Ever waiting!
And Silas Moffit wiggled in his chair. As a man on the spot! And licked his lips helplessly with his tongue.
CHAPTER IV
Mr. Silas Moffit Drives a Bargain!
“Well, Judge,” Silas Moffit said, after an embarrassing pause, “Mr. Vann as much as told me that this trial will just be a formality at best—that it’s cut and dried as to its verdict—the fellow being hawgtied, so to speak, at every angle. So hopelessly—as I could see right then—that—as I gathered even then—Mr. Vann considered the fellow a fool not to have confessed—and taken a life sentence, which would automatically bring him parole in 33 years, Now, however, so even Mr. Vann implied—the fellow’s in for the chair, and—but again forgive me, Judge, since all this suggests a decision on your part that hasn’t yet been rendered. And nobody in all Chicago but knows that you make your own decisions—and always have. And that they’re not only 100 per cent just, but 101 per cent so!—and 101 per cent legal to boot!” Silas Moffit saw that stern face relaxing a bit. And hurried on. “Anyway, Judge, to get back to the point between us, the moment Mr. Vann told me of this case, it occurred to me: why—here is exactly the kind of case where my niece ought to get her courtroom baptism.”
“Your niece? Who is your niece?”
“Elsa Colby is her name, Judge. She’s a graduate in law—Northwestern U—just finished early last month because of having a final course to take in the summer school. She specialized in criminal law—but has never had a case.”
“Elsa Colby, eh? Yes—I think I remember that name—on the last docket of the young lawyers newly admitted to the Bar. Well—but specializing—so early in the game?
That’s rank foolhardyism, isn’t it? It seems to me that—but what does the girl do all day? Twiddle her thumbs—in her office?”
“Mighty near, Judge. She keeps busy—embroidering a quilt laid out on a rack covering nearly one wall of her office. Which is in the old Ulysses S. Grant Building.
Though I doubt if she’s got enough money to buy the colored silks to complete the—the northwest corner of the fool quilt. But anyway, Judge, my favor is this: I would like you to appoint Elsa to defend this fellow—this fellow—whom Mr. Vann nabbed; and, Judge, if you’ll do that, I’ll renew the mortgage on this place. And for 5 years, Judge. Which length of time will surely bring your improvement through. That, Judge, is how much I think of Elsa—and how much I want to see her get her baptismal fire, so to speak.”
“Hm? Well how old is she?”
“24, Judge.”
“24, eh? Well—is she a good bright girl?”
“Well—she won a Phi Beta Kappa key—it’s something you get in college only when—”
“Yes, I know,” nodded Penworth. “That means she stood over go in all her studies—bar none!”
“Then, Judge, would you be willing—to give Elsa the appointment—as defender of this fellow?”
Judge Penworth laughed a bit mirthlessly. Yet appeared to be tremendously relieved. “Good God, Moffit, considering that that’s all you ask—and that it has nothing whatsoever to do with my own rulings and decisions on this fellow tonight—and that I haven’t been able to find a single mortgage company in all Chicago that will look at a renewal here—I’m willing to appoint the devil himself! Particularly since—if you’d gone to Mike Shurely first—he’d have doubtlessly begged me, as a personal favor to him, to appoint her. Yes—sure—I’ll appoint her. I’m waiting a telephonic call-back now from a lawyer whom I had in mind to appoint—but, when he calls, I’ll just say that what I had to say to him was off. Yes. Now what’s this girl’s phone number?”
“It’s Dearborn 8722,” said Silas Moffit, with great haste.
“And she’s always there. If by any chance she weren’t, however—well, you have my number, of course—and, at a word from you, I’ll round up her whereabouts for you.”
“All—right! Dearborn—yes. 8722.” The Judge was entering this data in a tiny notebook which, with fitted pencil, he apparently kept under his pillow. “And the name—Elsa Colby? Yes.” He closed his notebook. “Consider her, then, Mr. Moffit, appointed. Absolutely! And I feel quite free at appointing her, moreover, for the case really does appear to be but an academic formality. For the fellow is—at least from present considerations—mad to go to trial. But that, of course, is his funeral!”
“Yes,” assented Silas Moffit. “And doubtlessly, his funeral, in this instance, literally as well as figuratively.” He tapped his toe uneasily. “Er—Judge?”
“Yes? What?”
“I feel now that I should warn you that poor Elsa—when you tell her you’ve appointed her—will fight like a little wildcat—do everything to get out of it—try—”
“Fight—me?” said the Judge aghast. “Fight—me?” he repeated, and with a trace of irritation in his voice. “Why—that’s no way for a youngster to do—just starting out in law. She—she should be glad—to be appointed—to get the lucrative $100 fee alone. She should be glad, moreover, that the office of Public Defender is now abolished here in Chicago—and that some of the Public Defender’s former at salary is now divided up amongst less fortunate criminal lawyers. She should be glad—”
“Yes, Judge—but she won’t be! She’ll beg, plead, threaten —try everything on God’s green earth—to make you let her out. And I want to ask you, therefore, if—for her own sake—you’ll tell her frankly that if she refuses to take the case, you will—under the new statutes that permit you to do so—write her disbarment.”
Bewilderment and displeasure both, plainly, lay on the Judge’s face. But it appeared to be the former that got the upper hand. “But—but why,” he asked, “will she—will she fight me?”
“Why? Because she’s afraid—to take her first case. Afraid, lest she do some injustice to her client, and—”
But the Judge laughed quietly. “My goodness! A deaf-and-dumb lawyer couldn’t hurt this fellow’s chances! At least—from what you just read me, and from what Mr. Vann told me. But if she’s like you say, Mr. Moffit, she’ll probably blow up in court, and—”
“Blow—up—in—court? Don’t you believe it, Judge. It’s just pre-performance stage-fright. I saw her twice—in amateur theatricals—darn near collapse before going on the stage; but when she did go on, she—she was the hit of the show.”
“Well, that merely demonstrates what I’ve always maintained: The Baptismal Fire—in every field—is its own excuse.”
“So I think. But now Judge—if she balks—in fact, when she balks!—will you threaten her with disbarment?”
“Threaten her—with disbarment? I—I will disbar her!”
The Judge was becoming downright angry, as the hypothetical picture, plainly, grew more objective in his mind.
“I—I will disbar her. Not only under my absolute rights as Chief Commissioner of the Ethical Practices Subdivision—but also under the new statutes which allow any judge who has been on the bench as long as I have to do exactly that. And just as I would disbar any lawyer who refused to take a kind court’s benevolent appointment. Yes—I’ll give her a 3-month’s disbarment as her very first, and most valuable, lesson in criminal law. I’ll—” He broke off, his wrath—of choleric nature—obviously fading a bit. “But oh, Moffit, the girl will take the case all right—and be glad to.”
But to this Silas Moffit made no reply. Except to rub his hands together with satisfaction. Then, pulling out a great turnip of a gold watch, he rose hastily. “I’m so glad, Judge. And relieved. I love that