CHAPTER XL
THE SQUIRE’S TRIUMPH.
They found Judge Garty in his office; and soon after the deacon and Squire Peternot arrived. Once more Jack, but now with a lighter heart than before, stood before the weak-eyed, hard-winking magistrate, who supposed that the prisoner, having been retaken, was now to be admitted to bail.
“Not exac’ly that,” said Peternot, while Jack listened with a trembling interest. “New sarcumstances have come to light, havin’ a bearin’ on the case. I’ve an understandin’ with the boy; I’m satisfied he didn’t intend burglary; it turns out to be re’ly a trivial offence; so I’ve ventur’d to bring the officer back with him, and I want you to recall your mittimus, assume jurisdiction in the case, and discharge the prisoner.”
“That’ll suit him, I’ve no doubt,” said Judge Garty, winking placidly at Jack about forty times.
“It’ll suit me to be discharged,” replied Jack, with a smile, “though I can’t say I understand his talk about it.”
“A justice of the peace can’t decide in anything so serious as a burglary case,” said the deacon. “But since the complainant is convinced that it wasn’t intentional housebreaking, it is different. The justice can assume jurisdiction, that is, take the case in hand, and decide it.”
“’T will be a little irregular,” remarked Judge Garty, rubbing the top of his bald head with the feather end of his quill pen, and winking wonderfully fast. “Moreover, there’s the costs. I suppose the complainant will in this case pay the costs?”
“Sartin, sartin,” said the squire, thinking he would thus discharge all obligations to the boy he had persecuted.