tutt ironically. + +"Twenty per cent," replied Mrs. Effingham. "I get Mr. Badger's check +regularly every six months." + +"How many times have you got it?" + +"Twice." + +"Well, why don't you like your investment?" inquired Mr. Tutt blandly. +"I'd like something that would pay me twenty per cent a year!" + +"Because I'm afraid Mr. Badger isn't quite truthful, and one of the +ladies--that old Mrs. Channing; you remember her, don't you--the one +with the curls?--she tried to sell her stock and nobody would make a bid +on it at all--and when she spoke to Mr. Badger about it he became very +angry and swore right in front of her. Then somebody told me that Mr. +Badger had been arrested once for something--and--and--Oh, I wish I +hadn't given him the money, because if it's lost Jessie won't have +anything to live on after I'm dead--and she's too sick to work. What do +you think, Mr. Tutt? Do you suppose Mr. Badger would buy the stock +back?" + +Mr. Tutt smiled grimly. + +"Not if I know him! Have you got your stock with you?" + +She nodded. Fumbling in her black bag she pulled forth a flaring +certificate--of the regulation kind, not even engraved--which evidenced +that Sarah Maria Ann Effingham was the legal owner of three hundred and +thirty thousand shares of the capital stock of the Great Geyser Texan +Petroleum and Llano Estacado Land Company. + +Mr. Tutt took it gingerly between his thumb and forefinger. It was +signed ALFRED HAYNES BADGER, Pres., and he had an almost irresistible +temptation to twist it into a spill and light a stogy with it. But he +used a match instead, while Mrs. Effingham watched him apprehensively. +Then he handed the stock back to her and poured out another glass of +toddy. + +"Ever been in Mr. Badger's office?" + +"Oh, yes!" she answered. "It's a lovely office. You can see 'way down +the harbor--and over to New Jersey. It's real elegant." + +"Would you mind going there again? That is, are you on friendly terms +with him?" + +Already a strange, rather desperate plan was half formulated in his +mind. + +"Oh, we're perfectly friendly," she smiled. "I generally go down there +to get my check." + +"Whose check is it--his or the company's?" + +"I really don't know," she answered simply. "What difference would it +make?" + +"Oh, nothing--except that he might claim that he'd loaned you the +money." + +"Loaned it? To me?" + +"Why, yes. One hears of such things." + +"But it is my money!" she cried, stiffening. + +"You paid that for the stock." + +She shook her head helplessly. + +"I don't understand these things," she murmured. "If Jim had been alive +it wouldn't have happened. He was so careful." + +"Husbands have some uses occasionally." + +Suddenly she put her hands to her face. + +"Oh, Mr. Tutt! Please get the money back from him. If you don't +something terrible will happen to Jessie!" + +"I'll do my best," he said gently, laying his hand on her fragile +shoulder. "But I may not be able to do it--and anyhow I'll need your +help." + +"What can I do?" + +"I want you to go down to Mr. Badger's office to-morrow morning and tell +him that you are so much pleased with your investment that you would +like to turn all your securities over to him to sell and put the money +into the Great Geyser Texan Petroleum and Llano Estacado Land Company." + +He rolled out the words with unction. + +"But I don't!" + +"Oh, yes, you do!" he assured her. "You want to do just what I tell +you, don't you?" + +"Of course," she answered. "But I thought you didn't like Mr. Badger's +oil company." + +"Whether I like it or not makes no difference. I want you to say just +what I tell you." + +"Oh, very well, Mr. Tutt." + +"Then you must tell him about the note, and that first it will have to +be paid off." + +"Yes." + +"And then you must hand him a letter which I will dictate to you now." + +She flushed slightly, her eyes bright with excitement. + +"You're sure it's perfectly honest, Mr. Tutt? I wouldn't want to do +anything unfair!" + +"Would you be honest with a burglar?" + +"But Mr. Badger isn't a burglar!" + +"No--he's only about a thousand times worse. He's a robber of widows and +orphans. He isn't man enough to take a chance at housebreaking." + +"I don't know what you mean," she sighed. "Where shall I write?" + +Mr. Tutt cleared a space upon his desk, handed her a pad and dipped a +pen in the ink while she took off her gloves. + +"Address the note to the bank," he directed. + +She did so. + +"Now say: 'Kindly deliver to Mr. Badger all the securities I have on +deposit with you, whenever he pays my note. Very truly yours, Sarah +Maria Ann Effingham.'" + +"But I don't want him to have my securities!" she retorted. + +"Oh, you won't mind! You'll be lucky to get Mr. Badger to take back your +oil stock on any terms. Leave the certificate with me," laughed Mr. +Tutt, rubbing his long thin hands together almost gleefully. "And now as +it is getting rather late perhaps you will do me the honor of letting me +escort you home." + +It was midnight before Mr. Tutt went to bed. In the first place he had +felt himself so neglectful of Mrs. Effingham that after he had taken her +home he had sat there a long time talking over the old lady's affairs +and making the acquaintance of the phthisical Jessie, who turned out to +be a wistful little creature with great liquid eyes and a delicate +transparent skin that foretold only too clearly what was to be her +future. There was only one place for her, Mr. Tutt told +himself--Arizona; and by the grace of God she should go there, Badger or +no Badger! + +As the old lawyer walked slowly home with his hands clasped behind his +back he pondered upon the seeming mockery and injustice of the law that +forced a lonely, half-demented old fellow with the fixed delusion that +he was a financier behind prison bars and left free the sharp slick +crook who had no bowels or mercies and would snatch away the widow's +mite and leave her and her consumptive daughter to die in the poorhouse. +Yet such was the case, and there they all were! Could you blame people +for being Bolsheviks? And yet old Doc Barrows was as far from a +Bolshevik as anyone could well be. + +Mr. Tutt passed a restless night, dreaming, when he slept at all, of +mines from which poured myriads of pieces of yellow gold, of gushers +spouting columns of blood-red oil hundreds of feet into the air, and of +old-fashioned locomotives dragging picturesque trains of cars across +bright green prairies studded with cacti in the shape of dollar signs. +Old Doc Barrows was with him, and from time to time he would lean toward +him and whisper "Listen, Mr. Tutt, I'll tell you a secret! There's a +vein of gold runs right through my daughter's cow pasture!" + +When Willie next morning at half past eight reached the office he found +the door already unlocked and Mr. Tutt busy at his desk, up to his +elbows in a great mass of bonds and stock certificates. + +"Gee!" he exclaimed to Miss Sondheim, the stenographer, when she made +her appearance at a quarter past nine. "Just peek in the old man's door +if you want to feel rich! Say, he must ha' struck pay dirt! I wonder if +we'll all get a raise?" + +But all the securities on Mr. Tutt's desk would not have justified even +the modest advance of five dollars in Miss Sondheim's salary, and their +employer was merely sorting out and making an inventory of Doc Barrows' +imaginary wealth. By the time Mrs. Effingham arrived by appointment at +ten o'clock he had them all arranged and labeled; and in a special +bundle neatly tied with a piece of red tape were what on their face were +securities worth upward of seventy thousand dollars. There were ten of +the beautiful bonds of the Great Lakes and Canadian Southern Railroad +Company with their miniature locomotives and fields of wheat, and ten +equally lovely bits of engraving belonging to the long-since defunct +Bluff Creek and Iowa Central, ten more superb lithographs issued by the +Mohawk and Housatonic in 1867 and paid off in 1882, and a variety of +gorgeous chromos of Indians and buffaloes, and of factories and +steamships spouting clouds of soft-coal smoke; and on the top of all was +a pile of the First Mortgage Gold Six Per Cent obligations of the +Chicago Water Front and Terminal Company--all of them fresh and crisp, +with that faintly acrid smell which though not agreeable to the nostrils +nevertheless delights the banker's soul. + +"Ah! Good morning to you, Mrs. Effingham!" Mr. Tutt cried, waving her in +when that lady was announced. "You are not the only millionaire, you +see! In fact, I've stumbled into a few barrels of securities +myself--only I didn't pay anything for them." + +"Gracious!" cried Mrs. Effingham, her eyes lighting with astonishment. +"Wherever did you get them? And such exquisite pictures! Look at that +lamb!" + +"It ought to have been a wolf!" muttered Mr. Tutt. "Well, Mrs. +Effingham, I've decided to make you a present--just a few pounds of +Chicago Water Front and Canadian Southern--those over there in that +pile; and now if you say so we'll just go along to your bank." + +"Give them to me!" she protested. "What on earth for? You're joking, Mr. +Tutt." + +"Not a bit of it!" he retorted. "I don't make any pretensions as to the +value of my gift, but they're yours for whatever they're worth." + +He wrapped them carefully in a piece of paper and returned the balance +to Doc Barrows' dress-suit case. + +"Aren't you afraid to leave them that way?" she asked, surprised. + +"Not at all! Not at all!" he laughed. "You see there are fortunes lying +all about us everywhere if we only know where to look. Now the first +thing to do is to get your bonds back from the bank." + +Mr. Thomas McKeever, the popular loan clerk of the Mustardseed National, +was just getting ready for the annual visit of the state bank examiner +when Mr. Tutt, followed by Mrs. Effingham, entered the exquisitely +furnished boudoir where lady clients were induced by all modern +conveniences except manicures and shower baths to become depositors. Mr. +Tutt and Mr. McKeever belonged to the same Saturday evening poker game +at the Colophon Club, familiarly known as The Bible Class. + +"Morning, Tom," said Mr. Tutt. "This is my client, Mrs. Effingham. You +hold her note, I believe, for ten thousand dollars secured by some +government bonds. She has a use for those bonds and I thought that you +might be willing to take my indorsement instead. You know I'm good for +the money." + +"Why, I guess we can accommodate her, Mr. Tutt!" answered the +Chesterfieldian Mr. McKeever. "Certainly we can. Sit down, Mrs. +Effingham, while I send for your bonds. See the morning paper?" + +Mrs. Effingham blushingly acknowledged that she had not seen the paper. +In fact, she was much too excited to see anything. + +"Sign here!" said the loan clerk, placing the note before the lawyer. + +Mr. Tutt indorsed it in his strange, humpbacked chirography. + +"Here are your bonds," said Mr. McKeever, handing Mrs. Effingham a small +package in a manila envelope. She took them in a half-frightened way, as +if she thought she was doing something wrong. + +"And now," said Mr. Tutt, "the lady would like a box in your +safe-deposit vaults; a small one--about five dollars a year--will do. +She has quite a bundle of securities with her, which I am looking into. +Most if not all of them are of little or no value, but I have told her +she might just as well leave them as security for what they are worth, +in addition to my indorsement. Really it's just a slick game of ours to +get the bank to look after them for nothing. Isn't it, Mrs. Effingham?" + +"Ye-es!" stammered Mrs. Effingham, not understanding what he was talking +about. + +"Well," answered Mr. McKeever, "we never refuse collateral. I'll put the +bonds with the note--" His eye caught the edges of the bundle. "Great +Scott, Tutt! What are you leaving all these bonds here for against that +note? There must be nearly a hundred thousand dol--" + +"I thought you never refused collateral, Mr. McKeever!" challenged Mr. +Tutt sternly. + +Twenty minutes later the exquisite blonde that acted as Mr. Badger's +financial accomplice learned from Mrs. Effingham's faltering lips that +the widow would like to see the great man in regard to further +investments. + +"How does it look, Mabel?" inquired the financier from behind his +massive mahogany desk covered with a six by five sheet of plate glass. +"Is it a squeal or a fall?" + +"Easy money," answered Mabel with confidence. "She wants to put a +mortgage on the farm." + +"Keep her about fourteen minutes, tell her the story of my +philanthropies, and then shoot her in," directed Badger. + +So Mrs. Effingham listened politely while Mabel showed her the +photographs of Mr. Badger's home for consumptives out in Tyrone, New +Mexico, and of his wife and children, taken on the porch of his summer +home at Seabright, New Jersey; and then, exactly fourteen minutes having +elapsed, she was shot in. + +"Ah! Mrs. Effingham! Delighted! Do be seated!" Mr. Badger's smile was +like that of the boa constrictor about to swallow the rabbit. + +"About my oil stock," hesitated Mrs. Effingham. + +"Well, what about it?" demanded Badger sharply. "Are you dissatisfied +with your twenty per cent?" + +"Oh, no!" stammered the old lady. "Not at all! I just thought if I could +only get the note paid off at the Mustardseed Bank I might ask you to +sell the collateral and invest the proceeds in your gusher." + +"Oh!" Mr. Badger beamed with pleasure. "Do you really wish to have me +dispose of your securities for you?" + +He did not regard it as necessary to inquire into the nature of the +collateral. If it was satisfactory to the Mustardseed National it must +of course exceed considerably the amount of the note. + +"Yes," answered Mrs. Effingham timidly; and she handed him the letter +dictated by Mr. Tutt. + +"Well," replied Mr. Badger thoughtfully, after reading it, "what you ask +is rather unusual--quite unusual, I may say, but I think I may be able +to attend to the matter for you. Leave it in my hands and think no more +about it. How have you been, my dear Mrs. Effingham? You're looking +extraordinarily well!" + +Mr. McKeever had about concluded his arrangements for welcoming the +state bank examiner when the telephone on his desk buzzed, and on taking +up the receiver he heard the ingratiating voice of Alfred Haynes Badger. + +"Is this the Loan Department of the Mustardseed National?" + +"It is," he answered shortly. + +"I understand you hold a note of a certain Mrs. Effingham for ten +thousand dollars. May I ask if it is secured?" + +"Who is this?" snapped McKeever. + +"One of her friends," replied Mr. Badger amicably. + +"Well, we don't discuss our clients' affairs over the telephone. You had +better come in here if you have any inquiries to make." + +"But I want to pay the note," expostulated Mr. Badger. + +"Oh! Well, anybody can pay the note who wants to." + +"And of course in that case you would turn over whatever collateral is +on deposit to secure the note?" + +"If we were so directed." + +"May I ask what collateral there is?" + +"I don't know." + +"There is some collateral, I suppose?