The Day in Court

I

JUDGE WHITING began it irritably, and with some reason. He had been smarting ever since he saw that veiled hint in the morning paper that Thrall and not he himself might be the next appointee to the district bench. When Judge Clore died—and that was only a matter of hours and a sick man’s tenacity now — there would be a vacant place in the judiciary, and it had been the line-up all along that Whiting would move up from the municipal court to the district one. Now came this rumor about Thrall to upset things; Thrall, who was fifteen years younger and a rich man’s son-in-law, so that his profession was really only his ambition and not his livelihood. A swell, that was what Thrall was, thought the Judge, who had himself always been a good mixer. Thrall had no right to an appointment in which legal skill had always been weighed in the same balance with political reliability. Thrall had never done a thing for the party or lifted his finger for the Governor, who would have the appointment in his hands. But in these days you could n’t tell about the swells. They turned up everywhere — radicals and ‘stir-sticks’ half the time, too — and made trouble. They somehow got on the inside track.

It was very bright and beginning to settle dowm to a glare of heat outside, but the courtroom was still cool and untouched by direct sunlight. The Judge nodded a good-morning to the lawyers at their table below his own desk. This was, he knew from a glance at the pleadings, a rental case involving a few hundred dollars and the question of an oral contract. Karl Parish was trying his wings this morning, appearing for the defendant. The SugdenThrall firm had just added Parish to their organization and sent him on their small stuff up to the city hall and courthouse. But of course that outfit did n’t handle much small stuff. Young Laitre was on the other side, and the woman in the floppy pink hat he was talking to must be the plaintiff. Whatever the case might amount to, the lawyers were ready on the dot and eager to get at it. The June term was just beginning, and the clerk was calling the roll of the jury for the first time.

‘S. S. Hallam.’

Judge Whiting did not alter the direction of his glance. He had never failed to groom habits of dignity during his nine years of presiding over municipal court, always mindful that he might need them if a more important judgeship were just around the corner. Now he stared down at some papers before him and ignored the name the clerk was calling, but he heard it and was surprised.

He had known that old Sam Hallam was drawn for jury duty, but of course he had n’t expected him to serve. On any one of a dozen excuses he would have been let off without question, as so many people were. All he had to do was to ask for it. It was an odd thing to have him turn up in court like this. Names drifted by the Judge. The members of the jury were all present except one, and the clerk was proceeding to draw from the entire panel the names of twelve men and women. Six of that number, which was the legal jury for municipal court, would be selected by the lawyers after explanation of the case and some questioning.

The automatic box swirled the names of the jurors once, the clerk called one, two, three names, and the people answering to them took seats in the jury box. There it was. S. S. Hallam. It would be a joke on the old boy if he got stuck on a tiresome case. The Judge’s eyes, ponderously raised, saw Mr. Hallam, gray-haired, graysuited, with a dark blue tie exactly the color of his cornflower boutonnière, — he had always been a great fellow for clothes, — take the fourth seat. But he did it a little stiffly. Getting old like the rest of us, thought the Judge, and even seven or eight million dollars don’t help your knees to bend any better.

Meeting Mr. Hallam’s eyes, he inclined his head in grave recognition. The other man nodded in return, a little imperiously, as if that manner were habitual. They’d known each other for years, but their paths seldom crossed now. When one young man builds up a law practice out of small cases of any kind, meddling in politics on the side, and another makes himself valuable to a great mining corporation, the latter may be very rich at fiftyeight and the former still a municipal court judge with delayed and festering ambitions.

II

Parish was explaining the case to the twelve jurors, making its substance clear, giving it to them in a nutshell. He talked plainly and over-rapidly, as if he did not want them to think he himself considered the matter weighty, lest they underrate his own importance.

‘This is a lawsuit involving a disputed question of rental of a room at 121 Exeter Street. Mr. Bert Robinson, sitting in the first chair beside me, is my client.’

The jury looked attentively at Mr. Bert Robinson. But none of them would have noticed him on the street. He would have been just one more slightly unkempt elderly man, shabby of dress, stringy of tie, uncertain in manner, keeping himself going somehow and for small, obscure satisfactions of his own.

‘We will attempt to prove to you that he does not owe the plaintiff, Mrs. Millie Jeffrey, anything, and that in fact he has more than satisfied any and all claims and obligations due her. It is a case which I think can be quickly disposed of and the facts will be readily apparent. Mr. Laitre, at the table nearest you, represents Mrs. Jeffrey. I shall ask only a couple of preliminary questions. Is there anyone in the jury who is acquainted with either Mr. Laitre or Mrs. Jeffrey or Mr. Robinson? In such case, will you just raise your hand?’

Juror number ten knew Mr. Robinson.

‘In what capacity?’

‘Just a friendly way.’

‘You know him well?’

‘Oh, no. He used to come to see my uncle.’

‘I see. Anyone else?’

