“Has he ever been arrested before?”
“Yes. Served a term of seven months five years ago.”
“Do you identify the man?”
“Yes.”
“Let an officer inform the prisoner of his rights,” says the district attorney, in the meantime calling Officer Jaspar to the stand.
The “rights” of the prisoner are to cross-examine the witness. The officer who gives him this information must lift the prisoner’s wounded head from his bosom to do it. And, when he releases it again, it returns there.
Officer Jaspar is the one who assisted Gorman to make the arrest, and, when he can be brought into his narrative, knows nothing which Gorman does not. He, however, had also used his club and his pistol to subdue the prisoner.
“It seems to me,” cries the Commonwealth’s officer, “that it took an extraordinary quantity of shooting and clubbing to take one man.”
“He’s a big un!” grins the witness.
“You seem to have used your pistols first?”