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, I have an order from Mrs. Effingham directing the bank to turn +over whatever securities she has on deposit as collateral, on my payment +of the note." + +"In that case you'll get 'em," said Mr. McKeever gruffly. "I'll get +them out and have 'em ready for you." + + * * * * * + +"Here is my certified check for ten thousand; dollars," announced Alfred +Haynes Badger a few minutes later. "And here is the order from Mrs. +Effingham. Now will you kindly turn over to me all the securities?" + +Mr. McKeever, knowing something of the reputation of Mr. Badger, first +called up the bank which had certified the latter's check, and having +ascertained that the certification was genuine he marked Mrs. +Effingham's note as paid and then took down from the top of his roll-top +desk the bundle of beautifully engraved securities given him by Mr. +Tutt. Badger watched him greedily. + +"Thank you," he gurgled, stuffing them into his pocket. "Much obliged +for your courtesy. Perhaps you would like me to open an account here?" + +"Oh, anybody can open an account who wants to," remarked Mr. McKeever +dryly, turning away from him to something else. + +Mr. Badger fairly flew back to his office. The exquisite blonde had +hardly ever before seen him exhibit so much agitation. + +"What have you pulled this time?" she inquired dreamily. "Father's +daguerreotype and the bracelet of mother's hair?" + +"I've grabbed off the whole bag of tricks!" he cried. "Look at 'em! +We've not seen so much of the real stuff in six months. + +"Ten--twenty--thirty--forty--fifty--By gad!--sixty--seventy!" + +"What are they?" asked Mabel curiously. "Some bonds--what?" + +"I should say so!" he retorted gaily. "Say, girlie, I'll give you the +swellest meal of your young life to-night! Chicago Water Front and +Terminal, Great Lakes and Canadian Southern, Mohawk and Housatonic, +Bluff Creek and Iowa Central. '_Oh, Mabel_!'" + +It was at just about this period of the celebration that Mr. Tutt +entered the outer office and sent in his name; and as Mr. Badger was at +the height of his good humor he condescended to see him. + +"I have called," said Mr. Tutt, "in regard to the bonds belonging to my +client, Mrs. Effingham. I see you have them on the desk there in front +of you. Unfortunately she has changed her mind. She has decided not to +have you dispose of her securities." + +Mr. Badger's expression instantly became hostile and defiant. + +"It's too late!" he replied. "I have paid off her note and I am going to +carry out the rest of the arrangement." + +"Oh," said Mr. Tutt, "so you are going to sell all her securities and +put the proceeds into your bogus oil company--whether she wishes it or +not? If you do the district attorney will get after you." + +"I stand on my rights," snarled Badger. "Anyhow I can sell enough of the +securities to pay myself back my ten thousand dollars." + +"And then you'll steal the rest?" inquired Mr. Tutt. "Be careful, my +dear sir! Remember there is such a thing as equity, and such a place as +Sing Sing." + +Badger gave a cynical laugh. + +"You're too late, my friend! I've got a written order--_a written +order_--from your client, as you call her. She can't go back on it now. +I've got the bonds and I'm going to dispose of them." + +"Very well," said Mr. Tutt tolerantly. "You can do as you see fit. +But"--and he produced ten genuine one-thousand-dollar bills and +exhibited them to Mr. Badger at a safe distance--"I now on behalf of +Mrs. Effingham make you a legal tender of the ten thousand dollars you +have just paid out to cancel her note, and I demand the return of the +securities. Incidentally I beg to inform you that they are not worth the +paper they are printed on." + +"Indeed!" sneered Badger. "Well, my dear! old friend, you might have +saved yourself the trouble of coming round here. You and your client +can go straight to hell. _You_ can keep the money; _I'll_ keep the +bonds. See?" + +Mr. Tutt sighed and shook his head hopelessly. + +Then he put the bills back into his pocket and started slowly for the +door. + +"You absolutely and finally decline to give up the securities?" he asked +plaintively. + +"Absolutely and finally?" mocked Mr. Badger with a sweeping bow. + +"Dear! Dear!" almost moaned Mr. Tutt. "I'd heard of you a great many +times but I never realized before what an unscrupulous man you were! +Anyhow, I'm glad to have had a look at you. By the way, if you take the +trouble to dig through all that junk you'll find the certificate of +stock in the Great Jehoshaphat Oil Company you used to flim flam Mrs. +Effingham with out of her ten thousand dollars. Maybe you can use it on +someone else! Anyhow, she's about two thousand dollars to the good. It +isn't every widow who can get twenty per cent and then get her money +back in full." + + + + +The Hepplewhite Tramp + + + "No freeman shall be taken, or imprisoned, or disseized + or outlawed, or exiled, or in any way harmed--nor will + we go upon or send upon him--save by the lawful judgment + of his peers or by the law of the land." + --MAGNA CHARTA, Sec. 39. + + "'Somebody has been lying in my bed--and here she + is,' cried the Little, Small, Wee Bear, in his little, small, + wee voice." + --THE THREE BEARS. + +One of the nicest men in New York was Mr. John De Puyster Hepplewhite. +The chief reason for his niceness was his entire satisfaction with +himself and the padded world in which he dwelt, where he was as +protected from all shocking, rough or otherwise unpleasant things as a +shrinking debutante from the coarse universe of fact. Being thus +shielded from every annoyance and irritation by a host of sycophants he +lived serenely in an atmosphere of unruffled calm, gazing down benignly +and with a certain condescension from the rarefied altitude of his +Fifth Avenue windows, pleased with the prospect of life as it appeared +to him to be and only slightly conscious of the vileness of his fellow +man. + +Certainly he was not conscious at all of the existence of the celebrated +law firm of Tutt & Tutt. Such vulgar persons were not of his sphere. His +own lawyers were gray-headed, dignified, rather smart attorneys who +moved only in the best social circles and practised their profession +with an air of elegance. When Mr. Hepplewhite needed advice he sent for +them and they came, chatted a while in subdued easy accents, and went +away--like cheerful undertakers. Nobody ever spoke in loud tones near +Mr. Hepplewhite because Mr. Hepplewhite did not like anything loud--not +even clothes. He was, as we have said, quite one of the nicest men in +New York. + +At the moment when Mrs. Witherspoon made her appearance he was sitting +in his library reading a copy of "Sainte-Beuve" and waiting for Bibby, +the butler, to announce tea. It was eight minutes to five and there was +still eight minutes to wait; so Mr. Hepplewhite went on reading +"Sainte-Beuve." + +Then "Mrs. Witherspoon!" intoned Bibby, and Mr. Hepplewhite rose +quickly, adjusted his eye-glass and came punctiliously forward. + +"My dear Mrs. Witherspoon!" he exclaimed crisply. "I am really +delighted to see you. It was quite charming of you to give me this +week-end." + +"Adorable of you to ask me Mr. Hepplewhite!" returned the lady. "I've +been looking forward to this visit for weeks. What a sweet room? Is that +a Corot?" + +"Yes--yes!" murmured her host modestly. "Rather nice, I think, eh? I'll +show you my few belongings after tea. Now will you go upstairs first or +have tea first?" + +"Just as you say," beamed Mrs. Witherspoon. "Perhaps I had better run up +and take off my veil." + +"Whichever you prefer," he replied chivalrously. "Do exactly as you +like. Tea will be ready in a couple of minutes." + +"Then I think I'll run up." + +"Very well. Bibby, show Mrs. Witherspoon--" + +"Very good, sir. This way, please, madam. Stockin', fetch Mrs. +Witherspoon's bag from the hall." + +Mr. Hepplewhite stood rubbing his delicate hands in front of the fire, +telling himself what a really great pleasure it was to have Mrs. +Witherspoon staying with him over the week-end. He was having a dinner +party for her that evening--of forty-eight. All that it had been +necessary for him to do to have the party was to tell Mr. Sadducee, his +secretary, that he wished to have it and direct him to send the +invitations from List Number One and then to tell Bibby the same thing +and to order the chef to serve Dinner Number Four--only to have +Johannisberger Cabinet instead of Niersteiner. + +All these things were highly important to Mr. Hepplewhite, for upon the +absolute smoothness with which tea and dinner were served and the +accuracy with which his valet selected socks to match his tie his entire +happiness, to say nothing of his peace of mind, depended. His daily life +consisted of a series of subdued and nicely adjusted social events. They +were forecast for months ahead. Nothing was ever done on the spur of the +moment at Mr. Hepplewhite's. He could tell to within a couple of seconds +just exactly what was going to occur during the balance of the day, the +remainder of Mrs. Witherspoon's stay and the rest of the month. It would +have upset him very much not to know exactly what was going to happen, +for he was a meticulously careful host and being a creature of habit the +unexpected was apt to agitate him extremely. + +So now as he stood rubbing his hands it was in the absolute certainty +that in just a few more seconds one of the footmen would appear between +the tapestry portieres bearing aloft a silver tray with the tea things, +and then Bibby would come in with the paper, and presently Mrs. +Witherspoon would come down and she would make tea for him and they +would talk about tea, and Aiken, and whether the Abner Fullertons were +going to get a domestic or foreign divorce, and how his bridge was these +days. It would be very nice, and he rubbed his hands very gently and +waited for the Dresden clock to strike five in the subdued and decorous +way that it had. But he did not hear it strike. + +Instead a shriek rang out from the hall above, followed by yells and +feet pounding down the stairs. Mr. Hepplewhite turned cold and something +hard rose up in his throat. His sight dimmed. And then Bibby burst in, +pale and with protruding eyes. + +"There was a man in the guest room!" he gasped. "Stockin's got him. What +shall we do?" + +At that moment Mrs. Witherspoon followed. + +"Oh, Mr. Hepplewhite! Oh, Mr. Hepplewhite!" she gasped, staggering +toward him. + +Mr. Hepplewhite would have taken her in his arms and attempted to +comfort her only it was not done in Mr. Hepplewhite's set unless under +extreme provocation. So he pressed an armchair upon her; or, rather, +pressed her into an armchair; and leaned against the bookcase feeling +very faint. He was extremely agitated. + +"S-send for the police! S-s-send for B-burk!" he stuttered. Burk was a +husky watchman who also acted as a personal guard for Mr. Hepplewhite. + +An alarm began to beat a deafening staccato in the hall outside the +library. Bibby rushed gurgling from the room. Several tall men in knee +breeches and silk stockings dashed excitedly up and down stairs using +expressions such as had never before been heard by Mr. Hepplewhite, and +the clanging gong of a police wagon was audible as it clattered up the +Avenue. + +"Oh, Mr. Hepplewhite," whispered Mrs. Witherspoon, unconsciously seeking +his hand. "I never was so frightened in my life!" + +Then the gong stopped and the police poured into the house and up the +stairs. There were muffled noises and suppressed ejaculations of "Aw, +come on there, now! I've got him, Mike! No funny business now, you! Come +along quiet!" + +The whole house seemed blue with policemen, and Mr. Hepplewhite became +aware of a very fat man in a blue cap marked Captain, who removed the +cap deferentially and otherwise indicated that he was making obeisance. +Behind the fat man stood three other equally fat men, who held between +them with grim firmness, by arm, neck and shoulder, a much smaller--in +fact, quite a small--man shabby, unkempt, and with a desperate look upon +his unshaven face. + +"We've got him, all right, Mr. Hepplewhite!" exulted the captain, +obviously grateful that God had vouchsafed to deliver the criminal into +his and not into other hands. "Shall I take him to the house--or do you +want to examine him?" + +"I?" ejaculated Mr. Hepplewhite. "Mercy, no! Take him away as quickly as +possible!" + +"As you say, sir," wheezed the captain. "Come along, boys! Take him over +to court and arraign him!" + +"Yes, do!" urged Mrs. Witherspoon. "And arraign him as hard as you can; +for he really frightened me nearly to death, the terrible man!" + +"Leave him to me, ma'am!" adjured the captain "Will you have your butler +act as complainant sir?" he asked. + +"Why--yes--Bibby will do whatever is proper," agreed Mr. Hepplewhite. +"It will not be necessary for me to go to court, will it?" + +"Oh, no!" answered the captain. "Mr. Bibby will do all right. I suppose +we had better make the charge burglary, sir?" + +"I suppose so," replied Mr. Hepplewhite vaguely. + +"Get on, boys," ordered the captain. "Good evening, sir. Good evening, +ma'am. Step lively, you!" + +The blue cloud faded away, bearing with it both Bibby and the burglar. +Then the third footman brought the belated tea. + +"What a frightful thing to have happen!" grieved Mrs. Witherspoon as she +poured out the tea for Mr. Hepplewhite. "You don't take cream, do you?" + +"No, thanks," he answered. "I find too much cream hard to digest. I have +to be rather careful, you know. By the way, you haven't told me where +the burglar was or what he was doing when you went into the room." + +"He was in the bed," said Mrs. Witherspoon. + + * * * * * + +"In the 'Decay of Lying,' Mr. Tutt," said Tutt thoughtfully, as he +dropped in for a moment's chat after lunch, "Oscar Wilde says, 'There is +no essential incongruity between crime and culture.'" + +The senior partner removed his horn-rimmed spectacles and carefully +polished the lenses with a bit of chamois, which he produced from his +watch pocket, meanwhile resting the muscles of his forehead by elevating +his eyebrows until he somewhat resembled an inquiring but good-natured +owl. + +"That's plain enough," he replied. "The most highly cultivated people +are often the most unscrupulous. I go Oscar one better and declare that +there is a distinct relationship between crime and progress!" + +"You don't say, now!" ejaculated Tutt. "How do you make that out?" + +Mr. Tutt readjusted his spectacles and slowly selected a stogy from the +bundle in the dusty old cigar box. + +"Crime," he announced, "is the violation of the will of the majority as +expressed in the statutes. The law is wholly arbitrary and depends upon +public opinion. Acts which are crimes in one century or country become +virtues in another, and vice versa. Moreover, there is no difference, +except one of degree, between infractions of etiquette and of law, each +of which expresses the feelings and ideas of society at a given moment. +Violations of good taste, manners, morals, illegalities, wrongs, +crimes--they are all fundamentally the same thing, the insistence on +one's own will in defiance of society as a whole. The man who keeps his +hat on in a drawing-room is essentially a criminal because he prefers +his own way