Juror number ten, conscious that she would be excused, showed on her thin, spinsterish face a slight chagrin at not getting on the case, and a certain enjoyment of the momentary spotlight. She seemed also to question whether acquaintance with Mr. Robinson did her any credit;, and looked at him severely in an attempt to register impartiality.

Parish, sleek and black-and-white, had a flavor of greater attorneys about him that the Judge disliked, being reminded of Thrall by some of his mannerisms. He wasted no more time. But the tall, sandy, young Mr. Laitre was in no hurry. He approached the jury to make friends, a little deprecatingly, as if he knew most of them might be more experienced than he was, but none the less with his duty to perform. In turn he asked each juror his name, his occupation, and whether he owned any real estate.

‘Mr. Hallam,’ said Laitre, consulting the list to be sure of the name, ‘you’ve lived in the city some years?’

‘Thirty-six years, sir.’

That’s right, and I was here two years before that, thought the Judge, and after all these years I’m still stretching a salary to see if it will make the grade. And think of Hallam dining with the President last year. But I remember when he came to Mabel Dresser’s boarding house and she did n’t want to take him in because he was a bad risk. He had a polka-dot tie, though, and lots of gall. Always sure of himself.

‘And your occupation?’

The Judge almost grinned. All Hallam had to do was to count his money now. And go around all over Europe.

‘I’m retired from active business. Previously I handled mining and timber interests.’

‘I see,’ said Laitre, and then suddenly, for no apparent reason, he flushed under his freckles. He’s just realized who Hallam is, thought the Judge. Well, he can treat him just like anybody else. He’s just a juror now, and he’s got to answer proper questions.

Evidently young Laitre thought so too, in spite of his flush of embarrassment. ‘Do you own real estate?’

‘I have two homes, sir.’

‘And do you lease any property from or to anyone?’

‘I lease a fishing preserve.’

‘But there is nothing in that which would affect your judgment on a matter of rental of property?’

‘I know of no reason why it should.’

‘And you know none of the parties in this case?’

‘None of them.’

‘Nor the counsel for the defendant, Mr. Parish?’

‘I have met him casually.’

‘There is nothing in that acquaintanceship to affect your judgment?’

Mr. Hallam’s voice was dry and slightly ironic as he replied in the negative, implying that Mr. Karl Parish was entirely too unimportant to affect his judgment.

The young lawyer proceeded, passing his questionnaire along the line. ‘No challenge,’ he said at length.

The two lawyer took the list of jurors and considered it, marking names and consulting a little. In the jury box a plump, already perspiring lady in a red knitted suit said to Mr. Hallam, ‘I guess we get paid anyway, even if they don’t take us, don’t we?’

‘I believe so.’

‘I’d really like to get home to-day myself. My children are just out of school and my house is in terrible confusion. I did n’t have time to even get my breakfast dishes done. But I always like to get on a case when I get here. Have you served before?’

‘No,’ said Mr. Hallam, ‘never before.’

III

He was beginning to feel it very ridiculous that he was serving now, stuck in a jury box in this petty court between a fat woman and a piano tuner, with two upstarts consulting over his name and old Bill Whiting sitting up there and trying to look important over nothing. If he had n’t been irritated into that discussion at dinner the other night he would n’t be here. He would have done just what he usually had done when he had been drawn on a jury for the last fifteen years. He would have had his secretary call the judge or write him a note saying that the press of business made jury duty difficult and inconvenient just at this time, and he would deem it a favor if he could be excused for the present. That would have been the end of it.

But now, of course, there was no press of business, no press of anything. They let him play nine holes of golf and fish a little, and that was about all. Too many people were making up his mind for him these days. That was what got on his nerves, as it had at dinner when he remarked semi-satirically that the most important thing that had happened to him for days was a summons to municipal court, to serve on the jury.

Somebody laughed a little too soon. There were a few guests for dinner, all men at the table except his daughter Barbara.

‘Well, you won’t break up a golf game for that, I know,’ said George Faire.

‘Why not?’ asked Hallam. He would n’t have conclusions put in his mouth, even by his own lawyer.

‘You would n’t find it very interesting, Hallam. It’s all very small stuff. No case can come up there if more than a thousand dollars is involved, and they’re usually concerned with seventeen dollars and fifty cents and who smashed the right fender of the taxi. Petty civil cases.’

‘Still, I suppose they involve questions of justice or there would n’t be a court?’ snapped Mr. Hallam.

Barbara clapped her brown hands together and leaned forward on the table, so that the strap of her dress slipped off one shoulder, and said, ‘ Go to it, Father. A fight’s just what you need!’

He smiled at her frowningly. There was always that mixture of feeling in him toward the daughter who had been the last child of a late marriage, and whose amazing freedom and insolence never seemed to have any effect on her fondness for him or her loyalty.

‘Most lawyers,’ said Faire, ‘consider the municipal court a necessary nuisance.’

