"I'll swear, Marse Hen, I don' know. You ax the police. I jes' know he ain't in here, but dey knows where he is. I prays night and day no harm won't happen to him, because dat dog can beat any dog in this sinful town. I jes' wish you had seen him."
As the turnkey was now showing signs of impatience, I cut Jeams short, thereby saving him the sin of more lies, and with a promise that I would get him bailed out if I could, I came away.
The turnkey had assured me on the way that he would find and return me my dog, and was so sincere in his declaration that nothing would give him more pleasure than to do this for any friend of Mr. McSheen's, that I made the concession of allowing him to use his efforts in this direction. But I heard nothing more of him.
With the aid of my friend, the detective, I soon learned the names of the police officers who had arrested Jeams, and was enabled to get from them the particulars of the trouble which caused his arrest.
It seemed that, by one of the strange and fortuitous circumstances which so often occur in life, Jeams had come across Dix just outside of the building in which was my law office, and being then in his glory, he had taken the dog into the bar-room of Mick Raffity, where he had on arrival in town secured a place, to see what chance there might be of making a match with Dix. The match was duly arranged and came off the following night in a resort not far from Raffity's saloon, and Dix won the fight. Just at this moment, however, the police made a raid, pulled the place and arrested as many of the crowd as could not escape, and held on to as many of those as were without requisite influence to secure their prompt discharge. In the course of the operation, Jeams got soundly hammered, though I could not tell whether it was for being drunk or for engaging in a scrimmage with the police. Jeams declared privately that it was to prevent his taking down the money.
When the trial came off, I had prepared myself fully, but I feel confident that nothing would have availed to secure Jeams's acquittal except for two circumstances: One was that I succeeded in enlisting the interest of Mr. McSheen, who for some reason of his own showed a disposition to be particularly civil and complacent toward me at that time—so civil indeed that I quite reproached myself for having conceived a dislike of him. Through his intervention, as I learned later, the most damaging witness against my client suddenly became exceedingly friendly to him and on the witness-stand failed to remember any circumstance of importance which could injure him, and finally declared his inability to identify him.
The result was that Jeams was acquitted, and when he was so informed, he arose and made a speech to the Court and the Jury which would certainly fix him in their memory forever. In the course of it, he declared that I was the greatest lawyer that had ever lived in the world, and I had to stop him for fear, in his ebullient enthusiasm, he might add also that Dix was the greatest dog that ever lived.