of doing things to that adopted by his fellows." + +"That's all right," answered Tutt. "But how about progress?" + +"Why, that is simple," replied his partner. "The man who refuses to bow +to habit, tradition, law--who thinks for himself and acts for himself, +who evolves new theories, who has the courage of his convictions and +stakes his life and liberty upon them--that man is either a statesman, a +prophet or a criminal. And in the end he is either hailed as a hero and +a liberator or is burned, cast into prison or crucified." + +Tutt looked interested. + +"Well, now," he returned, helping himself from the box, "I never thought +of it, but, of course, it's true. Your proposition is that progress +depends on development and development depends on new ideas. If the new +idea is contrary to those of society it is probably criminal. If its +inventor puts it across, gets away with it, and persuades society that +he is right he is a leader in the march of progress. If he fails he goes +to jail. Hence the relationship between crime and progress. Why not say +that crime is progress?" + +"If successful it is," answered Mr. Tutt. "But the moment it is +successful it ceases to be crime." + +"I get you," nodded Tutt. "Here to-day it is a crime to kill one's +grandmother; but I recall reading that among certain savage tribes to do +so is regarded as a highly virtuous act. Now if I convince society that +to kill one's grandmother is a good thing it ceases to be a crime. +Society has progressed. I am a public benefactor." + +"And if you don't persuade society you go to the chair," remarked Mr. +Tutt laconically. + +"To use another illustration," exclaimed Tutt, warming to the subject, +"the private ownership of property at the present time is recognized and +protected by the law, but if we had a Bolshevik government it might be a +crime to refuse to share one's property with others." + +"In that case if you took your share of another's property by force, +instead of being a thief you would be a Progressive," smiled his +partner. + +Tutt robbed his forehead. + +"Looking at it that way, you know," said he, "makes it seem as if +criminals were rather to be admired." + +"Well, some of them are, and a great multitude of them certainly were," +answered Mr. Tutt. "All the early Christian martyrs were criminals in +the sense that they were law-breakers." + +"And Martin Luther," suggested Tutt. + +"And Garibaldi," added Mr. Tutt. + +"And George Washington--maybe?" hazarded the junior partner. + +Mr. Tutt shrugged his high shoulders. + +"You press the analogy a long way, but--in a sense every successful +revolutionist was in the beginning a criminal--as every rebel is and +perforce must be," he replied. + +"So," said Tutt, "if you're a big enough criminal you cease to be a +criminal at all. If you're going to be a crook, don't be a piker--it's +too risky. Grab everything in sight. Exterminate a whole nation, if +possible. Don't be a common garden highwayman or pirate; be a Napoleon +or a Willy Hohenzollern." + +"You have the idea," replied Mr. Tutt. "Crime is unsuccessful defiance +of the existing order of things. Once rebellion rises to the dignity of +revolution murder becomes execution and the murderers become +belligerents. Therefore, as all real progress involves a change in or +defiance of existing law, those who advocate progress are essentially +criminally minded, and if they attempt to secure progress by openly +refusing to obey the law they are actual criminals. Then if they +prevail, and from being in the minority come into power, they are taken +out of jail, banquets are given in their honor, and they are called +patriots and heroes. Hence the close connection between crime and +progress." + +Tutt scratched his chin doubtfully. + +"That sounds pretty good," he admitted, "but"--and he shook his +head--"there's something the matter with it. It doesn't work except in +the case of crimes involving personal rights and liberties. I see your +point that all progressives are criminals in the sense that they are +'agin the law' as it is, but--I also see the hole in your argument, +which is that the fact that all progressives are criminals doesn't make +all criminals progressive. Your proposition is only a half truth." + +"You're quite wrong about my theory being a half truth," retorted Mr. +Tutt. "It is fundamentally sound. The fellow who steals a razor or a few +dollars is regarded as a mean thief, but if he loots a trust company or +takes a million he's a financier. The criminal law, I maintain, is +administered for the purpose of protecting the strong from the weak, the +successful from the unsuccessful the rich from the poor. And, sir"--Mr. +Tutt here shook his fist at an imaginary jury--"the man who wears a red +necktie in violation of the taste of his community or eats peas with his +knife is just as much a criminal as a man who spits on the floor when +there's a law against it. Don't you agree with me?" + +"I do not!" replied Tutt. "But that makes no difference. Nevertheless +what you say about the criminal law being devised to protect the rich +from the poor interests me very much--very much indeed But I think +there's a flaw in that argument too, isn't there? Your proposition is +true only to the extent that the criminal law is invoked to protect +property rights--and not life and liberty. Naturally the laws that +protect property are chiefly of benefit to those who have it--the rich." + +"However that may be," declared Mr. Tutt fiercely, "I claim that the +criminal laws are administered, interpreted and construed in favor of +the rich as against the liberties of the poor, for the simple reason +that the administrators of the criminal law desire to curry favor with +the powers that be." + +"The moral of which all is," retorted the other, "that the law ought to +be very careful about locking up people." + +"At any rate those who have violated laws upon which there can be a +legitimate difference of opinion," agreed Mr. Tutt. + +"That's where we come in," said Tutt. "We make the difference--even if +there never was any before." + +Mr. Tutt chuckled. + +"We perform a dual service to society," he declared. "We prevent the law +from making mistakes and so keep it from falling into disrepute, and we +show up its weak points and thus enable it to be improved." + +"And incidentally we keep many a future statesman and prophet from going +to prison," said Tutt. "The name of the last one was Solomon +Rabinovitch--and he was charged with stealing a second-hand razor from a +colored person described in the papers as one Morris Cohen." + +How long this specious philosophic discussion would have continued is +problematical had it not been interrupted by the entry of a young +gentleman dressed with a somewhat ostentatious elegance, whose wizened +face bore an expression at once of vast good nature and of a deep and +subtle wisdom. + +It was clear that he held an intimate relationship to Tutt & Tutt from +the familiar way in which he returned their cordial, if casual, +salutations. + +"Well, here we are again," remarked Mr. Doon pleasantly, seating himself +upon the corner of Mr. Tutt's desk and spinning his bowler hat upon the +forefinger of his left hand. "The hospitals are empty. The Tombs is as +dry as a bone. Everybody's good and every day'll be Sunday by and by." + +"How about that man who stole a razor?" asked Tutt. + +"Discharged on the ground that the fact that he had a full beard created +a reasonable doubt," replied Doon. "Honestly there's nothing doing in my +line--unless you want a tramp case." + +"A tramp case!" exclaimed Tutt & Tutt. + +"I suppose you'd call it that," he answered blandly. "I don't think he +was a burglar. Anyhow he's in the Tombs now, shouting for a lawyer. I +listened to him and made a note of the case." + +Mr. Tutt pushed over the box of stogies and leaned back attentively. + +"You know the Hepplewhite house up on Fifth Avenue--that great stone +one with the driveway?" + +The Tutts nodded. + +"Well, it appears that the prisoner--our prospective client--was +snooping round looking for something to eat and found that the butler +had left the front door slightly ajar. Filled with a natural curiosity +to observe how the other half lived, he thrust his way cautiously in and +found himself in the main hall--hung with tapestry and lined with stands +of armor. No one was to be seen. Can't you imagine him standing there in +his rags--the Weary Willy of the comic supplements--gazing about him at +the _objets d'art_, the old masters, the onyx tables, the +statuary--wondering where the pantry was and whether the housekeeper +would be more likely to feed him or kick him out?" + +"Weren't any of the domestics about?" inquired Tutt. + +"Not one. They were all taking an afternoon off, except the third +assistant second man who was reading 'The Pilgrim's Progress' in the +servants' hall. To resume, our friend was not only very hungry, but very +tired. He had walked all the way from Yonkers, and he needed everything +from a Turkish bath to a manicuring. He had not been shaved for weeks. +His feet sank almost out of sight in the thick nap of the carpets. It +was quiet, warm, peaceful in there. A sense of relaxation stole over +him. He hated to go away, he says, and he meditated no wrong. But he +wanted to see what it was like upstairs. + +"So up he went. It was like the palace of 'The Sleeping Beauty.' +Everywhere his eyes were soothed by the sight of hothouse plants, marble +floors, priceless rugs, luxurious divans--" + +"Stop!" cried Tutt. "You are making me sleepy!" + +"Well, that's what it did to him. He wandered along the upper hall, +peeking into the different rooms, until finally he came to a beautiful +chamber finished entirely in pink silk. It had a pink rug--of silk; the +furniture was upholstered in pink silk, the walls were lined with pink +silk and in the middle of the room was a great big bed with a pink silk +coverlid and a canopy of the same. It seemed to him that that bed must +have been predestined for him. Without a thought for the morrow he +jumped into it, pulled the coverlid over his head and went fast asleep. + +"Meanwhile, at tea time Mrs. De Lancy Witherspoon arrived for the +week-end. Bibby, the butler, followed by Stocking, the second man, +bearing the hand luggage, escorted the guest to the Bouguereau Room, as +the pink-silk chamber is called." + +Mr. Bonnie Doon, carried away by his own powers of description, waved +his hand dramatically at the old leather couch against the side wall, +in which Weary Willy was supposed to be reclining. + +"Can't you see 'em?" he declaimed. "The haughty Bibby with nose in air, +preceding the great dame of fashion, enters the pink room and comes to +attention, 'This way, madam!' he declaims, and Mrs. Witherspoon sweeps +across the threshold." Bonnie Doon, picking up an imaginary skirt, +waddled round Mr. Tutt and approached the couch. Suddenly he started +back. + +"Oh, la, la!" he half shrieked, dancing about. "There is a man in the +bed!" + +Both Tutts stared hard at the couch as if fully expecting to see the +form of Weary Willy thereon. Bonnie Doon had a way of making things +appear very vivid. + +"And sure enough," he concluded, "there underneath the coverlid in the +middle of the bed was a huddled heap with a stubby beard projecting like +Excalibur from a pink silk lake!" + +"Excuse me," interrupted Tutt. "But may I ask what this is all about?" + +"Why, your new case, to be sure," grinned Bonnie, who, had he been +employed by any other firm, might have run the risk of being regarded as +an ambulance chaser. "To make a long and tragic story short, they sent +for the watchman, whistled for a policeman, telephoned for the hurry-up +wagon, and haled the sleeper away to prison--where he is now, waiting +to be tried." + +"Tried!" ejaculated Mr. Tutt. "What for?" + +"For crime, to be sure," answered Mr. Doon. + +"What crime?" + +"I don't know. They'll find one, of course." + +Mr. Tutt swiftly lowered his legs from the desk and brought his fist +down upon it with a bang. + +"Outrageous! What was I just telling you, Tutt!" he cried, a flush +coming into his wrinkled face. "This poor man is a victim of the +overzealousness which the officers of the law exhibit in protecting the +privileges and property of the rich. If John De Puyster Hepplewhite fell +asleep in somebody's vestibule the policeman on post would send him home +in a cab; but if a hungry tramp does the same thing he runs him in. If +John De Puyster Hepplewhite should be arrested for some crime they would +let him out on bail; while the tramp is imprisoned for weeks awaiting +trial, though under the law he is presumed to be innocent. Is he +presumed to be innocent? Not much! He is presumed to be guilty, +otherwise he would not be there. But what is he presumed to be guilty +of? That's what I want to know! Just because this poor man--hungry, +thirsty and weary--happened to select a bed belonging to John De Puyster +Hepplewhite to lie on he is thrown into prison, indicted by a grand +jury, and tried for felony! Ye gods! 