“Ahem! You are quite sure that you could render a just and reasonable verdict?”
“Yes.”
“And yet you admit that you cannot answer for your sympathies?”
“Are you cross-examining me?”
“Not at all, Mr. Sampson,” responded the other smoothly. “I am merely trying to ascertain whether you are competent to serve as a juror in this case.”
Sampson was saying to himself: “Thank the Lord, he will never accept me.” Aloud he said: “Pray, overlook my stupidity and proceed—”
The Court leaned forward and tapped smartly on the desk with a lead pencil. “We are wasting time, gentlemen. Please omit the persiflage.”
“Have you ever served as a juror in a criminal case, Mr. Sampson?” inquired the lawyer. Sampson had turned pink under the Court's mild irony.
“No,” he answered, and glanced at Miss Hildebrand, expecting to see a gleam of amusement in her eyes. She was regarding him quite solemnly, however.
“You are a Harvard man, I believe, Mr. Sampson?”