“I don’t know—recess, maybe—wait, the judge is addressing the jury.”
Judge Carver’s deep voice rang out impressively in the still courtroom:
“Gentlemen of the jury, you will now be given the usual admonition—that you are not to discuss this case amongst yourselves, or allow anybody else to discuss it with you, outside your own body. You are not to form or express any opinion about the merits of the controversy. You are to refrain from speaking of it to anybody, or from allowing anybody to speak to you with respect to any aspect of this case. If this occurs you will communicate it to the Court at once. You are to keep your judgment open until the defendants have had their side of the case heard, and, lastly, you are to make up your judgment solely on the law, which is the last thing that you will hear from the Court in its charge. Until then, you will not be able to render a verdict in accordance with the law, and therefore you must suspend judgment until that time. The Court is dismissed for the noon recess. We will reconvene at one o’clock.”
The red-headed girl turned eyes round as saucers on the reporter. “Don’t they come back till one?”
“They do not.”
“What do we do until then?”
“We eat. There’s a fair place on the next corner.”
The red-headed girl waved it away. “Oh, I couldn’t possibly eat—not possibly. It’s like the first time I went to the theatre; I was only seven, but I remember it perfectly. I sat spang in the middle of the front row, just like this, and I made my governess take me three quarters of an hour too early, and I sat there getting sicker and sicker from pure excitement, wondering what kind of a new world was behind that curtain—what kind of a strange, beautiful, terrible world. I sat there feeling more frightful every second, and all of a sudden the curtain went up with a jerk and I let out a shriek that made everyone in the theatre and on the stage jump three feet in the air. I feel exactly like that now.”
“Well, get hold of yourself. Shrieking isn’t popular around here. If you sit right there like a good quiet child I may bring you back an apple. I don’t promise anything, but I may.”
She was still sitting there when he came back with the apple, crunched up in her chair, staring at the jury box with eyes rounder than ever.