'Sweet land of liberty!'" + +"Well, he hasn't been tried yet," replied Bonnie Doon. "If you feel that +way about it why don't you defend him?" + +"I will!" shouted Mr. Tutt, springing to his feet. "I'll defend him and +acquit him!" + +He seized his tall hat, placed it upon his head and strode rapidly +through the door. + +"He will too!" remarked Bonnie, winking at Tutt. + +"He thinks that tramp is either a statesman or a prophet!" mused Tutt, +his mind reverting to his partner's earlier remarks. + +"He won't think so after he's seen him," replied Mr. Doon. + +It sometimes happens that those who seek to establish great principles +and redress social evils involve others in an involuntary martyrdom far +from their desires. Mr. Tutt would have gone to the electric chair +rather than see the Hepplewhite Tramp, as he was popularly called by the +newspapers convicted of a crime, but the very fact that he had become +his legal champion interjected a new element into the situation, +particularly as O'Brien, Mr. Tutt's arch enemy in the district +attorney's office, had been placed in charge of the case. + +It would have been one thing to let Hans Schmidt--that was the tramp's +name--go, if after remaining in the Tombs until he had been forgotten by +the press he could have been unobtrusively hustled over the Bridge of +Sighs to freedom. Then there would have been no comeback. But with +Ephraim Tutt breathing fire and slaughter, accusing the police and +district attorney of being trucklers to the rich and great, and +oppressors of the poor--law breakers, in fact--O'Brien found himself in +the position of one having an elephant by the tail and unable to let go. + +In fact, it looked as if the case of the Hepplewhite Tramp might become +a political issue. That there was something of a comic side to it made +it all the worse. + +"Holy cats, boys!" snorted District Attorney Peckham to the circle of +disgruntled police officers and assistants gathered about him on the +occasion described by the reporters as his making a personal +investigation of the case, "Why in the name of common sense didn't you +simply boot the fellow into the street?" + +"I wish we had, counselor!" assented the captain of the Hepplewhite +precinct mournfully. "But we thought he was a burglar. I guess he was, +at that--and it was Mr. Hepplewhite's house." + +"I've heard that until I'm sick of it!" retorted Peckham. + +"One thing is sure--if we turn him out now Tutt will sue us all for +false arrest and put the whole administration on the bum," snarled +O'Brien. + +"But I didn't know the tramp would get Mr. Tutt to defend him," +expostulated the captain. "Anyhow, ain't it a crime to go to sleep in +another man's bed?" + +"If it ain't it ought to be!" declared his plain-clothes man +sententiously. "Can't you indict him for burglary?" + +"You can indict all day; the thing is to convict!" snapped Peckham. +"It's up to you, O'Brien, to square this business so that the law is +vindicated--somehow It must be a crime to go into a house on Fifth +Avenue and use it as a hotel. Why, you can't cross the street faster +than a walk these days without committing a crime. Everything's a +crime." + +"Sure thing," agreed the captain. "I never yet had any trouble finding a +crime to charge a man with, once I got the nippers on him." + +"That's so," interjected the plain-clothes man. "Did you ever know it +was a crime to mismanage a steam boiler? Well, it is." + +"Quite right," agreed Mr. Magnus, the indictment clerk. "The great +difficulty for the perfectly honest man nowadays is to avoid some act or +omission which the legislature has seen fit to make a crime without his +knowledge. Refilling a Sarsaparilla bottle, for instance, or getting up +a masquerade ball or going fishing or playing on Sunday or loitering +about a building to overhear what people are talking about inside--" + +"That's no crime," protested the captain scornfully. + +"Yes, it is too!" retorted Mr. Magnus, otherwise known to his fellows as +Caput, because of his supposed cerebral inflation. "Just like it is a +crime to have any kind of a show or procession on Sunday except a +funeral, in which case it's a crime to make a disbursing noise at it." + +"What's a disbursing noise?" demanded O'Brien. + +"I don't know," admitted Magnus. "But that's the law anyway. You can't +make a disbursing noise at a funeral on Sunday." + +"Oh, hell!" ejaculated the captain. "Come to think of it, it's a crime +to spit. What man is safe?" + +"It occurs to me," continued Mr. Magnus thoughtfully, "that it is a +crime under the law to build a house on another man's land; now I should +say that there was a close analogy between doing that and sleeping in +his bed." + +"Hear! Hear!" commented O'Brien. "Caput Magnus, otherwise known as Big +Head, there is no doubt but that your fertile brain can easily devise a +way out of our present difficulty." + +"Well, I've no time to waste on tramp cases," remarked District +Attorney Peckham. "I've something more important to attend to. Indict +this fellow and send him up quick. Charge him with everything in sight +and trust in the Lord. That's the only thing to be done. Don't bother me +about it, that's all!" + +Meantime Mr. Hepplewhite became more and more agitated. Entirely against +his will and, so far as he could see, without any fault of his own, he +suddenly found himself the center of a violent and acrimonious +controversy respecting the fundamental and sacred rights of freemen +which threatened to disrupt society and extinguish the supremacy of the +dominant local political organization. + +On the one hand he was acclaimed by the conservative pulpit and press as +a public-spirited citizen who had done exactly the right +thing--disinterestedly enforced the law regardless of his own +convenience and safety as a matter of principle and for the sake of the +community--a moral hero; on the other, though he was president of +several charitable organizations and at least one orphan asylum he was +execrated as a heartless brute, an oppressor of the poor, an octopus, a +soulless capitalist who fattened on the innocent and helpless and +who--Mr. Hepplewhite was a bachelor--probably if the truth could be +known lived a life of horrid depravity and crime. + +Indeed there was a man named Tutt, of whom Mr. Hepplewhite had never +before heard, who publicly declared that he, Tutt, would show him, +Hepplewhite, up for what he was and make him pay with his body and his +blood, to say nothing of his money, for what he had done and caused to +be done. And so Mr. Hepplewhite became even more agitated, until he +dreamed of this Tutt as an enormous bird like the fabled roc, with a +malignant face and a huge hooked beak that some day would nip him in the +abdomen and fly, croaking, away with him. Mrs. Witherspoon had returned +to Aiken, and after the first flood of commiserations from his friends +on Lists Numbers One, Two, Three and Four he felt neglected, lonely and +rather fearful. + +And then one morning something happened that upset his equanimity +entirely. He had just started out for a walk in the park when a flashy +person who looked like an actor walked impudently up to him and handed +him a piece of paper in which was wrapped a silver half dollar. In a +word Mr. Hepplewhite was subpoenaed and the nervous excitement attendant +upon that operation nearly caused his collapse. For he was thereby +commanded to appear before the Court of General Sessions of the Peace +upon the following Monday at ten a.m. as a witness in a criminal action +prosecuted by the People of the State of New York against Hans Schmidt. +Moreover, the paper was a dirty-brown color and bore the awful name of +Tutt. He returned immediately to the house and telephoned for Mr. +Edgerton, his lawyer, who at once jumped into a taxi on the corner of +Wall and Broad Streets and hurried uptown. + +"Edgerton," said Hepplewhite faintly as the lawyer entered his library, +"this whole unfortunate affair has almost made me sick. I had nothing to +do with the arrest of this man Schmidt. The police did everything. And +now I'm ordered to appear as a witness! Why, I hardly looked at the man. +I shouldn't know him if I saw him. Do I have to go to court?" + +Mr. Edgerton smiled genially in a manner which he thought would +encourage Mr. Hepplewhite. + +"I suppose you'll have to go to court. You can't help that, you know, if +you've been subpoenaed. But you can't testify to anything that I can +see. It's just a formality." + +"Formality!" groaned his client. "Well, I supposed the arrest was just a +formality." + +Mr. Edgerton smiled again rather unconvincingly. + +"Well, you see, you can't always tell what will happen when you once +start something," he began. + +"But I didn't start anything," answered Mr. Hepplewhite. "I had nothing +to say about it." + +At that moment Bibby appeared in the doorway. + +"Excuse me, sir," he said. "There is a young man outside who asked me to +tell you that he has a paper he wishes to serve on you--and would you +mind saving him the trouble of waiting for you to go out?" + +"Another!" gagged Mr. Hepplewhite. + +"Yes, sir! Thank you, sir," stammered Bibby. + +Mr. Hepplewhite looked inquiringly at Mr. Edgerton and rose feebly. + +"He'll get you sooner or later," declared the lawyer. "A man as well +known as you can't avoid process." + +Mr. Hepplewhite bit his lips and went out into the hall. + +Presently he returned carrying a legal-looking bunch of papers. + +"Well, what is it this time?" asked Edgerton jocosely. + +"It's a suit for false imprisonment for one hundred thousand dollars!" +choked Mr. Hepplewhite. + +Mr. Edgerton looked shocked. + +"Well, now you've got to convict him!" he declared. + +"Convict him?" retorted Mr. Hepplewhite. "I don't want to convict him. +I'd gladly give a hundred thousand dollars to get out of the--the--darn +thing!" + +Which was as near profanity as he had ever permitted himself to go. + + * * * * * + +Upon the following Monday Mr. Hepplewhite proceeded to court--flanked by +his distinguished counsel in frock coats and tall hats--simply because +he had been served with a dirty-brown subpoena by Tutt & Tutt; and his +distress was not lessened by the crowd of reporters who joined him at +the entrance of the Criminal Courts Building; or by the flashlight bomb +that was exploded in the corridor in order that the evening papers might +reproduce his picture on the front page. He had never been so much in +the public eye before, and he felt slightly defiled. For some curious +reason he had the feeling that he and not Schmidt was the actual +defendant charged with being guilty of something; nor was this +impression dispelled even by listening to the indictment by which the +Grand Jury charged Schmidt in eleven counts with burglary in the first, +second and third degrees and with the crime of entering his, +Hepplewhite's, house under circumstances not amounting to a burglary but +with intent to commit a felony, as follows: + +"Therefore, to wit, on the eleventh day of January in the year of our +Lord one thousand nine hundred and nineteen in the night-time of the +said day at the ward, city and county aforesaid the dwelling house of +one John De Puyster Hepplewhite there situate, feloniously and +burglariously did break into and enter there being then and there a +human being in said dwelling house, with intent to commit some crime +therein, to wit, the goods, chattels, and personal property of the said +John De Puyster Hepplewhite, then and there being found, then and there +feloniously and burglariously to steal, take and carry away one silver +tea service of the value of five hundred dollars and one pair of opera +glasses of the value of five dollars each with force and arms----" + +"But that silver tea service cost fifteen thousand dollars and weighs +eight hundred pounds!" whispered Mr. Hepplewhite. + +"Order in the court!" shouted Captain Phelan, pounding upon the oak rail +of the bar, and Mr. Hepplewhite subsided. + +Yet as he sat there between his lawyers listening to all the +extraordinary things that the Grand Jury evidently had believed Schmidt +intended to do, the suspicion began gradually to steal over him that +something was not entirely right somewhere. Why, it was ridiculous to +charge the man with trying to carry off a silver service weighing nearly +half a ton when he simply had gone to bed and fallen asleep. Still, +perhaps that was the law. + +However, when the assistant district attorney opened the People's case +to the jury Mr. Hepplewhite began to feel much more at ease. Indeed +O'Brien made it very plain that the defendant had been guilty of a very +grievous--he pronounced it "gree-vious"--offense in forcing his way into +another man's private house. It might or might not be burglary--that +would depend upon the testimony--but in any event it was a criminal, +illegal entry and he should ask for a conviction. A man's house was his +castle and--to quote from that most famous of orators and +statesmen--Edmund Burke--"the wind might enter, the rain might enter, +but the King of England might not enter!" Thus Schmidt could not enter +the house of Hepplewhite without making himself amenable to the law. + +Hepplewhite was filled with admiration for Mr. O'Brien, and his drooping +spirits reared their wilted heads as the prosecutor called Bibby to the +stand and elicited from him the salient features of the case. The jury +was vastly interested in the butler personally, as well as his account +rendered in the choicest cockney of how he had discovered Schmidt in his +master's bed. O'Brien bowed to Mr. Tutt and told him that he might +cross-examine. + +And then it was that Mr. Hepplewhite discovered why he had been haunted +by that mysterious feeling of guilt; for by some occult and subtle +method of suggestion on the part of Mr. Tutt, the case, instead of +being a trial of Schmidt, resolved itself into an attack upon Mr. +Hepplewhite and his retainers and upon the corrupt minions of the law +who had violated every principle of justice, decency and morality in +order to accomplish the unscrupulous purposes of a merciless +aristocrat--meaning him. With biting sarcasm, Mr. Tutt forced from the +writhing Bibby the admission that the prisoner was sound asleep in the +pink silk fastnesses of the Bouguereau Room when he was discovered that +he made no attempt to escape, that he did not assault anybody and that +he had appeared comatose from exhaustion; that there was no sign of a +break anywhere, and that the pair of opera glasses "worth five dollars +_apiece_"--Tutt invited the court's attention to this ingenuous +phraseology of Mr. Caput Magnus, as a literary curiosity--were a figment +of the imagination. + +In a word Mr. Tutt rolled Bibby up and threw him away, while his master +shuddered at the open disclosure of his trusted major-domo's vulgarity, +mendacity and general lack of sportsmanship. Somehow all at once the +case began to break up and go all to pot. The jury got laughing at +Bibby, the footmen and the cops as Mr. Tutt painted for their +edification the scene following the arrival of Mrs. Witherspoon, when +Schmidt was discovered asleep, as Mr. Tutt put it, like Goldilocks in +the Little, Small, Wee Bear's bed. + +Stocking was the next witness, and he fared no better than had Bibby. +O'Brien, catching the judge's eye, made a wry face and imperceptibly +lowered his left lid--on the side away from the jury, thus officially +indicating that, of course, the case was a lemon but that there was +nothing that could be done except to try it out to the bitter end. + +Then he rose and called out unexpectedly: "Mr. John De Puyster +Hepplewhite--take the stand!" + +It was entirely unexpected. No one had suggested that he would be called +for the prosecution. Possibly O'Brien was actuated by a slight touch of +malice; possibly he wanted to be able, if the case was lost, to accuse +Hepplewhite of losing it on his own testimony. But at any rate he +certainly had no anticipation of what the ultimate consequence of his +act would be. + +Mr. Hepplewhite suddenly felt as though his entire intestinal mechanism +had been removed. But he had no time to take counsel of his fears. +Everybody in the courtroom turned with one accord and looked at him. He +rose, feeling as one who dreams; that he is naked in the midst of a +multitude. He shrank back hesitating, but hostile hands reached out and +pushed him forward. Cringing, he slunk to the witness chair, and for the +first time faced the sardonic eyes of the terrible Tutt, his adversary +who looked scornfully from Hepplewhite to the jury and then from the +jury back to Hepplewhite as if to say: "Look at him! Call you this a +man?" + +"You are the Mr. Hepplewhite who has been referred to in the testimony +as the owner of the house in which the defendant was found?" inquired +O'Brien. + +"Yes--yes," answered Mr. Hepplewhite deprecatingly. + +"The first witness--Bibby--is in your employ?" + +"Yes--yes." + +"Did you have a silver tea set of the value of--er--at least five +hundred dollars in the house?" + +"It was worth fifteen thousand," corrected Mr. Hepplewhite. + +"Oh! Now, have you been served by the defendant's attorneys with a +summons and complaint in an action for false arrest in which damages are +claimed in the sum of one hundred thousand dollars?" + +"I object!" shouted Mr. Tutt. "It is wholly irrelevant." + +"I think it shows the importance of the