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The deputy on the right side of the prisoner leaned over, whispered something to Tilden, who stared at the Judge and shook his head. It was evident that Bud had no objection to this nor to anything else, for that matter. Of all the men in the room he seemed the least interested.

I turned in my seat and touched the arm of my neighbor.

“Who is that man who wants to go on with the case?”

“Oh, that’s Bill Cartwright, one of the cheap, shyster lawyers always hanging around here looking for a job. His boast is he never lost a suit. Guess the other fellow skipped because he thought he had a better scoop somewhere else. These poor devils from the mountains never have any money to pay a lawyer. Court appoints ’em.”

With the appointment of the prisoner’s attorney the crowd in the court-room craned their necks in closer attention, one man standing on his chair for a better view until a deputy ordered him down. They knew what the charge was. It was the defence they all wanted to hear. That had been the topic of conversation around the tavern stoves of Bug Hollow for months past.

Cartwright began by asking that the mail-carrier be recalled. The little man again took the stand.

The methods of these police-court lawyers always interest me. They are gamblers in evidence, most of them. They take their chances as the cases go on; some of them know the jury–one or two is enough; some are learned in the law–more learned, often, than the prosecutor, who is a Government appointee with political backers, and now and then one of them knows the Judge, who is also a political appointee and occasionally has his party to care for. All are valuable in an election, and a few of them are honest. This one, my neighbor told me, had held office as a police justice and was a leader in his district.

Cartwright drew his gloves carefully from his hands, laid his silk hat on a chair, dropped into it a package of legal papers tied with a red string, and, adjusting his glasses, fixed his eyes on the mail-carrier. The expression on his face was bland and seductive.

“At what hour do you say the attempted robbery took place, Mr. Bowditch?”

“About eleven o’clock.”

“Did you have a watch?”

“No.”

“How do you know, then?” The question was asked in a mild way as if he intended to help the carrier’s memory.

“I don’t know exactly; it may have been half-past ten or eleven.”

“You, of course, saw the man’s face?”

“No.”

“Then you heard him speak?” Same tone as if trying his best to encourage the witness in his statements.

“No.” This was said with some positiveness. The mail-carrier evidently intended to tell the truth.

Cartwright turned quickly with a snarl like that of a dog suddenly goaded into a fight.

“How can you swear, then, that the prisoner made the assault?”

The little man changed color and stammered out in excuse:

“He was as big as him, anyway, and there ain’t no other like him nowhere in them parts.”

“Oh, he was as big as him, was he?” This retort came with undisguised contempt. “And there are no others like him, eh? Do you know everybody in Bell County, Mr. Bowditch?”

The mail-carrier did not answer.

Cartwright waited until the discomfiture of the witness could be felt by the jury, dismissed him with a wave of his hand, and, looking over the room, beckoned to an old man seated by a girl–the same couple he had been talking to before his appointment by the Court–and said in a loud voice:

“Will Mr. Perkins Tilden take-the stand?”

At the mention of his father’s name, Bud, who had maintained throughout his indifferent attitude, straightened himself erect in his chair with so quick a movement that the deputy edged a foot nearer and instinctively slid his hand to his hip-pocket.

A lean, cadaverous, painfully thin old man in answer to his name rose to his feet and edged his way through the crowd to the witness-chair. He was an inch taller than his son, though only half his weight, and was dressed in a suit of cheap cloth of the fashion of long ago, the coat too small for him, even for his shrunken shoulders, and the sleeves reaching only to his wrists. As he took his seat, drawing in his long legs toward his chair, his knee-bones, under the strain, seemed to be on the point of coming through his trousers. His shoulders were bowed, the incurve of his thin stomach following the line of his back. As he settled back in his chair he passed his hand nervously over his mouth, as if his lips were dry.