How will they take it at home—my mother, my—Stop that! Stop that! You are not to speculate on that subject; there must be no redness about the eyes, no twitching mouth when you face that jury for the last time. Use your brain—think of something else.
I am sick of the case; it can have but one issue. I must drive it from my mind by some other subject. I must have a proposition to prove—anything. Why does time pass so slowly? for instance; that will do.
It is going slowly. This afternoon is a life-time—but why? That is a very good subject; it is an intensely real one. That this afternoon is “a life-time” is not only figurative—it is literal. Think of it; as long a life-time as you will, is composed of what? Of course I mean mentally—not what happens; that is hardly worth chronicling. What constitutes our interest in life? Surely it is because we cannot tell what the next day—or the next moment, for that matter—may bring forth. We hope, but uncertainty gives that hope its zest. Because we cannot discount the future, the unexpected is life, and life is Doubt. Can enough doubt be crowded into a few hours, or even minutes, to constitute a life-time? You will know it possible if you have ever waited—while the jury is out.
This must be the secret of the drama—the mimic life—in which the aroused hopes and fears and sympathies are but other names for doubt. Imagine, then, the suspense, the doubt, of the waiting man in this play with real life or death, and concentrate the emotions of a whole audience into that single brain.
The fourth entry: 6.30 o’clock.
There is a noise in the street below. I look out of the window at the crowd; they are waiting also from curiosity. Newspapers are being sold—newspapers full of unjust and imaginary stories about me and mine. The journalists are eager to sell these inventions while interest in my case lasts, hence the newspapers are “extras.” While watching this I see the jury go to dinner in an old-fashioned white stage, such as used to carry passengers on Broadway. Perhaps it is the same stage in which I rode with my mother to Manhattanville thirty years ago—I a little fellow in kilt skirts and white stockings. How well I remember it!
The fifth entry: 8 o’clock.
They will allow no one to see me; that is, none of my friends, but curious officials come in on imaginary errands to look me over. The jury returned some time ago; they have now deliberated for five hours. Evidently some one is holding out. Having done so for this length of time, it looks like a disagreement; unless some one changes his mind. Why should a juror change his mind? He has sworn to go by the evidence. Do the opinions of his companions change the evidence?
I wish that there was no jury system. Having five judges to preside would be much better. They would go by facts, their ears would not be tickled by mere eloquence; experience would teach them when witnesses were lying. And, best of all, five judges would know the real value of expert testimony; yes, they would know that, for they would hear the official experts expounding one theory to-day, have heard its opposite yesterday, and will hear the repudiation of both to-morrow.
The sixth entry: 8.30 o’clock.