He also was watching Barbara, on whom he had been trying to make an impression for the past two years. But his impressions seemed to slide off that gay mind as straps slid off her shoulders, and this possibly added as much to her provocativeness.

‘That may be because you’re thinking of your fees and not of justice,’ said Hallam.

‘It’s tiresome stuff. If you ever went there, you’d see. You certainly would n’t bother with it.’

‘On the contrary,’ Mr. Hallam began stubbornly, and the discussion continued until he had committed himself to serving on that jury. He was glad to make a point of impartial justice clear to Barbara, but, just as he thought he had, she picked a watch suddenly out of the nearest man’s pocket and said, ‘Glory, I’ve got to scram! I’m years late.’

‘Where are you going?’ asked her father, as her abrupt rising dragged everyone to his feet.

‘Country club.’

‘Can’t you stay home for one evening?’

‘But I did, for dinner. The food’s much better here, darling, but the dancing’s not so hot.’ She stopped and kissed her father as she went by, and added in public confidence, ‘Guess what I found out there the other night. A shy young man, the only one left in the world. And don’t you believe he’s just a gawk, either. I’ve got to go and dance with him before some wicked, worldly girl gets hold of him. They’re coming to pick me up as soon as I telephone. And I think you’re absolutely right, Father. You just go and be on that jury and tell them all what’s what!’

That was the way he had got his foot into it, so deeply that he could n’t get it out unless he was willing to be laughed at. After Barbara left, the talk had stayed on courts and justice, and finally touched on Judge Whiting. Someone had mentioned that Bill Whiting had the municipal court, and there had been an offshoot of discussion as to why a man like that., who had real legal ability, had n’t gone farther. Fragments of it came back now to Hallam as he sized up the courtroom and the Judge. Whiting was weak in a way; no doubt of that. He’d always let his friends use him, and he’d waited around for rewards to be brought to him instead of going after them or demanding them in advance. They had said the other night that he wanted and expected Clore’s place on the district bench, but that wires were being pulled for Thrall, who had influential connections, close to the Governor. Poor old Bill Whiting! He’d always been a sort of poser, and he’d wasted his time and scattered his energies; but he was a good fellow, too, thought Hallam.

He heard his name again. They’d evidently picked him for this case. He rose with the other five and was sworn. The rest of the jurors, who were not called, were dismissed until the next morning, and with no delay the lawyers began to put in the evidence.

IV

There were few facts and they developed rapidly. Mr. Bert Robinson and Mrs. Millie Jeffrey had stories to tell which were similar up to a point and then became flatly contradictory. For ten years Robinson had lived in a room in the house owned by Mrs. Jeffrey. He’d lived there since her husband died, since she started to rent her three extra rooms. She could n’t have been very old then, perhaps about thirty-five, and she had to find some way to keep going and buy cheap girlish hats that pretended she did n’t get any older. There were signs that it had n’t been easy. Her hands, knobby about the knuckles and covered with the taut, shining skin that strong soap reddens and toughens, showed that. She must once have had the kind of prettiness that hard work destroys and that women seldom can believe is gone.

Mrs. Jeffrey maintained a deliberately girlish manner in answering all questions, except when she was pressed about her arrangements with Robinson. Then her voice grew sharp, almost shrill, seeming to be full of echoes of past anger and resentment, and she was determined to explain everything at once, until her own lawyer had to say: ‘Just answer my question, Mrs. Jeffrey. Did you, at any time, make an agreement to let Mr. Robinson stay in your home without paying rent?’

‘No. I certainly did not.’

‘Why did you let him stay there when he ceased to be able to pay his rent?’

She answered, ‘Well, I was sorry for him. I did n’t want to put him out on the street. And I thought maybe he’d catch up with the rent some day.’

‘Then the understanding was that as soon as he got some money he would pay you —’

‘Objected to as leading and calling for a conclusion on the part of the witness,’ said Parish.

‘Objection sustained,’ ruled the Judge.

S. S. Hallam was n’t bored. He found even these technicalities of taking evidence interesting. It was a long time since he’d been inside a court of law. He paid Faire a big retainer to keep him and his business out of court. But to-day he was impressed by the technique of the proceedings. These lawyers had all sorts of ways of dragging out facts and admissions, and a judge had to know his way about. He wondered if Whiting had already made up his mind on this case, after hearing an hour’s evidence. It was n’t so easy. Hallam was n’t sure whether the man or the woman was in the right.

Mrs. Jeffrey was now being examined by the lawyer for the defense, and her manner was nervous and wary. Parish, in that suave manner which Judge Whiting instantly recognized as imitation-Thrall, was smoothing her down with false courtesy and trying to coax her to incriminate herself.

‘Mr. Robinson was useful about your house, was n’t he?’

‘Oh, once in a while he puttered about a little.’

‘You did n’t have to pay a boy to help you with the furnace during the winter of 1930?’

‘I could n’t afford one.’

