"I won't let any of the rogues get by me!" he shouted gaily to his wife over the back of the motor. "And anyhow I shan't be locked up all night. There aren't any murder cases on the calendar. I'll be out on the five-fifteen as usual."
Alas, poor Bently! Alas for human frailty and all those splendid visions in which he pictured himself as the anchor of the ship of justice, a prop and stay of the structure of democracy.
His train was a trifle late and the roll of the jury had already been called, and the perennial excuses heard, when he entered the court room; but the clerk, who knew him, nodded in a welcoming manner, checked him off as present and dropped his name card in the revolving wheel. It was a well-known scene to Bently, a veteran of fifteen years' service. Even the actors were familiar friends—the pink-faced judge with his snow-white whiskers, who at times suggested to Bently an octogenarian angel, and, at others, a certain ancient baboon once observed in the Primates cage at the Bronz Zoo; the harried, anxious little clerk with his paradoxically grandiloquent intonation; the comedy assistant district attorney with his wheezy voice emanating from a Falstaffian body, who suffered from a soporific malady and was accustomed to open a case and then let it take care of itself while he slumbered audibly beneath the dais; even Ephraim Tutt, the gaunt, benignly whimsical-looking attorney, in his rusty-black frock coat and loose-hanging tie; his rotund partner, whose birdlike briskness and fat paunch inevitably brought to mind a distended robin in specs; and the dégagé Bonnie Doon in his cut-in-at-the-waist checked suit—he knew them all of old.
"Well, call your first case, Mister District Attorney!" directed the judge, nodding encouragingly at Bently, well knowing that in him he had a staunch upholder of the law-as-it-is, who could be depended upon to bolster up his weaker or more sentimental brother talesmen into the proper convicting attitude of mind.
Then—as per the schedule in force for at least an epoch—good-natured, pot-bellied Tom Hingman, the oldest A.D.A. in the office, rose heavily, fumbled with his stubby fingers among the blue indictments on the table, drew one forth, panted a few times, gasped out "People against Daniel Lowry," and looked round in a pseudo-helpless way as if not knowing exactly what to do.
There was a slight stir, and from the back of the court room came forward a funny little bow-legged old man, carrying in both hands a funny little flat-topped derby hat, and took his seat timidly at the bar of justice beside Mr. Tutt, who smiled down at him affectionately and put his arm about the threadbare shoulders as if to protect him from the evils of the world. They made a quaint and far from unpleasing picture, thought Bently Gibson, the ideal juror, and he wondered what the poor old devil could be up for.
A jury was impaneled, Bently among them; the balance of the panel was excused until two o'clock; the court room was cleared of loafers; the judge perused the indictment with a practised eye; Tom Hingman rose again, wheezed and grinned at the embattled jury; and the mill of justice began to grind.
Now the mill of justice, at least in the General Sessions of New York County, grinds exceeding fine, so far as the number of convictions is concerned. Of those brought to the bar for trial few escape; for modern talesmen, being hard-headed men, regard the whole thing as a matter of business and try to get through with it as quickly and as efficiently as possible. The bombastic spread-eagle orator, the grandiloquent gas bag, the highfaluting stump speaker gain few verdicts and win small applause except from their clients. And district attorneys who ape the bloodhound in their mien and tactics win scant approval and less acquiescence from the bored gentlemen who are forced to listen to them. Nowadays—whatever may have been the case two generations ago—each side briefly states its claims and tries to win on points.
People were apt to wonder why each succeeding administration inevitably retained stuffy old Tom Hingman at seventy-five hundred dollars a year to handle the calendar in Part Five. Yet those on the inside knew why very well. It was because Tom long ago, in his prehistoric youth, had learned that the way to secure verdicts was to appear not to care a tinker's dam whether the jury found the defendant guilty or not. He pretended never to know anything about any case in advance, to be in complete ignorance as to who the witnesses might be and to what they were going to testify, and to be terribly sorry to have to prosecute the unfortunate at the bar, though he wasn't to blame for that any more than the jury were for having to find him guilty if proven to be so, which, it seemed to him, he had been clearly proven to be. I say Tom pretended all this, yet it was more than half true, for Tom was a kind-hearted old bird. But the point was that, whether true or not, it got convictions. The jury sucking it all up in its entirety felt sorrier for the simple-minded old softy of a Tom, which they believed him to be, than they did for the defendant, who they concluded was a good deal cleverer than the assistant district attorney.
In a word, it put them on their honor as public officers not to let the administration of justice suffer merely because the A.D.A. was too old and easy-going and generally slab-sided to be really on his job. Thus, they became prosecuting attorneys themselves—in all, thirteen to one. So Tom, having thus delegated his functions to the jury, calmly left it all to them and went to sleep, which was the best thing that he did. Worth seventy-five hundred a year? Rather, seventy-five thousand!
"Gentlemen of the jury," he began haltingly, "this defendant seems to have been indicted for the crime of practising medicine without a license—a misdemeanor. I don't see exactly how he gets into this court, which is supposed to try only felony cases, but I assume my old friend Tutt made a motion to transfer the case from the Special to the General Sessions on the theory that he would stand more chance with a jury than three—er—hardened judges. Well, maybe he will—I don't know! I gather from the papers that Mr. Lowry here, after holding himself out to be a properly licensed veterinary, treated a horse belonging to the complainant. It is not a very serious offense, and you and I have no great interest in the case, but of course the public has got to be protected from charlatans, and the only way to do it is to brand as guilty those who pretend they are duly licensed to practise medicine when they are not. If you had a sick baby, Mr. Foreman, and you saw a sign 'A.S. Smith, M.D., Children's Specialist,' you would want to be sure you were not going to hire a plumber, eh? You see! That's all there is to this case!"
"All there is to this case!" murmured Mr. Tutt audibly, raising his eyes ceilingward.
"Step up here, Mr. Brown."
Mr. Brown, the supposed Doctor Simon whose horse Danny had attended, seated himself complacently in the witness chair and bowed to the jury in a professional manner. He had, he told them, been a detective employed by the state board of health for over sixteen years. It was his duty to go round and arrest people who pretended to be licensed practitioners of medicine and assumed to doctor other people and animals. There were a lot of 'em, too; the jury would be surprised—
Mr. Tutt objected to their surprise and it was stricken out by order of the court.
"I'll strike out 'and there are a lot of 'em, too,' if you say so, Mr. Tutt," offered the court, smiling, but Mr. Tutt shook his head.
"No; let it stand!" said he significantly. "Let it stand!"
"Well, anyway," continued Mr. Brown, "this here defendant Lowry, as he calls himself, is well known—"
Objected to and struck out.
"Well, this here defendant makes a practise—"
"Strike it out! What did