The prisoner was a young negro not more than twenty years old. He had been standing when the verdict of the jury was given. His hand rested on the back of a chair, and he faced the judge with a look of stolid, sullen defiance.
"I've got only this to say, judge. The shooting was accidental. If I'd had a fair trial, I'd been let off. But everything's been against me here."
There was a pause while the man passed the back of his hand over his mouth and shifted his position nervously.
Judge Vernon waited a moment.
"Is that all you have to say?"
"That's all, unless—I think I ought to have another trial. I don't count this fair, judge."
"You have been fully and fairly tried," replied the judge firmly. Then, after a moment of silence, he continued: "Prisoner at the bar, I sentence you to the penitentiary for twenty years. Bailiff, remove the prisoner. Call the next case."
The prisoner made a movement as if he intended to utter a word, but his lawyer behind him pulled him down into a seat; the bailiff came to the little gate of the railing and beckoned to the prisoner, who was led out. The machinery of the court went on, the next case was called, and the usual stir of the courtroom rose again, in sharp contrast with the moment's intense stillness that had just preceded.
The evening of that same day, as Judge Vernon sat down to dinner in his residence up on the boulevard, his wife noticed an unusual seriousness in his face. She did not speak of it at once, however.