‘ Please answer the question. I ’ll put it more directly. Did you employ anyone to help you with the furnace that winter?’

‘No.’

‘Had you employed a boy the winter before?’

‘Well, when I could afford it, I had.’

‘Did Mr. Robinson take care of the furnace during the winter of 1930 when you ceased to employ a boy?’

‘Oh, maybe he put on a few shovels of coal now and then.’

‘Do you mean twice a day by now and then?’

‘Objected to as irrelevant.’

The Judge considered. ‘What are you trying to establish, Mr. Parish?’

Mr. Parish said with a slightly superior air that he was trying to establish the fact that his client had assumed certain agreed-upon duties in place of paying rent. ‘A point the jury must have in mind or there is no case.’

‘You may answer, Mrs. Jeffrey,’ said the Judge courteously. He always did have that nice way with women, thought Hallam.

The witness looked flattered but bewildered. She had forgotten what had been asked.

‘Read the question.’

The stenographer jerked it at her. He hated this heat, for he was a fat young fellow and the day made him feel every pound of excess weight. In thirty-five minutes he could go down to the drug store and get something cool to drink. He could see the clock.

‘Twice-a-day-by-now-and-then,’ he repeated.

‘I don’t think as often as that. I don’t remember.’

‘Do you remember that in January 1930 Mr. Robinson came to you and told you that he would have to move because he could n’t afford to stay?’

‘Yes. He said something like that.’

‘Did he move at that time?’

‘No.’

‘Do you recall that all during the rest of that winter after he ceased to pay the rent he shoveled the snow from your walks?’

‘I don’t really know.’

‘Did you employ anyone from January 1930 until spring to keep your sidewalks clear?’

‘I don’t remember.’

‘You remember that you didn’t employ Mr. Robinson, but you can’t remember whether you employed anyone else?’

‘Objected to as repetition and as confusing.’

‘Sustained.’

‘But you know, don’t you, Mrs. Jeffrey, that there is a city ordinance requiring householders to keep their sidewalks clear?’

‘I don’t know much about laws. Mr. Jeffrey always looked after such things.’

There was a chuckle somewhere and the Judge’s glance swept the courtroom in rebuke. Not in my courtroom, he intimated, are witnesses laughed at. Hallam approved.

‘But you do keep your sidewalks clear in winter, Mrs. Jeffrey?’

‘Well, people have to get in and out.’

‘Exactly. And, after an understanding with you, Mr. Robinson made that possible? ’

Laitre was on his feet. ‘Your Honor, that is objected to and I ask that it be stricken. It’s putting a conclusion in the mouth of the witness.’

‘It may be stricken.’

‘Mr. Robinson paid the rent regularly to you for eight years and six months —’

From his chair Bert Robinson nodded vigorously. He wanted that emphasized. Mrs. Jeffrey also admitted it. She acknowledged receipt of checks, produced in evidence, though it clearly worried her to see those checks, with her name on their backs, come out of the past. Then Mr. Parish, leaning forward and becoming quick and a little less suave, asked: —

‘When did Mr. Robinson move from your house?’

‘In February of this year.’

‘Do you know where he went?’

‘To see his sister in the southern part of the state.’

‘And it was after that sister died and you found out she had left him a little money that someone told you it was a good time to start a lawsuit?’

‘Objected to,’ interrupted Laitre.

It was irrelevant, and yet in a way it was the whole case.

V

The old man told his side of the story, the lawyers bringing it out piecemeal. He had gone to his landlady and told her that he could n’t pay the rent. He no longer had his little shop. He could n’t even sell things from door to door with much success, perhaps because the housewives were tired of the shabby, unprepossessing man, perhaps because the agencies who had attractive things to sell wanted more dashing representatives. He’d lived in the city for thirty years and in the end he did n’t have room rent. The elderly, handsome capitalist in the jury box wondered why that was, where Robinson’s blunder had been made. In thirty years a man, even without a start, without much education, and with the odds against him, could make a great deal of money, establish himself firmly. Hallam knew.

Robinson was a careful, almost fussy old man in the witness stand. He was enjoying his day in court, feeling like a person of some consequence with his lawyer by his side. His sister had evidently left him enough money to go to a good lawyer. He was determined not to pay rent for those eleven months. He’d worked the rent out, he said. Mrs. Jeffrey had said that if he would take care of the furnace and the lawn and the walks and do odd jobs about the place he could have his room rentfree. That was the agreement, Robinson insisted, though there had never been anything in writing to corroborate it. He spoke in a detailed way that carried conviction, and he stood up well under cross-examination.

Laitre tried another tack. ‘You were very comfortable at Mrs. Jeffrey’s house?’

‘Yes.’

‘You were so comfortable you lived there eight years?’

‘Eight years. Yes, sir.’

‘You liked to live where you got a little extra attention? Where you could be sure of a cup of coffee on a cold morning and a friendly interest in the ups and downs of your sales?’