result of this trial to the +witness," argued O'Brien perfunctorily. "It shows this case isn't any +joke--even if some people seem to think it is." + +"Objection sustained," ruled the court. "The question is irrelevant. The +jury is supposed to know that every case is important to those +concerned--to the defendant as well as to those who charge him with +crime." + +O'Brien bowed. + +"That's all. You may examine, Mr. Tutt." + +The old lawyer slowly unfolded his tall frame and gazed quizzically down +upon the shivering Hepplewhite. + +"You have been sued by my client for one hundred thousand dollars, +haven't you?" he demanded. + +"Object!" shot out O'Brien. + +"Overruled," snapped the court. "It is a proper question for +cross-examination. It may show motive." + +Mr. Hepplewhite sat helplessly until the shooting was over. + +"Answer the question!" suddenly shouted Mr. Tutt. + +"But I thought--" he began. + +"Don't think!" retorted the court sarcastically. "The time to think has +gone by. Answer!" + +"I don't know what the question is," stammered Mr. Hepplewhite, +thoroughly frightened. + +"Lord! Lord!" groaned O'Brien in plain hearing of the jury. + +Mr. Tutt sighed sympathetically in mock resignation. + +"My dear sir," he began in icy tones, "when you had my client arrested +and charged with being a burglar, had you made any personal inquiry as +to the facts?" + +"I didn't have him arrested!" protested the witness. + +"You deny that you ordered Bibby to charge the defendant with burglary?" +roared Mr. Tutt. "Take care! You know there is such a crime as perjury, +do you not?" + +"No--I mean yes," stuttered Mr. Hepplewhite abjectly. "That is, I've +heard about perjury--but the police attended to everything for me." + +"Aha!" cried Mr. Tutt, snorting angrily like the war horse depicted in +the Book of Job. "The police 'attended' to my client for you, did they? +What do you mean--for you? Did you pay them for their little attention?" + +"I always send them something on Christmas," said Mr. Hepplewhite. "Just +like the postmen." + +Mr. Tutt looked significantly at the jury, while a titter ran round the +court room. + +"Well," he continued with patient irony, "what we wish to know is +whether these friends of yours whom you so kindly remember at Christmas +dragged the helpless man away from your house, threw him into jail and +charged him with burglary by your authority?" + +"I didn't think anything about it," asserted Hepplewhite "Really I +didn't. I assumed that they knew what to do under such circumstances. I +didn't suppose they needed any authority from me." + +Mr. Tutt eyed sideways the twelve jurymen. + +"Trying to get out of it, are you? Attempting to avoid responsibility? +Are you thinking of what your position will be if the defendant is +acquitted--with an action against you for one hundred thousand dollars?" + +Ashamed, terrified, humiliated, Mr. Hepplewhite almost burst into tears. +He had suffered a complete moral disintegration--did not know where to +turn for help or sympathy. The whole world seemed to have risen against +him. He opened his mouth to reply, but the words would not come. He +looked appealingly at the judge, but the judge coldly ignored him. The +whole room seemed crowded with a multitude of leering eyes. Why had God +made him a rich man? Why was he compelled to suffer those terrible +indignities? He was not responsible for what had been done--why then, +was he being treated so abominably? + +"I don't want this man punished!" he suddenly broke out in fervent +expostulation. "I have nothing against him. I don't believe he intended +to do any wrong. And I hope the jury will acquit him!" + +"Oho!" whistled Mr. Tutt exultantly, while O'Brien gazed at Hepplewhite +in stupefaction. _Was_ this a man? + +"So you admit that the charge against my client is without foundation?" +insisted Mr. Tutt. + +Hepplewhite nodded weakly. + +"I don't know rightly what the charge is--but I don't think he meant any +harm," he faltered. + +"Then why did you have the police put him under arrest and hale him +away?" challenged Mr. Tutt ferociously. + +"I supposed they had to--if he came into my house," said Mr. +Hepplewhite. Then he added shamefacedly: "I know it sounds silly--but +frankly I did not know that I had anything to say in the matter. If your +client has been injured by my fault or mistake I will gladly reimburse +him as handsomely as you wish." + +O'Brien gasped. Then he made a funnel of his hands and whispered toward +the bench: "Take it away, for heaven's sake!" + +"That is all!" remarked Mr. Tutt with deep sarcasm, making an elaborate +bow in the direction of Mr. Hepplewhite. "Thank you for your excellent +intentions!" + +A snicker followed Mr. Hepplewhite as he dragged himself back to his +seat among the spectators. + +He felt as though he had passed through a clothes wringer. Dimly he +heard Mr. Tutt addressing the court. + +"And I move, Your Honor," the lawyer was paying, "that you take the +counts for burglary in the first, second and third degrees away from the +jury on the ground that there has been a complete failure of proof that +my client broke into the house of this man Hepplewhite either by night +or by day, or that he assaulted anybody or stole anything there, or ever +intended to." + +"Motion granted," agreed the judge. "I quite agree with you, Mr. Tutt. +There is no evidence here of any breaking. In fact, the inferences are +all the other way." + +"I further move that you take from the consideration of the jury the +remaining count of illegally entering the house with intent to commit a +crime and direct the jury to acquit the defendant for lack of evidence," +continued Mr. Tutt. + +"But what was your client doing in the house?" inquired the judge. "He +had no particular business in it, had he?" + +"That does not make his presence a crime, Your Honor," retorted the +lawyer. "A man is not guilty of a felony who falls asleep on my haycock. +Why should he be if he falls asleep in my bed?" + +The judge smiled. + +"We have no illegal entry statute with respect to fields or meadows, Mr. +Tutt," he remarked good-naturedly. "No, I shall be obliged to let the +jury decide whether this defendant went into that house for an honest +or dishonest purpose. It is clearly a proper question for them to pass +upon. Proceed with your case." + +Now when, as in the case of the Hepplewhite Tramp, the chief witness for +the prosecution throws up his hands and offers to repay the defendant +for the wrong he has done him, naturally it is all over but the +shouting. + +"There is no need for me to call the defendant," Mr. Tutt told the +court, "in view of the admissions made by the last witness. I am ready +to proceed with the summing up." + +"As you deem wise," answered the judge. "Proceed then." + +Through a blur of sight and sound Mr. Hepplewhite dimly heard Mr. Tutt +addressing the jury and saw them lean forward to catch his every word. + +Beside him Mr. Edgerton was saying protestingly: "May I ask why you made +those fool statements on the witness stand?" + +"Because I didn't want an innocent man convicted," returned Mr. +Hepplewhite tartly. + +"Well, you'll get your wish!" sniffed his lawyer. "And you'll get soaked +for about twenty thousand dollars for false arrest!" + +"I don't care," retorted the client. "And what's more I hope Mr. Tutt +gets a substantial fee out of it. He strikes me as a lawyer who knows +his business!" + +The oldest and fattest court officers, men so old and fat that they +remembered the trial of Boss Tweed and the days when Delancey Nicoll was +the White Hope of the Brownstone Court House--declared Mr. Tutt's +summation was the greatest that ever they heard. For the shrewd old +lawyer had an artist's hand with which he played upon the keyboard of +the jury and knew just when to pull out the stops of the _vox humana_ of +pathos and the grand diapason of indignation and defiance. So he began +by tickling their sense of humor with an ironic description of afternoon +tea at Mr. Hepplewhite's, with Bibby and Stocking as chief actors, until +all twelve shook with suppressed laughter and the judge was forced to +hide his face behind the _Law Journal_; ridiculed the idea of a criminal +who wanted to commit a crime calmly going to sleep in a pink silk bed in +broad daylight; and then brought tears to their eyes as he pictured the +wretched homeless tramp, sick, footsore and starving, who, drawn by the +need of food and warmth to this silk nest of luxury, was clubbed, +arrested and jailed simply because he had violated the supposed sanctity +of a rich man's home. + +The jury watched him as intently as a dog watches a piece of meat held +over its nose. They smiled with him, they wept with him, they glared at +Mr. Hepplewhite and they gazed in a friendly way at Schmidt, whom Mr. +Tutt had bailed out just before the trial. The very stars in their +courses seemed warring for Tutt & Tutt. In the words of Phelan: "There +was nothing to it!" + +"Thank God," concluded Mr. Tutt eloquently, "that in this land of +liberty in which we are privileged to dwell no man can be convicted of a +crime except by a jury of his peers--a right sacred under our +Constitution and inherited from Magna Charta, that foundation stone of +English liberty, in which the barons forced King John to declare that +'No freeman shall be taken, or imprisoned, or disseized, or outlawed, or +exiled, or in any way harmed ... save by the lawful judgment of his +peers or by the law of the land.' + +"Had I the time I would demonstrate to you the arbitrary character of +our laws and the inequality with which they are administered. + +"But in this case the chief witness has already admitted the innocence +of the defendant. There is nothing more to be said. The prosecution has +cried '_Peccavi!_' I leave my client in your hands." + +He resumed his seat contentedly and wiped his forehead with his silk +handkerchief. The judge looked down at O'Brien with raised eyebrows. + +"I will leave the case to the jury on Your Honor's charge," remarked +the latter carelessly. + +"Gentlemen of the jury," began the judge, "the defendant is accused of +entering the house of Mr. Hepplewhite with the intent to commit a crime +therein--" + +Mr. Hepplewhite sat, his head upon his breast, for what seemed to him +several hours. He had but one thought--to escape. His ordeal had been +far worse than he had anticipated. But he had made a discovery. He had +suddenly realized that one cannot avoid one's duties to one's fellows by +leaving one's affairs to others--not even to the police. He perceived +that he had lived with his head stuck in the sand. He had tried to +escape from his responsibilities as a citizen by hiding behind the thick +walls of his stone mansion on Fifth Avenue. He made up his mind that he +would do differently if he ever had the chance. Meanwhile, was not the +jury ever going to set the poor man free? + +They had indeed remained out a surprisingly long time in order merely to +reach a verdict which was a mere formality. Ah! There they were! Mr. +Hepplewhite watched with palpitating heart while they straggled slowly +in. The clerk made the ordinary perfunctory inquiry as to what their +verdict was. Mr. Hepplewhite did not hear what the foreman said in +reply, but he saw both the Tutts and O'Brien start from their seats and +heard a loud murmur rise throughout the court room. + +"What's that!" cried the clerk in astonished tones. "What did you say, +Mister Foreman?" + +"I said that we find the defendant guilty," replied the foreman calmly. + +Mr. Tutt stared incredulously at the twelve traitors who had betrayed +him. + +"Never mind, Mr. Tutt," whispered Number Six confidentially. "You did +the best you could. Your argument was fine--grand--but nobody could ever +make us believe that your client went into that house for any purpose +except to steal whatever he could lay his hands on. Besides, it wasn't +Mr. Hepplewhite's fault. He means well. And anyhow a nut like that has +got to be protected against himself." + +He might have enlightened Mr. Tutt further upon the psychology of the +situation had not the judge at that moment ordered the prisoner +arraigned at the bar. + +"Have you ever been convicted before?" asked His Honor sharply. + +"Sure," replied the Hepplewhite Tramp carelessly. "I've done three or +four bits, I'm a burglar. But you can't give me more than a year for +illegal entry." + +"That is quite true," admitted His Honor stiffly. "And it isn't half +enough!" He hesitated. "Perhaps under the circumstances you'll tell us +what you were doing in Mr. Hepplewhite's bed?" + +"Oh, I don't mind," returned the defendant with the superior air of one +who has put something over. "When I heard the guy in the knee breeches +coming up the stairs I just dove for the slats and played I was asleep." + +Leaving the courthouse Mr. Tutt encountered Bonnie Doon. + +"Young man," he remarked severely, "you assured me that fellow was only +a harmless tramp!" + +"Well," answered Bonnie, "that's what he said." + +"He says now he's a burglar," retorted Mr. Tutt wrathfully. "I don't +believe he knows what he is. Did you ever hear of such an outrageous +verdict? With not a scrap of evidence to support it?" + +Bonnie lit a cigarette doubtfully. + +"Oh, I don't know," he muttered. "The jury seems to have sized him up +rather better than we did." + +"Jury!" growled Mr. Tutt, rolling his eyes heavenward. "'Sweet land of +liberty!'" + + + + +Lallapaloosa Limited + + + + "Ethics: The doctrine of man's duty in respect to + himself and the rights of others." + --CENTURY DICTIONARY. + + "I don't say that all these people couldn't be squared; + but it is right to tell you that I shouldn't be sufficiently + degraded in my own estimation unless I was insulted + with a very considerable bribe." + --POOH-BAH. + +"I've been all over those securities," Miss Wiggin informed Mr. Tutt as +he entered the office one morning, "and not a single one of them is +listed on the Stock Exchange." + +"What securities are those?" asked her employer, hanging his tall hat on +the antiquated mahogany coat tree in the corner opposite the screen that +ambushed the washing apparatus. "I don't remember any securities," he +remarked as he applied a match to the off end of a particularly green +and vicious-looking stogy. + +"Why, of course you do, Mr. Tutt!" insisted Miss Wiggin. "Don't you +remember those great piles of bonds and stocks that Doctor Barrows left +here with you to keep for him?" + +"Oh, those!" Mr. Tutt smiled inscrutably. "Mr. Barrows is not a +physician," he corrected her, running his eye over the General Sessions +calendar. "He's only a 'doc'--that is to say, one who doctors. You know +you can doctor a lot of things besides the human anatomy. No, I guess +they're not listed on the Stock Exchange or anywhere else." + +"Well, here's a schedule I made of them--Miss Sondheim typed it--and +their total face value is seventeen million eight hundred thousand +dollars. I tried to find out all I could, but none of the firms on Wall +Street had ever heard of any of them--excepting of one that was traded +in on the curb up to within a few weeks. There's Great Lakes and +Canadian Southern Railway Company," she went on, "Chicago Water Front +and Terminal