“Why—I don’t—what’s the matter? I’ll pay you.”
Jenison blazed. “Yes, you’ll pay! It’s all money to you! Do you think if I’d known you for a coward I’d have made this fight? I hate myself now to think I ever took your money!”
His client looked at him in stupid silence.
“And let me tell you something else. You’re the last thief I’ll work for. I’m done with keeping your kind out of jail.” Huge self-disgust overwhelmed him. “I’ll never take another cent of crook’s money as long as I live, so help me God!”
They heard the slow procession of the jury filing into the court to deliver the speedy verdict. Jenison felt his soul crawling with shame. A convulsive sigh made him turn. Honest John had raised the glass to his lips. His eyes bulged with fear, and he spilled half the liquid on his shirt. Before Jenison could reach him he had swallowed it. Horror held the attorney for an instant, then he burst through the doorway into the courtroom.
A lank man in the jury box smiled as he entered. That meant “Not guilty.” Without noticing the attorney’s ghastly excitement the judge said, “If the respondent will return the verdict will be delivered.”
Jenison controlled himself and stood straight.
“If your honour please,” he said, “if your honour please”—he could only point through the doorway at Honest John’s body straddled in a chair—“the respondent has delivered his own verdict.”
A MEXICAN VIVANDIÈRE
By H. C. Washburn