"I object, your Honor! Mr. Foley is not on trial."
"It's the duty of this court to get at all the facts," returned the judge. "Does the witness speak from his own knowledge, or what he surmises?"
"I'm absolutely certain he's at the bottom of this."
"But is your evidence first-hand information?"
"It is not," Tom had to confess. "But I couldn't be more certain if I had seen him——"
"Guess-work isn't evidence," cut in the judge.
Tom, however, had attached Foley to the case—he had seen the reporters start at his words as at a fresh sensation—and he gave a look of satisfaction at Foley as he stepped away from the judge's desk. Foley gave back a half-covered sneer, as if to say, "Just youse wait!"
Arkansas was the first of the prisoners to be called—the reason for which priority, as Tom afterwards guessed, being his anomalous face that would not have ill-suited a vest that buttoned to the chin and a collar that buttoned at the back. Arkansas, replying to the questions of his long-haired attorney, corroborated the testimony of the policemen and the Pinkertons in every detail. When Arkansas had answered the last query the lawyer allowed several seconds to pass, his figure drawn up impressively, his right hand in the breast of his frock coat.
The judge bent over his docket and began to write. "This seems a perfectly plain case. I hold the three prisoners for the grand jury, each in ten thousand——"
The attorney's right hand raised itself theatrically. "Hold!" he cried.