“Isn’t it nearly time?” She eyed the apple ungratefully.
“It is. Come on now, eat it, and I’ll show you what I’ve got in my pocket.”
“Show?”
“The jury list—names, addresses, ages, professions and all. Two of them are under thirty, three under forty, four under fifty, two under sixty, one sixty-two. Three merchants, two clerks, two farmers, an insurance man, an accountant, a radio expert, a jeweller and a banker. Not a bad list at all, if you ask me. Charles Stuyvesant’s the only one that won’t have a good clubby time of it. He’s one of the richest bankers in New York.”
“He looked it,” said the red-headed girl. “What will they do when they come back?”
“Well, if they’re good, the prosecutor’s going to make them a nice little speech.”
“Who is the prosecutor? Is he well known?”
“Mr. Daniel Farr is a promising young lad of about forty who is extremely well known in these parts, and if you asked him his own unbiassed opinion of his abilities, he would undoubtedly tell you that with a bit of luck he ought to be President of these United States in the next ten years.”
“And what do you think of him?”
“Well, I think that he may be, at that, and I add in passing that I consider that no tribute to the judgment of these United States. He’s about as shrewd as they make ’em, but I’m not convinced that he’s a very good lawyer. He goes in too much for purple patches and hitting about three inches below the belt for my simple tastes. And he works on the theory that the jury is not quite all there, which may be amply justified but is a little trying for the innocent bystander. He goes in for poetry, too—oh, not Amy Lowell or Ezra Pound, but something along the lines of ‘I could not love thee, dear, so much, loved I not honour more,’ and ‘How dear to my heart are the scenes of my childhood’—you know the kind of thing—deep stuff.”