‘Your honor, this is n’t proper crossexamination,’ said Parish impatiently.

It was not. It was not admitted to the record but only to the jury’s minds, which had a picture of an old man being made comfortable and treated well.

‘You would have kept on paying Mrs. Jeffrey if you had been able to, of course?’

‘Sure I would.’

‘You mean you recognized a continuing obligation?’

‘She said,’ began the old man, ‘that if I worked around the house —’

‘But you knew that Mrs. Jeffrey really could n’t afford to keep you on that basis, did n’t you?’

‘Counsel is again calling for a conclusion — ’

It was at that point in the argument that the door at the back of the courtroom opened and Barbara Hallam came in. She was dressed as any girl might be who had spent the morning on a golf course and come through the city in an open roadster, especially if she had the run of the sport clothes in the best shops in the country. She was in white and blue, with large nickel buttons on her short blue jacket, and she wore a white linen hat brimmed like a halo. They were the kind of simple sport clothes that connote expensive and energetic leisure, and Barbara set them off. She looked spirited and very pretty and entirely out of place. The stenographer got as much pleasure out of the sight of her as he had expected from a cool drink. He mopped his brow with a flourish and sat up straighter.

Her father was not so pleased. He had instructed his chauffeur to be waiting in front of the building at noon and could not understand why Barbara had appeared. The few listeners in the benches at the back of the courtroom regarded her with curiosity. But young Laitre, who had been near the witness box, struggling to put a question to Robinson through his lawyer’s objections, swung around to go back to his table and saw Barbara suddenly. Hallam could see his daughter’s incorrigible smile, the one she gave to things and people she liked, no matter who or where they happened to be, slip over the tables and fall exactly where it was aimed, on Laitre. She evidently knew him. She almost waved. Even the back of the young lawyer’s neck was red as, with an effort at concentration, he went on with his examination of the witness.

The Judge found it monotonous. He was looking at the time. He wanted to see the noon extra as soon as possible and find out what had happened to Clore and if he was still alive.

‘Court will adjourn until two o’clock.’

VI

Barbara was in no hurry to meet her father. By the time he had got his hat from the jury’s cloakroom, he found her talking to Laitre, and with a curt nod to the lawyer he took her away with him.

‘How did you happen to come down, Barbara?’

‘Mark jammed his hand in the garage door. He’ll be all right, but he can’t drive for a day or two. I said I’d come and get you. Was n’t it nice of me?’

Mr. Hallam muttered something about carelessness.

‘Are n’t you having fun being on a fascinating case like that?’ asked Barbara.

‘What’s fascinating about it?’

‘All those lawyers and funny witnesses. Don’t you think Peter Laitre’s frightfully clever?’

‘That young lawyer? Where did you meet him?’

‘I told you all about him. Don’t you remember that I said I’d met a shy young man who was n’t just a gawk?’

‘The identification was n’t easy,’ said Hallam, dryly.

‘He’s my favorite,’ said Barbara; ‘he’s the words to the music for me! And just imagine how smart he is to think up all those questions.’

‘Great minds, my dear,’ said her father, ‘don’t appear in municipal court.’

‘You said yourself the other night that it was just as important as any other court. Officer, I’ve just been parked a minute. I had to get my father. He’s working on the jury.’

The policeman put the yellow tag back in his pocket and grinned.

‘Oh, all right, miss.’

‘You need n’t drag me into your corruption of the police force,’ said Hallam as they drove off.

‘You ought to be proud to see me manage them. I’m supposed to be very good. How’s the case coming out?’

‘I’m not at liberty to discuss it.’

‘Then I’ll have to ask Peter. He’ll tell me. You have to be back at two o’clock, don’t you? I’ll drive you down.’

It was queer to Mr. Hallam to feel the obligation of being back in the court room at two o’clock. For years he had been the person for whom things waited and who gave orders, but to-day it was different. He was one of the necessary parts of the machinery rigged up to dispense justice to Bert Robinson and Millie Jeffrey, but he could n’t start it going. He had to be there so that the order could be given by someone else, and justice get under way. He ate his lunch, from the jellied soup to the hothouse grapes, very thoughtfully, watching Barbara, who was honoring him by having lunch at home. Sometimes she worried him. She was, he knew, almost too generous, too lavish with her affections, and he had a constant fear that, someone might exploit them some day. His will protected her financially, but it could not emotionally, and she was twenty-one and free by nature as well as by his indulgence. All the rest of his children were married, but he could not remember that he had been so concerned about where or how they gave their feelings as he was about this last, motherless child who was so distant from him in age, and so like his beloved second wife.

There was a telephone call after lunch from an old friend who said that the Governor was in the city and was dining with him and his wife very quietly and informally. They wanted Mr. Hallam to join them, and Hallam said that he would. He liked the Governor and was of the opinion that his feet were on the ground. He liked him so much that he had contributed very generously to his campaign fund more than once. Hallam smoked a cigar and rested while Barbara changed her clothes. She came down in a leaf green with a loosely woven black and green hat that let the tiniest squares of sunshine through. They started earlier than was necessary, and Hallam was in the courtroom five minutes before the first of the other jurors appeared. Barbara had left him in front of the city hall.