Company, Great Geyser Texan Petroleum and Llano Estacado +Land Company--dozens and dozens of them, and not one has an office or, +so far as I can find out, any tangible existence--but the one I spoke +of." + +"Which is this great exception?" queried Mr. Tutt absently as he +searched through the _Law Journal_ for the case he was going to try that +afternoon. "You said one of them had been dealt in on the curb? You +astonish me!" + +"It's got a funny name," she answered. "It almost sounds as if they +meant it for a joke--Horse's Neck Extension." + +"I guess they meant it for a joke all right--on the public," chuckled +her employer. "How many shares are there?" + +"A hundred thousand," she answered. + +"Jumping Jehoshaphat!" ejaculated Mr. Tutt. "How on earth did old Doc +manage to get hold of them?" + +"It sold for only ten cents a share!" replied Miss Wiggin. "That would +mean ten thousand dollars--" + +"If Doc paid for it," supplemented Mr. Tutt. "Which he probably didn't. +What's it selling for now?" + +"It isn't selling at all." + +Mr. Tutt pressed the button that summoned Willie. + +"When you haven't anything better to do," he said to her, "why don't you +go round and see what has become of--of--Horse's Neck Extension?" + +"I will," assented Miss Wiggin. "It makes me feel rich just to talk +about such things. I just love it." + +"Many a slick crook has taken advantage of just that kind of feeling," +mused Mr. Tutt. "There are two things that women--particularly trained +nurses--seem to like better than anything else in the world--babies and +stock certificates." + +Then upon the arrival of the recalcitrant William he gathered up his +papers and took down his hat from the tree. + +"I wish you'd let me get your hat ironed, Mr. Tutt," remarked Miss +Wiggin. "It would cost you only fifty cents." + +"That's all you know about it, my dear," he answered. "More likely it +would cost me a hundred thousand dollars." + + * * * * * + +Mr. Tobias Greenbaum, of Scherer, Hunn, Greenbaum & Beck, carefully +placed his cigar where it would not char his Italian Renaissance desk +and smoothed out the list which Mr. Elderberry, the secretary of The +Horse's Neck Extension Copper Mining Company, handed to him. The list +was typed on thin sheets; of foolscap and contained the names of +stockholders, but as it had lain rolled up in the bottom of Mr. +Elderberry's desk for five years without being disturbed it was inclined +to resist the gentle pressure of Mr. Greenbaum's fingers. + +Mr. Greenbaum glanced sharply round the plate-glass lake that separated +him from the other directors of Horse's Neck, rather as if he had +detected his associates in a crime. + +"Isaacs says," he announced in an arrogant, almost insulting tone, +though below the surface he was an entirely genial person, "that the new +vein in the Amphalula runs into the west drift of Horse's Neck almost to +where we quit work in Number Nine five years ago." + +"If it does it will make it a bonanza property," emphatically declared +his partner, Mr. Scherer, a dolichocephalous person with very black hair +and thin bluish cheeks. "It's a pity we didn't buy it all in at ten +cents a share." + +"We did!" retorted Greenbaum. "All that could be shaken out. We've got +all the stock that hasn't gravitated to the cemeteries." + +"Even if the Amphalula vein doesn't run into it it will come near +enough to make Horse's Neck worth dollars per share. It's a +heads-I-win-tails-you-lose proposition," commented Mr. Hunn dryly. "Who +controls Amphalula?" + +"We do," snapped Greenbaum. + +"Then it's a cinch," returned Hunn mildly. "Shake out the sleepers, +reorganize, and sell or hold as seems most advisable later on." + +Mr. Elderberry cleared his throat tentatively. + +"If you gentlemen will pardon me--I have been considering this matter +for some little time," he hazarded. Mr. Elderberry was not only the +professional salaried secretary of Horse's Neck but was also treasurer +of the Amphalula, and general factotum, representative and interlocking +director for Scherer, Hunn, Greenbaum & Beck in their various mining +enterprises, combining in his person almost as many offices as, Pooh-Bah +in "The Mikado." Though he could not have claimed to serve as "First +Lord of the Treasury, Lord Chief Justice, Commander-in-Chief, Lord High +Admiral, Master of the Buck Hounds, Groom of the Back Stairs, Archbishop +of Titipu and Lord Mayor, both acting and elect, all rolled into one," +he could with entire modesty have admitted the soft impeachment of being +simultaneously treasurer of Amphalula, vice-president of Hooligan Gulch +and Red Water, secretary of Horse's Neck, Holy Jo, Gargoyle Extension, +Cowhide Number Five, Consolidated Bimetallic, Nevada Mastodon, Leaping +Frog, Orelady Mine, Why Marry and Sol's Cliff Buttress, and president of +Blimp Consolidated. + +All these various properties were either owned or controlled by Scherer, +Hunn, Greenbaum & Beck and had been acquired with the use of the same +original capital in various entirely legal ways, which at the present +moment are irrelevant. The firm was a strictly honorable business house, +from both their own point of view and that of the Street. Everything +they did was with and by the advice of counsel. Yet not one of these +active-minded gentlemen, including Mr. Greenbaum, the dolichocephalous +Scherer and the acephalous Hunn, had ever done a stroke of productive +work or contributed anything toward the common weal. In fact, distress +to somebody in some form, and usually to a large number of persons, +inevitably followed whatever deal they undertook, since their business +was speculating in mining properties and unloading the bad ones upon an +unsuspecting public which Scherer, Hunn, Greenbaum & Beck had permitted +to deceive itself. + +Thus, when Greenbaum called upon Mr. Elderberry for advice, it savored +strongly of Koko's consulting Pooh-Bah and was sometimes almost as +confusing, for just as Pooh-Bah on these occasions was won't to reply, +"Certainly. In which of my capacities? As First Lord of the Treasury, +Lord Chamberlain, Attorney-General, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Privy +Purse or Private Secretary?" so the financial and corporate Elderberry +might equally well ask: "Exactly. But are you seeking my advice as +secretary of Horse's Neck, of Holy Jo, of Cowhide Number Five, or as +vice-president of Hooligan Gulch and Red Water, treasurer of Amphalula +or president of Blimp Consolidated?" + +Just now it was, of course, obvious that he was addressing the company +in his capacity of secretary of Horse's Neck. + +"It goes without saying, gentlemen, that this property is pretty nearly +down and out. You will recall that most of the insiders sold out on the +tail of the Goldfield Boom and waited for the market to sag until we +could buy in again. The mines are full of water, work was abandoned over +four years ago, and the property is practically defunct. The original +capitalization was ten million shares at one dollar a share. We own or +control at least four million shares, for which we paid ten to fifteen +cents, while we had sold our original holdings for one dollar sixty to +one dollar ninety-five a share. While Horse's Neck represents a handsome +profit--in my opinion"--he cleared his throat again as if deprecating +the vulgarity of his phrase--"it is good for another whirl." + +"You say it's full of water?" inquired Hunn. + +"It will cost about fifty thousand dollars to pump out the mines and a +hundred thousand to repair the machinery. Then there's quite an +indebtedness--about seventy-five thousand; and tax liens--another fifty. +Half a million dollars would put Horse's Neck on the map, and if the +Amphalula vein crosses the property it will be worth ten millions. If it +doesn't, the chance that it is going to will make a market for the +stock." + +Mr. Elderberry swept with a bland inquiring eye the shore of the glassy +sea about which his associates were gathered. + +"I've been over the ground," announced Greenbaum "and it's a good +gamble. We want Horse's Neck for ourselves--at any rate until we are +confident that it's a real lemon. Half a million will do it. I'll +personally put up a hundred thousand." + +"How are you going to get rid of the fifty thousand other stockholders?" +asked Mr. Beck dubiously "We don't want them trailing along with us." + +"I propose," answered Mr. Elderberry brightly, in his capacity as chief +conspirator for Scherer, Hunn, _et al._, "that we organize a new +corporation to be called 'Lallapaloosa Limited' and capitalize it at a +million dollars--one million shares at a dollar a share. Then we will +execute a contract between Horse's Neck and Lallapaloosa by the terms of +which the old bankrupt corporation will sell to the new corporation all +its assets for one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars. We +underwrite the stock of Lallapaloosa at fifty cents a share, thus +supplying the new corporation with the funds with which to purchase the +properties of the old. In a word we shall get Horse's Neck for a hundred +and twenty-five thousand and have three hundred and seventy-five +thousand left out of what we subscribe to underwrite the stock to put +it on its feet." + +"That's all right," debated Hunn. "But how about the other stockholders +in Horse's Neck that Beck referred to? Where do they come in?" + +"I've thought of that," returned Elderberry. "Of course you can't just +squeeze 'em out entirely. That wouldn't be legal. They must be given the +chance to subscribe at par to the stock of the new corporation on the +basis of one share in the new for every ten they hold in the old; or, as +Horse's Neck is a Delaware corporation, to have their old stock +appraised under the laws of Delaware. In point of fact, they've all +written off their holdings in Horse's Neck as a total loss years ago and +you couldn't drag 'em into putting in any new money. They'll simply let +it go--forfeit their stock in Horse's Neck and be wiped out because they +were not willing to go in and reorganize the property with us." + +"They would if they knew about Amphalula," remarked Beck. + +"Well, they don't!" snapped Greenbaum, "and we're under no obligations +to tell 'em. They can infer what they like from the fact that Horse's +Neck has been selling for ten cents a share for the last three years." + +"Is that right, Chippingham?" inquired Beck of the attorney who was in +attendance. "I mean--is it legal?" + +"Perfectly legal," replied Mr. Chippingham conclusively. "A corporation +has a perfect right to dispose of its entire assets for a proper +consideration and if any minority stockholder feels aggrieved he can +take the matter to the Delaware courts and get his equity assessed. +Besides, everybody is treated alike--all the stockholders in Horse's +Neck can subscribe pro rata for Lallapaloosa." + +"Only they won't," grinned Scherer. + +"And so, as they are wiped out--the new corporation--that is us--in fact +gets their equity, just as much as if they had deeded it to us." + +"That is, we get for nothing about one-half the value of the property," +agreed Elderberry. "Now, I've been over the list and I don't think +you'll hear a peep from any of them." + + "He's got 'em on the list--he's got 'em on the list; + And they'll none of 'em be missed--they'll none of 'em be missed!" + +hummed Mr. Beck. "It looks good to me! I'll take a hundred thousand." + +"Mr. Chippingham has the papers drawn already," continued Elderberry. +"Of course you've got to give the old stockholders notice, but we can +rush the thing through and before anybody wakes up the thing will be +done. Then they can holler all they want." + +"Well, I'll come in," announced Hunn complacently. + +"So will I," echoed Scherer. "And the firm can underwrite the last +hundred thousand, and that will clean it up." + +"Is it all right for us to underwrite the stock ourselves at half +price?" inquired Mr. Beck. "I mean--is it legal?" + +"Sure!" reiterated Mr. Chippingham. "Somebody's got to underwrite it; +why not us?" + +"Move we adjourn," said Mr. Greenbaum. "Elderberry--the usual." + +Mr. Elderberry removed from his change pocket five glittering gold +pieces and slid one across the glass sheet to each director. + +"Second motion. Carried! All up--seventh inning!" smiled Mr. Scherer; +and the directors, pocketing their gold pieces, arose. + +If, as it has been defined, ethics consists of a "system of principles +and rules concerning moral obligations and regard for the rights of +others," it may be interesting to speculate as to whether or not these +gentlemen had any or not, and, if so, what it may have been. But in +considering this somewhat nice question it should be borne in mind that +Messrs. Scherer, Hunn, Greenbaum & Beck were bankers of standing, and +were advised by a firm of attorneys of the highest reputation. On its +face, and as it was about to be represented to the stockholders of +Horse's Neck, the proposition appeared fair enough. + +The circular, shortly after sent out to all the names upon the list, +stated succinctly that financial and labor conditions had been such that +it had been found impossible to operate the mine profitably for several +years, that it had depreciated greatly in value owing to the water which +had accumulated in its lower levels, that it had exhausted its surplus, +that a heavy indebtedness had accumulated, that the corporation's +outstanding notes had been protested and that the property would be sold +under foreclosure unless money was immediately raised to pay them, the +interest due and taxes; that half a million dollars was needed to put +the property in operation and that there was no way to secure it, as +nobody was willing to loan money to a bankrupt mining concern. That +under these circumstances no practical method had been proposed except +to organize a new corporation capitalized at one million instead of ten, +to the stock of which each shareholder in Horse's Neck might subscribe +in proportion to his holdings, at par, and to which the assets of the +old corporation should be transferred practically for its debts. That +this, in a word, was the only way to save the situation and possibly +make a go of a bad business, and that it was a gamble in which the old +stockholders had a right, up to a certain date, to participate if they +saw fit. Those that did not would find their stock in Horse's Neck +entirely valueless as it would have no assets left which had not been +transferred to Lallapaloosa. Stockholders who were dissatisfied could +protest against the enabling resolution to be offered at the annual +meeting of the stockholders of Horse's Neck to be held the following +week at Wilmington, Delaware, and could avail themselves of the right to +have their equity assessed under the laws of Delaware, but as the +liabilities practically equaled the present value of the property that +equity would naturally be highly problematical. + +Now, as a matter of morals or of law the only thing that made the +proposed reorganization unethical or inequitable was the single trifling +fact that those responsible for it were the only ones who knew of the +existence and proximity of the Amphalula vein. When a mining company, a +railroad, an