FullReads

“I’m ’bout finished now. There’s jest one thing more I’d like to say, and that is this: Mister Sublette he said a minute ago that I was in my second childhood. Meanin’ no offence, suh, but you was wrong there too. The way I look at it, a man can’t be in his second childhood without he’s had his first childhood; and I was cheated plum’ out of mine. I’m more’n sixty years old, ez near ez I kin figger; but I’m tryin’ to be a boy before it’s too late.”

He paused a moment and looked round him.

“The way I look at it, Judge Priest, suh, and you-all, every man that grows up, no matter how old he may git to be, is entitled to ‘a’ been a boy oncet in his lifetime. I–I reckin that’s all.”

He sat down and dropped his eyes upon the floor, as though ashamed that his temerity should have carried him so far. There was a strange little hush filling the courtroom. It was Judge Priest who broke it.

“The court,” he said, “has by the words just spoken by this man been sufficiently advised as to the sanity of the man himself. The court cares to hear nothing more from either side on this subject. The petition is dismissed.”

Very probably these last words may have been as so much Greek to the juvenile members of the audience; possibly, though, they were made aware of the meaning of them by the look upon the face of Nephew Percival Dwyer and the look upon the face of Nephew Percival Dwyer’s attorney. At any rate, His Honour hardly had uttered the last syllable of his decision before, from the rear of the courtroom and from the gallery above, there arose a shrill, vehement, sincere sound of yelling–exultant, triumphant and deafening. It continued for upward of a minute before the small disturbers remembered where they were and reduced themselves to a state of comparative quiet.

For reasons best known to himself, Judge Priest, who ordinarily stickled for order and decorum in his courtroom, made no effort to quell the outburst or to have it quelled–not even when a considerable number of the adults present joined in it, having first cleared their throats of a slight huskiness that had come upon them, severally and generally.

Presently the Judge rapped for quiet–and got it. It was apparent that he had more to say; and all there hearkened to hear what it might be.

“I have just this to add,” quoth His Honour: “It is the official judgment of this court that the late defendant, being entirely sane, is competent to manage his own affairs after his preferences.

“And it is the private opinion of this court that not only is the late defendant sane but that he is the sanest man in this entire jurisdiction. Mister Clerk, court stands adjourned.”

Coming down the three short steps from the raised platform of the bench, Judge Priest beckoned to Sheriff Giles Birdsong, who, at the tail of the departing crowd, was shepherding its last exuberant members through the doorway.

“Giles,” said Judge Priest in an undertone, when the worthy sheriff had drawn near, “the circuit clerk tells me there’s an indictment fur malicious mischief ag’in this here Perce Dwyer knockin’ round amongst the records somewheres–an indictment the grand jury returned several sessions back, but which was never pressed, owin’ to the sudden departure frum our midst of the person in question.

“I wonder ef it would be too much trouble fur you to sort of drap a hint in the ear of the young man or his lawyer that the said indictment is apt to be revived, and that the said Dwyer is liable to be tuck into custody by you and lodged in the county jail sometime during the ensuin’ forty-eight hours–without he should see his way clear durin’ the meantime to get clean out of this city, county and state! Would it?”