"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