Under him Luke went cheerfully to work. He was at first disappointed because his tasks were minor tasks and seemed to possess only the most distant connection with the great crusade; but he was, in those times, as modest as he was ardent, and he realized that he was still in his novitiate. He tried petty offenders whose crimes were so insignificant that he frequently found it hard to consider them crimes at all, and he was often too sorry for the accused to be glad when he convicted them. The first time he won a sentence, which was by no means the first time he tried a case, he passed a sleepless night, because he feared that the defendant's plea might have been the true one. It was long thereafter before he could exult in a conviction that carried with it a term in prison, even when he was certain of the condemned man's guilt.
The other members of the staff, more experienced in criminal practice, showed no compunctions. They were a rather jolly lot of men, ranging in age from twenty-five to thirty, with a cynical tolerance of life and a tendency to regard their work as a game that everybody played solely for the sake of winning it, with the opposing lawyers as the rival players and with the accused as insensate pawns. Luke forgave them only because of their unanimous and unbounded loyalty to their high-purposing chief.
"I got that case," declared one of these young men, a Larry O'Mara, when he came through Luke's little office one afternoon after the court had risen.
"What case?" Luke inquired.
"That one I had against Burroughs—and old Laurie was sitting, too. The jury was only out ten minutes."
O'Mara was pink with triumph.
"What was the charge?" asked Luke.
"Larceny. It was hard work to make out; but the fellow's past record did for him. I got that in while Burroughs was asleep at the switch. When he did object, Laurie ruled against me, but the jury'd heard it all right. Laurie's the strictest man on the bench, and Burroughs is about the cleverest criminal lawyer in town."
Luke blushed for this victor:
"Was the man guilty?"