‘ I ’ll get a taxi home,’ he told her.

‘No. I’ll call for you. When will you be through?’

‘Impossible to say,’ he said testily. ‘It might be four o’clock. Or six. Or half past.’

That, he thought, would thwart her, but she only said blithely, ‘I’ll look in about four and see if you’re through,’ and was off again.

Judge Whiting was there sharp at two o’clock. He was meticulous about it because he had been tempted to adjourn court for the afternoon on some pretext. The last bulletin about Judge Clore reported him as sinking, and death was expected at any minute. Appointment of his successor might be practically immediate, even though the announcement might not be made for a day or two. The Governor usually did things that way, made up his mind firmly and quickly, to keep people from nagging at him and political supporters from becoming too importunate. Whiting had picked up a rumor that the Governor was to be in the city to-day, and that too worried him. Thrall would be sure to have his friends see the Governor for him, see what influence he could bring to bear. Of course Whiting’s own claims were obvious, but it was necessary to have them pressed, and better to have it done by people who were n’t politicians, who could n’t be suspected of having their hands out for anything. If I could only ask Sam Hallam to put in a word, thought Whiting over his porkchop plate lunch, which seemed singularly tasteless. He stands high, he’s a close friend of the Governor’s, and he’s certainly got no axe to grind. But after all these years he would n’t go begging of Hallam.

He found in himself, too, a stubborn resistance to adjourning court, even though he might lose a chance of seeing the Governor himself this afternoon. Adjournment would throw the calendar out, and there were fifty-six cases this term. If Clore died, there’d be a half day lost for the funeral, too. It was n’t right. And this case could n’t be dismissed as it stood. The issue was n’t clear. Somebody was lying.

So he had gone back to the city hall through the midday heat that seemed now to rise like a glycerine mist from the pavements. Whiting had never been able to afford a car. He’d always had his sisters to look out for.

VII

The sun had moved around to the courtroom side of the building, and the shades drawn against it also cut off the air. Mrs. Jeffrey had tried to cool herself with face powder, but it made her look worn and ghastly. Robinson seemed older, more petulant, more stubborn. There were several more witnesses, among them one for the defendant to testify that he had often seen him mowing the lawn and shoveling snow at the Jeffrey house; and a dressmaker who lived in the same place also was called to the stand. Her testimony was largely dismissed as hearsay, but she gave enough of it to corroborate the fact that Mrs. Jeffrey had always been kind to the old man, at least until six months ago.

Laitre was on his mettle this afternoon. But, for that matter, so was Parish. It amused the Judge to see how both lawyers struggled over small points. But he had seen attorneys get worked up before about unimportant lawsuits, especially these young fellows who had n’t learned to take a beating as part of the day’s work. The thing that was astonishing was to see Thrall himself come in at half past two and, after greeting the Judge and a moment’s explanation, take his place beside young Parish as advisory counsel. But Judge Whiting had to fumble only a moment for the reason.

It’s because Sam Hallam’s on the jury, of course, thought the Judge. Thrall does n’t want his office to appear careless or indifferent about its smallest case. It’s just a grand-stand play. He must have heard at noon that Sam Hallam was on the jury. And it occurred uncomfortably to the Judge that there was possibly a deeper reason than playing to the gallery. Sam Hallam knew the Governor pretty well, and they had said the Governor might be in the city to-day. It was n’t such a bad time for Thrall to give a personal demonstration of ability.

Well, said the Judge to himself, that fixes young Laitre. He won’t be able to do much against those wolves, especially as he’s got the heavy end of the case. He ruled against Laitre again, and at that point Thrall, stepping up to his desk, asked for consideration of a point of law. The Judge, granting it, looked at Thrall with distaste. Perhaps he was a good lawyer, but he was a merciless machine just the same, moving steadily toward his set-up ambitions.

The jury was excused while the lawyers argued the technical point, and Sam Hallam felt that was absurd. He wanted to hear what they were saying in the courtroom, and instead he was adrift in the marble corridor with the piano tuner at his elbow and the fat woman sighing for a breath of air at the nearest window. Mr. Hallam was annoyed at being dismissed like this. He would have liked to walk out and go home, but he knew he could n’t get out of this case now until he had Bill Whiting’s permission. He had to stay until, after an indefinite amount of hocus-pocus, the jury should decide whether there had been an oral contract between Mrs. Jeffrey and Robinson. It further disturbed Mr. Hallam that he could n’t make up his mind firmly on that simple point.

