Instantly, all down the corridor on both sides, the cells' voices rang:
"Here! Here! Archie! Here, have mine!"
"Mr. Marriott gave me a whole box yesterday, but I smoked 'em all up in the night!" he said.
XXII
Those persons in the community who called themselves the good were gratified by Archie's conviction, and there were at once editorials and even sermons to express this gratification. Lorenzo Edwards of the Courier, who hated Marriott because he had borrowed ten dollars of Marriott some years before and had never paid it back, wrote an unctuous and hypocritical editorial in which he condemned Marriott for carrying the case up, and deprecated the law's delay. The Post--although Archie had not talked to a reporter--printed interviews with him, and as a final stroke of enterprise, engaged Doctor Tyler Tilson, the specialist, to examine Archie for stigmata of degeneracy. Tilson went to jail, taking with him tape and calipers and other instruments, and after measuring Archie and percussing him, and lighting matches before his eyes, and having him walk blindfolded, and pricking him with pins, wrote a profound article for the Post from the standpoint of criminology, in which he repeated many scientific phrases, and used the word "environment," many times, and concluded that Archie had the homicidal tendency strongly developed.
The Reverend Doctor Hole, who had his degree from a small college in Dakota, had taken lessons of an elocutionist, and advertised the sensational sermons in which he preached against those vices the refinements and wealth of his own congregation did not tempt them to commit, spoke on "Crime"; even Modderwell referred to it with complacency.
In all of these expressions, of course, Eades was flattered, and this produced in him a sensation of the greatest comfort and justification. He felt repaid for all he had suffered in trying the case. But Marriott felt that an injustice had been done, and, such is the quality of injustice, that one suspicion of it may tincture every thought until the complexion of the world is changed and everything appears unjust. As Marriott read these editorials, the reports of these sermons, and the conclusions of a heartless science that had thumped Archie as if he were but a piece of rock for the geologist's hammer, he was filled with anger, and resolved that Archie should not be put to death until he had had the advantage of every technicality of the law. He determined to carry the case up at his own expense. Though he could not afford to do this, and was staggered when he ran over in his mind the cost of the transcript of evidence, the transcript of the record, the printing of the briefs, the railroad and hotel bills, and all that,--he felt it would be a satisfaction to see one poor man, at least, receive in the courts all that a rich man may demand.
Within the three days provided by law, Marriott filed his motion for a new trial and then he was content to wait, and let the proceedings drag along. But Eades insisted on an immediate hearing.
When Glassford had announced his decision denying a new trial, he hesitated a moment and then, with an effect of gathering himself for an ordeal, he dropped his judicial manner, called Eades and Marriott to the bench, leaned over informally, whispered with them, and finally, as if justifying a decision he had just communicated to them, observed:
"We might as well do it now and have it over with."