oil well or any other enterprise is down and out it is only +fair that the majority stockholders, who are obliged to protect their +investment, should have the right to call upon the rest to come forward +and do their share or else drop out. A minority stockholder cannot +appeal to any canon of fair play whereby he should be entitled to sit +back and let the majority take all the risks and then claim his share of +the profits. + +The imponderable element of injustice in the situation consisted in the +suppression of a fact which the directors concealed but concerning +which, however, they made no representation, false or otherwise. They +were going to risk half a million dollars of their own money and they +wanted the whole gamble for themselves. They sincerely felt that nobody +else was entitled to take that risk with them. Once they had floated +Horse's Neck they had come to look upon it as their own private affair. +The minority had no rights which they, the majority, were bound to +respect. The minority were nothing but a lot of piking gamblers, anyway, +who bought or sold for a rise or fall of a few cents. They knew nothing +of the property and cared less for its real value. They were merely +traders and if they lost they forgot it or tried to. On the other hand +Scherer, Hunn, Greenbaum & Beck were promoters, who contributed +something to the economic advancement of the nation. + + * * * * * + +"Regarding my hat, which you suggested this morning should be pressed at +a cost of fifty cents," remarked Mr. Tutt to Miss Wiggin when he +returned to the office upon the adjournment of court in the afternoon +and replaced that ancient object in its accustomed resting-place +--"regarding that precious hat of mine"--he eyed it affectionately +--"I can only say that I would as soon send myself to a dry-cleaning +establishment as to permit its profanation by the iron of a +haberdasher." + +Miss Wiggin laughed lightly. + +"That doesn't explain your cryptic statement that it would probably cost +you a hundred thousand dollars," she replied. "Still--" + +Mr. Tutt turned suddenly upon his heel and held her with an upraised +hand, the bony wrist of which was encircled, after an intervening space +of some five inches, by a frayed cuff confined with a black onyx button +the size of a quarter. + +"Behold," he cried in the deep resonant voice that he used in addressing +juries at the climax of a peroration, "the integuments of my +personality--the ancient habiliments of an honorable profession--the +panoply of the legal warrior. Here, my corslet"--he touched his dingy +waistcoat with his left hand; "my greaves"--he brushed the baggy legs of +his pantaloons; "my halberd"--he raised his old mahogany cane with its +knot of yellow ivory; "my casque"--he indicated his ruffled stove-pipe +"Arrayed in these I am Mr. Ephraim Tutt, attorney and counselor at +law--the senior partner in Tutt & Tutt--a respected member of the bar +duly accredited and authorized to practise before the Supreme Court of +the State of New York, the Court of Appeals, the District Court of the +United States, the Circuit Court of Appeals, the Supreme Court of the +United States, the Court of Claims--" + +"--the Police Court and the Coroner's Court," concluded Miss Wiggin, +making him a mock curtsy. + +"Without these indicia of my profession and my individuality I should be +like David without his sling or Samson without his hair. I should be +merely Tutt, a criminal lawyer--one of a multitude--regarded perhaps as +a shyster. But in these robes of my high office I am a high priest of +the law; just as you, my dear girl, are one of its many devoted and +worthy priestesses. Can you imagine me going to court in a bowler hat or +arguing to the jury in a cutaway coat or bobtail business suit? Can you +picture Ephraim Tutt with his hair cut short or in an Ascot tie, any +more than you can envisage him in riding breeches or wearing lilacs? No! +There is but one Mr. Tutt, and these are his only garments. He who +steals my hat may steal trash, but without it I should be like a +disembodied spirit unable to return to my earthly dwelling-place. + +"A paltry hundred thousand? + +"Nay, without my hat--my helmet!--I should be valueless to myself and +everybody else; so estimate my worth and you can assay the value of my +hat. What am I worth in your opinion?" + +And then Miss Wiggin, having glanced cautiously if quickly round, made a +most astonishing declaration. + +"Just about a million times more than anybody else in the whole world, +you old dear!" she whispered and rising upon her toes she kissed his +wrinkled cheek. + +"Dear me! You really mustn't do that!" gasped Mr. Tutt. + +"Well," she retorted, "you can discharge me if you like. But first sit +down, light a cigar and let me tell you something." + +Mr. Tutt did as he was bid, chuckling. + +"Well," said Miss Wiggin, "there is such a thing as Horse's Neck +Extension after all!" + +"Um--you don't say?" he answered, struggling to make his stogy draw. + +"And it has an office with about a hundred other corporations of various +kinds--most of them with names that sound like the zoo--Yellow Wildcat, +Jumping Leapfrog, and that sort of thing. It seems Horse's Neck is +played out and they are going to reorganize it--" + +"Who are?" demanded her employer, suddenly sitting erect. + +"Scherer, Hunn, Greenbaum & Beck." + +"The dickens they are!" he ejaculated. "That bunch of pirates? Not if I +know it!" + +"Why not?" + +"Reorganize! Reorganize? Reorganization is my middle name!" cried Mr. +Tutt. "So Scherer, Hunn, Greenbaum & Beck are going to reorganize +something, are they? Let 'em try! Not so long as I've got my hat!" + +"This is all very enigmatical to me," replied Miss Wiggin. "But then, +I'm only a woman. Aren't they all right? Why shouldn't they reorganize a +mine if it's exhausted?" + +"If it's exhausted why do they want to reorganize it?" he demanded, +climbing to his feet. "Let me tell you something, Minerva! All my life +I've been fighting against tyranny--the tyranny of the law, the tyranny +of power, the tyranny of money." + +He drew fiercely on his stogy, which being desiccated flared like a +Roman candle. + +"You don't need to tell me what this plan of reorganization is; because +they wouldn't propose one unless it was going to benefit them in some +way, and the only way it can be made to benefit them is at the expense +of the other stockholders. _Quod erat demonstrandum_." + +Mr. Tutt seemed to have become distended somehow and to have spread over +the entire wall surface of his office like the genie which the +fisherman innocently permitted to escape from the bottle. + +"There isn't one reorganization scheme in a hundred that isn't crooked +somewhere." + +"According to that, if a business is unsuccessful it ought to be allowed +to go to pot for fear that somebody might make a profit in putting it on +its feet," she countered. "I think you're a violent, irascible, +prejudiced old man!" + +"All the same," he retorted, "show me a reorganization scheme and I'll +show you a flimflam! What's this one? Bet you anything you like it's as +crooked as a ram's horn. I don't have to hear about it. Don't want to +read the plan. But I'll bust it--higher than Hades. See if I don't!" + +He spat the remaining filaments of his stogy from the window and fished +out another. + +"How do we come into it, anyhow?" he demanded. + +"Doctor--I mean Mister Barrows," replied Miss Wiggin. + +"Oh, yes. Of course. Well, you send for him to come down here and sign +the papers." + +"What papers?" + +"The complaint and order to show cause." + +"But there isn't any." + +"There will be, all right, by the time he gets here." + +Miss Wiggin looked first puzzled and then pained. + +"I don't understand," she said rather stiffly. "Do you mean that the +firm of Tutt & Tutt is going to engage in the enterprise of trying to +break up a plan of reorganization without knowing what it is? Won't you +lay us all open to the accusation of being strikers?" + +Mr. Tutt's ordinarily brown complexion became slightly tinged with +purple. + +"Let the court decide!" he cried hotly. "You say Scherer, Hunn, +Greenbaum & Beck are proposing to reorganize a mining company? You admit +we hold some of the stock? Well--as the natural-born and perennial +champion of the outraged minority--I'm going to attack it, and bust it, +and raise heck with it--on general principles. I'm going to throw that +damned old hat of mine into the ring, my child, and play hell with +everything." + +And with a cluck Mr. Tutt leaned over, produced a dingy bottle wrapped +in a coat of many colors and poured himself out a glass of malt extract. + + * * * * * + +When Mr. Greenbaum was summoned to the telephone and informed by Mr. +Elderberry in disgruntled tones that somebody had just served upon him +an order to show cause why the proposed reorganization of Horse's Neck +should not be set aside and enjoined, he not only became instantly +annoyed but highly excited. + +"What!" he almost screamed. + +"I'll read it to you, if you don't believe it!" said Mr. Elderberry. + +"'United States District Court, Southern District of New York, Edward V. +Barrows, Complainant against Horse's Neck Extension Mining Company, +Defendant. + +"'Upon the subpoena herein and the complaint duly verified the +nineteenth day of February, 1919, and the affidavit of Ephraim Tutt +and--'" + +"Who in hell is Tutt?" shouted Greenbaum, interrupting. + +"I don't know," retorted Elderberry; "or Barrows either." + +"Well, skip all the legal rot and get to the point," directed Greenbaum. + +"'Ordered--ordered, that the defendant, Horse's Neck Extension Mining +Company, show cause at a stated term to be held in and for--'" + +"I said to cut the legal rot!" + +"Um--um--'why an injunction order should not be issued herein pending +the trial of this action and enjoining the defendant from disposing of +its assets and for the appointment of a receiver of the assets of the +defendant corporation; and why the complainant should not have such +other, further and different relief as may be equitable.'" + +There was a long pause during which Mr. Elderberry was under a +convincing delusion that he could actually hear the thoughts that were +rattling round in Mr. Greenbaum's brain. + +"You there?" he inquired presently. + +"Oh, yes, I'm here!" retorted Greenbaum. "This is the devil of a note! +Have you spoken to Chippingham?" + +"Yes." + +"What does he say?" + +"He says it's awkward. They have got hold somewhere of one of our old +circulars of 1914 in which the property is described as worth about ten +million dollars--that was during the boom, you remember--and they claim +we are selling it to ourselves for less than one million and that on its +face it's a fraud on the minority stockholders who can't afford to buy +stock in the new corporation--as of course it would be if the mine was +really worth ten million or anything like it." + +"Did we really ever get out any circular like that?" demanded Greenbaum +in a protesting voice. "I don't recall any." + +"That was when we were making a market for the stock," Elderberry +reminded him. "We couldn't say enough. Honestly, to look at the thing +now is enough to make you sick!" + +"Well, it's just a hold-up--that's what it is. Some crook like this +Tutt or this Barrows has found out about Amphalula and is bringing a +strike suit. You'll have to call a meeting right away. I'd like to +strangle all these shyster lawyers!" + +And it never occurred to Mr. Greenbaum that the possible existence of +the Amphalula vein was what in fact made the order to show cause +justifiable--his actual ground of complaint being that anybody should, +as he assumed, have found out about it in defiance of his plans. + + * * * * * + +"Yeronner," said Attendant Mike Horan as he helped Judge Pollak into his +black bombazine gown in his chambers in the old Post-Office Building on +the morning of the return day, "there's a great bunch out there in the +court room waitin' for ye, an' no mistake!" + +"Indeed!" remarked His Honor. "And who are they? What is the case?" + +"Hanged if I know," answered Mike, snipping a piece of fluff off his +judgeship's shoulder. "There's a white-bearded old guy, two or three +swell gents with tall hats, Counselor Tutt and an attorney named +Chippingham, besides that pretty Miss Wiggin; and they ain't speakin' +none to one another, neither." + +"It must be that mining-reorganization case," answered the judge. "Well, +it's time to go in." + +They walked down the dirty marble corridor and entered the court room, +while the clerk rapped on the railing. + +"Hear ye! Hear ye! Hear ye! All persons having any business to do with +the District Court of the United States draw near, give your attention +and you will be heard," he intoned with unctuous authority. + +The "bunch" rose and made obeisance. + +"Good morning," said the judge pleasantly, sitting down with a side +switch of the bombazine. "Barrows against the--er--er--Horse's Neck +Mining Company. Do you represent the complainant, Mr. Tutt?" + +"I do," answered Mr. Tutt with great dignity. "Your Honor, this is a +motion for an order to show cause why an injunction _pendente lite_ +should not issue restraining the sale of the assets, of this corporation +to another in fraud of its minority stockholders--and for a receiver. My +client, an aged man living upon his farm in the northern part of the +state, is the owner of one hundred thousand shares in the Horse's Neck +Mining Company of the par value of one hundred thousand dollars. He has +owned these securities for many years. They represent his entire +capital. He is a bona fide stockholder--" + +"May I be pardoned for interrupting?" sneered Chippingham, springing to +his feet. "I think the court should be informed at the outset that this +man, Barrows, is a notorious ex-convict." + +Judge Pollak raised his eyebrows. + +"This is an outrage!" thundered Mr. Tutt, his form rising ceilingward. +"My client--like all of us--has had his misfortunes, but they are +happily a thing of the past; he has the same rights as if he were an +archbishop, the president of a university or--a judge of this honorable +court." + +"We are sitting in equity," remarked His Honor. "The question of _bona +fides_ is a vital one. _Is_ the complainant an ex-convict?" + +"This is the complainant, sir," cried Mr. Tutt, indicating old Doc, now +for the first time in his life smartly arrayed in a new checked suit, +red tie, patent-leather shoes and suede gloves, and with his beard +neatly trimmed. "This is the unfortunate man whose honest savings of a +lifetime are being wrested from him by an unscrupulous group of +manipulators who--in my opinion--are more deserving of confinement +behind prison walls than he ever was." + +The gentlemen with the tall hats bit their lips and showed signs of +poorly suppressed agitation. + +"But _is_ your client an ex-convict, Mr. Tutt?" repeated the judge +quietly. + +"Yes, Your Honor, he is." + +"When and how did he become possessed of his stock?" + +Mr. Tutt turned to Doc with an air of ineffectually striving to master +his righteous indignation. + +"Tell the court, Mr. Barrows," he cried, "in your own words." + +Doc Barrows wonderingly rose. + +"If you please, sir," he