The situation was clear enough. The old man had evidently done chores around the house after he could no longer pay rent. Perhaps, as he claimed, there had been an agreement that such work would satisfy for the rent. Yet the woman might have put it that way because she knew he was broke and did n’t want to turn him out. She might have begun by being charitable, and then he got on her nerves. There was a piece of evidence that she’d cut the grass once or twice herself after the old man began to do the chores. He probably got slack; or thought himself overworked and turned sulky. Old fellows like that did. And, as was always the case in that kind of informal deal, each of them no doubt began to suspect the other of getting the best of it. That was only human nature.

Of course, when Robinson got a little money unexpectedly, Mrs. Jeffrey began to believe she’d kept him on charity all that time. She’d told him so, and that made him mad. She needed money, that was the crux of it, and the old man had some. Probably that was what it got down to.

‘You here again?’ he said to Barbara as she came along the corridor in her swift, free way. ‘You’re giving me an unusual amount of attention to-day.’

She pinched his arm fondly. ‘It’s four o’clock.’

‘You may as well go home. I can’t tell when I ’ll get through here.’

‘Jury is being called,’ said the clerk, opening the courtroom door.

‘It may be an hour or two, Barbara.’

‘I’d like to listen for a while, anyway,’ she said, and he had no time to argue that with her. So she slipped into one of the back seats, but so inconspicuously that even Peter Laitre did not see her at first. It almost seemed as if she did want to listen.

There were others who had come to hear what was going on. Some of Mrs. Jeffrey’s acquaintances, middle-aged women who bore the same marks of finding existence difficult and hard work, were there, and several people who seemed just to want a place to sit, and a couple of reporters who looked desperate with heat. Judge Whiting, recognizing the newspaper men, knew why they were there. We don’t get a multimillionaire on this jury every day, he thought satirically.

VIII

Mrs. Jeffrey was recalled to the stand. It was no trick for Parish, with Thrall at his elbow, to throw her into confusion now. She still denied that she had any contract with Robinson, but her manner was uncertain and fearful of what might be asked her next.

‘You did n’t in any way give him to understand that his work was the equivalent of the rent?’

‘No.’

‘Were you willing to let this old man work for you for nothing?’

‘He did n’t work very hard for me.’

‘But he did work for you?’

‘He did a few things anyone would do.’

It was too hot to keep this up forever, thought the stenographer crossly. He thought that if he had the money he’d take a lake trip. That good-looking society girl kept her eye right on Laitre. There were lots of good-looking girls on those lake boats. He kept recording every word that was said and thought of none of it.

Both sides were willing to rest their cases. Thrall spoke negligently to Parish, the two attorneys conferred, and it was agreed that the closing remarks to the jury would be limited to fifteen minutes for each side.

Parish was very much to the point. He accented the evidence that pointed to the probability of an oral contract, was slightly humorous over the suggestion that Mrs. Jeffrey would let an old man live in her house just out of good will. Mr. Hallam felt the thing clarifying. Of course the lawyer was right. There had been a deal between the two, probably as Robinson claimed.

With a few flattering words to express confidence in the jury, Parish was through.

Laitre stood up. He had seen the spectators by this time and was aware of Barbara. He could n’t help that nervous glance in her direction before he began clumsily, as if he were not sure of his own points and embarrassed by his audience. A man should n’t let a girl interfere with his job, thought Hallam disapprovingly, especially when other people’s interests are at stake.

But Laitre’s voice was changing, growing firmer.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, I am asking you now to use your imagination on this case. I want you to think what it would be like to be a woman left alone with no money, a house which is an obligation, and no occupation. It must be frightening and worrying and distressing. It must be enough to make a woman hard and selfish and mercenary. But it did not do that to Mrs. Jeffrey. It did not destroy kindness in her. She understood the hard luck of this old man who had lodged with her for years. She would n’t turn him out even when she could no longer collect the rent on Saturday night. She made a concession perhaps that he could, as she says, putter about the house. One makes those concessions to a child to ease his dignity, keep up his pride. But that’s not a contract — no one should call that a contract and penalize her for it. . . .’

Hallam listened to every word. The boy had the orator’s gift. He was brief and incensive and dramatic. He carried the jury with him. He thought for them. Mrs. Jeffrey began to weep. Even the reporters did n’t sidle out in their usual manner. In ten minutes Laitre showed what he thought had happened in that shabby little house where every penny counted. He’s got sympathy, decided Hallam, and he’s not thinking of Barbara now. He’s got his mind on the responsibility in hand. Irrelevantly he thought that a girl could be trusted to a man like Peter Laitre, who made the best out of a bad job.

Thrall himself failed to look as impassive as was his custom during an opposing lawyer’s talk, and Judge Whiting, drooped on his elbow and looking half away, thought that Laitre was a nice boy and that if he kept on he’d make a fine trial lawyer some day. Whiting had once intended to be a great trial lawyer himself. It made him dreary to remember it to-day.

