Happy thought! Division street is the place to speak about the partition of spoils.
Bad as it looked for Mr. Lowenthal, who is aged eighty years, he had a petite consolation in the fact that he was defended by Mr. Hummel. The prisoner came out of the pen in a tottering way and leaned against the rail. Hirsch Lowenthal is bowed with eighty years that have dashed over him like waves, and he seemed caught in the tangling undertow of death. There was no evidence in his appearance of being a "fence." He looked rather an aged Hebrew who simply wished to go his way. The white semi-circle of whisker under his chin, the trembling hands, the bald head, like a globular map with the veins as rivers, all attested extreme decrepitude. He was dressed in a light suit of fluttering linen that blew about him as if his legs were topmasts and he was a ship running in close-reefed on a stormy coast. He has lived in this city for many years, and has been twice married. The second wife and he did not get along very well, and have abided apart for the last five months. Theresa, who is the central figure in this romance, is the daughter of the second wife by another husband. She is married to a burglar who luxuriates in the euphonious name of "Sheeny Dave." Dave is one of the two men identified in Buffalo, and resides now at Auburn at the expense of the State. When they saw the Baltimore merchant in Buffalo Dave and his companion came sagely to the conclusion that to plead guilty to the local charge and avoid extradition for the burglary would be about the best thing to do. They reckoned without their host. When the New York State term is finished they will be waited upon by Maryland officials. It is sometimes embarrassing to be popular and sought after by everyone.
Perhaps it would be a safe rule in life to avoid drinking beer if you have had anything to do with stolen goods. On last Wednesday evening, Mr. Lowenthal visited a Division street saloon in company with a villainous looking man who had but lately returned from Sing Sing. They ordered the loquacious lager and fell into an easy strain of conversation. After touching upon the weather, crops, trade, etc., Mr. Lowenthal fell to speaking of some goods in his house, the proceeds of a Baltimore burglary in last January. At the next table sat Mr. Rosenberg, who listened. It was Mr. Rosenberg who gave this damaging evidence before Justice Wandell. He was forced to admit, however, that the aged gentleman had not mentioned the name of the Baltimore firm, although he had specified the quality of the goods. Mr. Hummel claimed that as the commodity spoken of was only material in general and had not been identified as Mr. Rudberg's particular property, and that, furthermore, as there was no evidence tracing the stuff to the old man, who had merely chatted pleasantly about some burglarized property to which he had helped himself while occupying a fiduciary position, there was no case and asked for the discharge of his client. The prosecution claimed that the fact of Theresa being the step-daughter of Mr. Lowenthal, and the wife of one of the identified burglars at the same time, taken in connection with the conversation in the beer shop, during which direct allusion was made to a burglary in Baltimore in January, made a good foundation for procedure. Judge Wandell pondered, and then Mr. Hummell pushed his side energetically, using tons of cold sarcasm and barrels of withering scorn. It was the sapling shielding the blasted oak, one of the youngest, and certainly the smallest counselor thundering forth in behalf of the oldest prisoner.
"Oh, by all means, put the gentleman from Sing Sing on the stand," he said, "but let's have him sworn first. It is precisely what I desire. Nothing would charm me half so much."
So they swore the jail-bird, made him confess that he had served his term fully, and then told him to step down and out. His evidence was not needed. Mr. Rosenberg was raked fore and aft, but he stuck to his story. When the diminutive counsellor intimated that he was worse than the prisoner, the witness smiled serenely and winked at the magistrate as if it was a good joke.
"If he talked that way to me I'd punch his head," said the Baltimore man in a whisper.
No one could tell where Theresa was, although weeks had been spent searching for her. And yet she is no ordinary woman. Twenty-three years of age, elegantly formed, dark, lustrous eyes, satiny coils of black hair, olive complexion, seed-pearl teeth, full red lips, small hands and feet, and graceful carriage. She wears diamond drops at her ears and sparkling rings upon her fingers. Her favorite attire, as if life were a perpetual dressing for dinner, is a black-corded silk, fitted close to the figure, made high in the neck, with a trembling edge of lace at the throat clustering about a diamond catch whose brilliancy it veils. This is not a fancy portrait, but word for word from an enthusiastic admirer of Lowenthal's step-daughter. But where is she? It is not known. Where is the John Sherman letter to Anderson? Where is the Boston Belting Company's money? Where is Tom Collins? And where's Emma Collins? An impenetrable gloom shrouds them all.
After a rather protracted lunch on his eye-glasses, Judge Wandell, in reply to Mr. Hummel's motion, rendered his decision to the effect that there was not sufficient evidence to hold aged Mr. Lowenthal. The octogenarian heard it with delight, and came as near skipping like a lamb from the court-room as is possible for one of his age.