began, "it's quite a long story. You see, I was +the owner of all the stock of The Chicago Water Front and Terminal +Company--there was a flaw in the title deed which I can explain to you +privately if you wish--and when I was--er--visiting--up on the Hudson--I +met a man there who was the owner of a hundred thousand shares of +Horse's Neck, and we agreed to exchange." + +The judge tried to hide a slight smile. + +"I see," he replied pleasantly. "And what was the man's name?" + +"Oscar Bloom, sir." + +The gentlemen with the tall hats exchanged agitated glances. + +"Do you know how he got his stock?" + +"No, sir." + +"That is all. Go on, Mr. Tutt." + +Doc sat down while Mr. Tutt again unhooked his lank form. + +"To resume where I was interrupted, Your Honor, the directors +controlling a majority of the stock of this corporation, the capital of +which is ten millions of dollars, have made a contract to sell all of +its properties to another corporation, organized by themselves and +capitalized for one million, for the sum of one hundred and twenty-five +thousand dollars! + +"It is true that in their plan of reorganization they offer to permit +any stockholder in the old corporation to subscribe for stock in the new +at par--thus at first glance placing all upon what seems to be an +equality; but any stockholder who does not see fit to subscribe or +cannot afford to do so is wiped out, for there will be nothing left in +the way of assets in Horse's Neck after the transfer is completed. + +"Now these gentlemen have underwritten the stock in the new Lallapaloosa +Company at fifty cents upon the dollar, and if this nefarious deal is +permitted to go through they will thus acquire a property worth ten +millions for five hundred thousand dollars, of which they will use only +one hundred and twenty-five thousand in payment of old indebtedness. In +effect, they confiscate the equity of all the minority stockholders in +Horse's Neck who cannot afford to subscribe for stock in Lallapaloosa." +He turned upon the uncomfortable tall hats with an arraigning eye. + +"In the criminal courts, Your Honor, such a conspiracy would be +properly described as grand larceny; in Wall Street perchance it may be +viewed as high finance. But so long as there are courts of equity such a +wrong upon a helpless stockholder will not go unrebuked. Have I made +myself clear to Your Honor?" + +Judge Pollak looked interested. He was a man famous for his protection +of helpless minorities and his court had been selected by Mr. Tutt on +this account. + +"If the facts are as you state them, Mr. Tutt," he answered seriously, +"the plan on its face would seem to be inequitable. If the property is +worth ten million the consideration is palpably inadequate. Your +client's equity, worth on that basis at least one hundred thousand +dollars, would be entirely destroyed without any redress." + +"Your Honor," burst out Mr. Chippingham, whose bald head had been +bobbing about in excited contiguity with the tall hats, "this is a most +misleading statement. The assets of Horse's Neck aren't worth a hundred +thousand dollars. And if any of the minority don't want to come into the +reorganization--and I assure Your Honor that we would welcome their +participation--they can have their equity appraised under the laws of +Delaware and the finding becomes a lien on the assets even after they +have been transferred." + +"What relief does that give a man like Mr. Barrows?" shouted Mr. Tutt. +"He can't afford to go down to Wilmington with a carload of books and a +corps of experts to prove the value of Horse's Neck. It would cost him +more than his stock is worth!" + +"That remedy is not exclusive, in any event," declared the judge. "If +this complainant is going to be defrauded I will enjoin this contract +_pendente lite_ and appoint a receiver." + +"Your Honor!" protested Chippingham in great agony. "It is not the fact +that this mine is worth ten million. It isn't worth at the most more +than one hundred thousand. It is, full of water, the machinery is rusted +and falling to pieces and the workings are practically exhausted. The +only way to rehabilitate this property is for everybody to come in and +put up enough money by subscribing to the stock of the new corporation +to pump it out, buy new engines and start producing again. Is it fair to +the majority, who are willing to go on, put up more money, and make an +attempt to save the property, to have this complainant--an ex-convict +who never paid a cent for his stock, dug up from heaven knows +where--enjoin their contract and throw the corporation into the hands of +a receiver? This is nothing but a strike suit. I repeat--a strike suit!" + +He glowered breathless at his adversary. + +"Oh! Oh!" groaned Mr. Tutt in horrified tones. + +"Gentlemen! Gentlemen!" expostulated the court. "This will not do!" + +"I beg pardon--of the court," stammered Mr. Chippingham. + +"Your Honor," mourned Mr. Tutt, "I have practised here for thirty years +and this is the first time I have ever been insulted in open court. A +strike suit? I hold in my hand"--he waved it threateningly at the tall +hats--"a circular issued by these directors less than five years ago, in +which they give the itemized value of this property as ten million +dollars. Shortly after that circular was issued the stock sold in the +open market at one dollar and ninety cents a share. In two years it sank +to ten cents a share. Will a little water, a little rust, a little +trouble with labor reduce the value of a great property like this from +ten millions of dollars to one hundred thousand--one per cent of its +appraised value? Either"--he fixed Chippingham with an exultant and +terrifying glance--"they were lying then or they are lying now!" + +"Let me look at that circular," directed Judge Pollak. He took it from +Mr. Tutt's eager hand, glanced through it and turned sharply upon the +quaking Chippingham. + +"How long have you been attorney for Scherer, Hunn, Greenbaum & Beck?" + +"Twelve years, Your Honor." + +"Who is Wilson W. Elderberry?" + +"He is the secretary of the Horse's Neck Extension, Your Honor." + +"Is he in court?" + +From a distant corner Mr. Elderberry bashfully rose. + +"Come here!" ordered the court. And the Pooh-Bah of the +Scherer-Hunn-Greenbaum-Beck enterprises came cringing to the bar. + +"Did you sign this circular in 1914?" demanded Judge Pollak. + +"Yes, Your Honor." + +"Were the statements contained in it true?" + +Elderberry squirmed. + +"Ye-es, Your Honor. That is--they were to the best of my knowledge and +belief. I was, of course, obliged to take what information was at +hand--and--er--and--" + +"Did you sign the other circular, issued last month, to the effect that +the mine was practically valueless?" + +"Yes, sir." Elderberry studiously examined the moldings on the cornice +of the judge's canopy. + +"Um!" remarked the court significantly. + +There was a flurry among the tall hats. Then Mr. Greenbaum sprang to his +feet. + +"If you please, Your Honor," he announced, staccato, "we entirely +disavow Mr. Elderberry's circular of 1914. It was issued without our +knowledge or authority. It is no evidence that the mine was worth ten +millions or any other amount at that time." + +"Oh! Oh!" choked Mr. Tutt, while Miss Wiggin giggled delightedly into +her brief case. + +Judge Pollak bent upon Mr. Greenbaum a withering glance. + +"Did your firm sell any of its holdings in Horse's Neck after the +issuance of that circular?" + +Greenbaum hesitated. He would have liked to wring that judge's neck. + +"Why--how do I know? We may have." + +"_Did_ you?" + +"Say 'yes,' for God's sake," hissed Chippingham "or you'll land in the +pen!" + +"I am informed that we did," answered Greenbaum defiantly. "That is, I +don't _say_ we did. Very likely we did. Our books would show. But I +repeat--we disavow this circular and we deny any responsibility for this +man, Elderberry." + +This man, Elderberry, who for twelve long years had writhed under the +biting lash of his employer's tongue, hating him with a hatred known +only to those in subordinate positions who are bribed to suffer the +"whips and scorns of time, the oppressor's wrong, the proud man's +contumely," quivered and saw red. He was going to be made the goat! +They expected him to take all the responsibility and give them a clean +slate! The nerve of it! To hell with them! Suddenly he began to cry, +shockingly, with deep stertorous suspirations. + +"No--you won't!" he hiccuped. "You shan't lay the blame on me! I'll tell +the truth, I will! I won't stand for it! Your Honor, they want to +reorganize Horse's Neck because they think there's a vein in Amphalula +that crosses one of the old workings and that it'll make the property +worth millions and millions." + +Utter silence descended upon the court room--silence broken only by the +slow ticktack of the self-winding clock on the rear wall and the whine +of the electric cars on Park Row. One of the tall hats crept quietly to +the door and vanished. The others sat like images. + +Then the court said very quietly: "I will adjourn this matter for one +week. I need not point out that what has occurred has a very grave +interpretation. Adjourn court!" + + * * * * * + +Old Doc Barrows, the two Tutts and Miss Wiggin were sitting in Mr. +Tutt's office an hour later when Willie announced that Mr. Tobias +Greenbaum was outside and would like an interview. + +"Send him in!" directed Mr. Tutt, winking at Miss Wiggin. + +Mr. Greenbaum entered, frowning and without salutation, while Doc +partially rose, moved by the acquired instinct of disciplinary +politeness, then changed his mind and sat down again. + +"See here," snarled Greenbaum. "You sure have made a most awful hash of +this business. I don't want to argue about it. We could go ahead and +beat you, but Pollak is prejudiced and will probably give you your +injunction and appoint a receiver. If he does, that will knock the whole +property higher than a kite. Nobody would ever buy stock in it or even +finance it. Now how much do you want to call off your suit?" + +"Have a stogy?" asked Mr. Tutt politely. + +"Nope." + +"We want exactly one hundred thousand dollars." + +Greenbaum laughed derisively. + +"A hundred thousand fiddlesticks! This old jailbird swindled another +crook, Bloom--" + +"Oh, Bloom was a crook too, was he?" chuckled Mr. Tutt. "He worked for +your firm, didn't he?" + +"That's nothing to do with it!" retorted Greenbaum angrily. "Your +swindling client traded some bum stock in a fake corporation for Bloom's +stock, which he received for bona fide services--" + +"Like Elderberry's?" inquired Tutt innocently. + +"Your man never paid a cent for his holdings. That alone would throw +him out of court. The mine isn't worth a cent without the Amphalula +vein. We're taking a big chance. You've got us down and we've got to +pay; but we'll pay only ten thousand dollars--that's final." + +"I ain't any more of a swindler than you be!" said Doc with plaintive +indignation. + +"What do you wish to do, Mr. Barrows?" asked Mr. Tutt, turning to him +deferentially. + +"I leave it entirely to you, Mr. Tutt. It's your stock; I gave it all to +you months ago." + +"Then," answered Mr. Tutt with fine scorn, "I shall tell this miserable +cheating rogue and rascal either to pay you a hundred thousand dollars +or go to hell." + +Mr. Tobias Greenbaum clenched his fists and cast a black glance upon the +group. + +"You can wreck this corporation if you choose, you bunch of dirty +blackmailers, but you'll get not a cent more than ten thousand. For the +last time, will you take it or not?" + +Mr. Tutt rose and pointed toward the door. + +"Kindly remove yourself before I call the police," he said coldly. "I +advise the firm of Scherer, Hunn, Greenbaum & Beck to retain criminal +counsel. Your ten thousand may come in handy for that purpose." + +Mr. Tobias Greenbaum went. + +"And now, Miss Wiggin, how about a cup of tea?" said Mr. Tutt. + +The firm of Tutt & Tutt claimed to be the only law firm in the city of +New York which still maintained the historic English custom of having +tea at five o'clock. Whether the claim had any foundation or not the tea +was none the less an institution, undoubtedly generating a friendly, +sociable atmosphere throughout the office; and now Willie pulled aside +the screen in the corner and disclosed the gate-leg table over which +Miss Wiggin exercised her daily prerogative. Soon the room was filled +with the comfortable odor of Pekoe, of muffins toasted upon an electric +heater, of cigarettes and stogies. Yet there was, and had been ever +since their conversation about the hat, a certain restraint between Miss +Wiggin and Mr. Tutt, rising presumably out of her suggestion that his +course savored of blackmail, however justified it had afterward turned +out to be. + +"My, isn't this nice!" murmured Doc, trying unsuccessfully to eat a +muffin, drink his tea and do justice to a stogy at the same time. "It's +so homy now, isn't it?" + +"Doc," answered Mr. Tutt, "did you really want that ten thousand?" + +"Me?" repeated Doc vaguely. "Why, I told you I gave that stock to you +long ago. It isn't mine any longer. Besides, I don't want any money. +I'm perfectly happy as I am." + +Mr. Tutt laughed genially. + +"Oh, well," he said, "it's no matter who owns it. Elderberry just +telephoned me that he had received a telegram from the Amphalula that +the vein had definitely run out. It's all over--including the shouting." + +"Elderberry telephone you?" queried Miss Wiggin in astonishment. + +"Yes, Elderberry. You see, he's done, he says, with Scherer, Hunn, +Greenbaum & Beck. Wants to turn state's evidence and put 'em all in +jail. I've said I'd help him." + +"Then why didn't you take the ten thousand and call it quits while the +getting was good?" demanded his partner icily. + +"Because I knew I'd never get the ten anyway," replied Mr. Tutt. +"Greenbaum would have learned about the vein on his return to the +office." + +"Well, I must be getting along back to Pottsville!" mumbled Doc. "This +has been a very pleasant trip--very pleasant; and quite--quite--exciting. +I--" + +"What I'd like to know, Mr. Tutt," interrupted Miss Wiggin, "is how you +justify your course in this matter. When you attempted to block this +proposed reorganization you knew nothing about the Elderberry circular +of 1914 valuing the property at ten million, or of the Amphalula vein. +On its face you were attempting to wreck a perfectly honest piece of +financiering, and unless it was a strike suit--which I hope and pray it +wasn't--" + +"Strike suit!" protested Mr. Tutt with a slight twinkle in his eye. "How +can you suggest such a thing! Didn't the events demonstrate the wisdom +of my judgment?" + +"But you didn't know what was going to happen when you began your suit!" +she argued firmly. "I hate to say it, but I should think that if +everything had not come out just as it has your motives might easily +have been misconstrued." + +"It was a matter of principle with me, my dear," declared Mr. Tutt +solemnly. "Just to show there's no ill feeling, won't you give me +another cup of tea?" + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TUTT AND MR. 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