Holden stared silently at the speaker. The familiar scene darkened, faded, disappeared and flared up in a new light completely transforming it—a strange room with strange people—a stage setting in the white unmasking light of day.—A mocking face leered at him from a raised dais—mocking figures elbowed him with impatient scorn—mocking fingers pointed at him with derisive joy—fat clammy hands touched his breast and pushed him from the rail over which he glared with the most desperate hatred known to the world—the hatred of a man against mankind.
Then someone burst out laughing.
“What does he mean, Holden?”
Grafton’s voice sounded a mile away, but the words of Belden, Coates’ clerk, were clear enough as he whispered in Holden’s ear:
“Wasn’t it great? Kept you all off for over three years without a ghost of a defence! Our people only wanted time to get things fixed and we got it for them all right enough, I guess. Give you a dime for your judgment! I tell you——”
But Holden suddenly struck Belden across the mouth and was promptly adjudged guilty of contempt of Court.—Of which the payment of his fine did not purge him, an order of the Court to the contrary notwithstanding.
A CONCLUSION OF LAW.
This story will not be understood by half the people who read it and the other half will not believe it, so it should be perfectly innocuous.