The arguments were over. It was now Judge Whiting’s turn, and he knew what he was up against. In his opinion, Laitre had made a nice talk, but he knew it was n’t sound. It was the kind of talk that excited jurors and often made a couple of them stand out against the level-headed ones. There was in Judge Whiting’s mind an inclination to let the thing go, charge the jury quickly, formally, unimpressively, and see how far Laitre’s harangue would carry. It would be some satisfaction to see Thrall lose a case in municipal court after he’d given it some of his own important time and attention. It could probably be done. The courtroom was high-strung. Still, he was a judge, even if he only presided over a petty court. He could n’t play tricks like that.

He swung around in his chair.

‘Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,’ he said with dignity, and his tone seemed to sweep sentiment away. He was grave and just, but he showed no sympathy. They must weigh the evidence. They must not, he told them, be swayed by the addresses of the lawyers. That was not their part or duty. The point at issue was one of fact and law, whether there had existed a contract between plaintiff and defendant. An oral contract could be binding. As he went on, Hallam felt himself agreeing, approving, and, to his astonishment, learning.

‘This court has jurisdiction only over small matters as far as finance may be concerned, but it is as deeply concerned with justice as is any higher one. I know you will give this matter your best attention and your gravest consideration. When you retire to the jury room ’ — the rest was purely formal instruction, but Hallam had got the full import of what the Judge had said. He knew that it was now his business to keep the fat woman from being swayed too much by her sympathy for Mrs. Jeffrey.

IX

It took him a full thirty-five minutes. They made him foreman of the jury, but he had not guessed that anyone would be as resistant to his expressed opinions as that woman in the red suit and the man who worked in a feed store somewhere. People nearly always took Hallam’s judgment, and were grateful for it. But those two would not. Again and again Hallam, holding his temper, had to remind them not of what he thought, but of what the Judge had said.

‘But that Mr. Laitre was much the best lawyer,’ said the feed-store man. ‘I hate to see him lose his case.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Mr. Hallam, ‘but we can’t help that.’

He too disliked giving the case to the Thrall firm. Peter Laitre had put up the better fight. There was a pompousness about both Thrall and that cub who had tried the case that Hallam had n’t liked. Thrall and Whiting — the thing had slipped his mind, but now he remembered. That was a queer situation. Both of them were after Clore’s place. But Whiting had been very fair, very gentlemanly. He is a real judge, thought Hallam, and wished he could do something about helping Whiting to get the judgeship. It was an appointment of the Governor’s, of course. Well, he was going to dine with the Governor to-night if they got out of here. He could tell him what he thought in no uncertain terms, and the Governor usually respected his opinion. He’d do all he could.

I don’t see what poor Mrs. Jeffrey can do without that money,’ mourned the fat woman.

‘That doesn’t enter in,’ explained Mr. Hallam once more.

To-morrow he’d telephone and ask to be excused from further duty. He was growing tired in this hot little room. He was too old for this sort of thing, justice blurred with sympathy. He wondered how Whiting kept his head clear.

He took another ballot. The woman in the red dress gave in weakly, the feed-store man sulkily.

‘Of course I suppose you men know more about the law.’

‘I’m sure we all only want to do the right thing.’

They filed back into the courtroom. Thrall was not there, but the other lawyers were, as well as the Judge.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, have you agreed upon a verdict?’

They had, for the defendant. Parish took it as if he’d expected it, as if nothing else could possibly have happened. But Laitre turned to his client. He was telling her how sorry he was and she was taking it rather badly and flouncing away from his solicitude to the comfort of her friends. She’ll never pay him, thought Hallam in amusement. But she’s had her day in court, poor thing, and maybe that’s enough for her— all she should get.

He turned to see if Barbara was still there. She was at the back of the room, frowning, looking disappointed, and suddenly her father was struck by a new fear. She was n’t going to leave that young fellow in the lurch now, was she? She was n’t fooled by failure — not his daughter? He tried to catch her eye and he could n’t. But, as Mrs. Jeffrey turned petulantly away from her lawyer’s regrets, Barbara came swiftly forward.

‘You were wonderful, Peter,’ Hallam heard her say. ‘ You were simply great and grand!’

Hallam went to get his hat. There was nothing to be done about those two and he did n’t want to do anything. There was a little curl of satisfaction about his heart. He went past the Judge’s desk, and Whiting was still sitting there.

‘Well, Judge — well, Bill,’ said Hallam affably, pausing to shake hands, ‘it’s been a hot day, but it’s been very interesting.’

Whiting had just heard from his clerk that Clore was dead. He was wondering where to turn. He knew something should be done, but it had always been hard for him to push his own interests when it came to the scratch.

‘Oh, it’s small stuff, but it takes time. Somebody’s got to look after it,’ he answered.

‘I’m dining with the Governor,’ said Hallam. ‘I hope you won’t object to my telling him what an able judge I think you are.’

Judge Whiting grew straighter. His manner was perfect. He had always kept it so, in readiness for a higher court.

‘Very good of you, Sam,’ he said with dignity.