Unusual as this was, it might have been explained if the Judge who throws papers on the floor had been upon the Bench. But his Honour was presiding over another Court. Martin, therefore, put it down to the weather, which was hot, and resigned himself to waiting, which was wearisome.
The Court Room was stuffy as usual, and crowded as always. Martin languidly studied the lawyers about him, trying to guess the kind of business each represented. Here he prophesied a struggle for “costs,” and there a contest for “time.” In one face he read the cunning of the technical trickster, in another the earnest belief in a Cause, and idly took to betting with himself on his prognostications.
The low droning of voices had a soothing note, and the hot atmosphere of the room soon set him nodding. A moment more and he was out of the Court, far away from the lawyers—at the east end of Long Island, with the strength and vigour of early Autumn in the air. For some seconds he was dimly conscious of a man standing near him asking an oft-repeated question. Then he woke with a start and saw Allison.
“Do you always sleep with your eyes open?”
“Ye—yes,” he yawned, rubbing the optics in question, “it’s a trick I learned from a front seat and a dull lecturer at college.”
“Well, what are you doing here beside dreaming?”
“Waiting to get some papers from Van.”
“Why don’t you get them then, and go home to sleep?”
“Van’s off his trolley to-day. Got to wait.”
“Um.—‘Furioso’ on the Bench?”