Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v109.djvu/873



HE drowsy influence of a spring afternoon, combined with the vitiated atmosphere usual in court-rooms, had reduced the audience to a condition of dreamy languor. A few habitués, revelling in the unaccustomed luxury of free elbow-room, sprawled and flopped on the public benches in attitudes of listless inattention; the lawyers scattered behind the rail lounged somnolently on their stiff, uncomfortable chairs; the judge gazed meditatively at the colorless ceiling, his leather chair tilted to the limit of its spring; the plaintiff's attorney sitting at the counsel's table seemed unconscious of his opponent haranguing the jury, and the jurors themselves lolled in their seats and stared at the speaker with the unresponsiveness of tired cattle.

But the orator menacing the jury-box was not affected by the soporific influence in the air. He was distressingly active—painfully alert—and interpreting the trancelike silence as a tribute to his powers, he fairly danced before his auditors to the inspiring strains of his own elocution. If the jurymen were aware of his presence, however, they betrayed it by no outward or visible sign. Occasionally when some swelling period culminated in a thunderous shout they slowly shifted their positions like disturbed sleepers, but for the most part they received the bursts of eloquence with the impassive stare of deaf men, conscious of their affliction, but anxious to conceal it.

At last the exultant advocate crested a mighty wave of words and descended upon his audience in a personal appeal:

"What would you, gentlemen of the jury, say to that? What would men of brains make answer?"

The obvious distinction between the questions evoked no apparent resentment from the triple row of stolid humanity. Indeed, the stupefied stare which greeted the dramatic pause for a reply was more eloquent than words, and noting it, the counsel slowly circled from the lofty heights he had been exploring down to the common ground of intimacy.

"You have heard the plaintiff's story, gentlemen," he continued, in a confidential tone. "You have heard him claim that he did not guarantee his merchandise—did not warrant it would serve our purpose—did not represent its quality at all! Now suppose I sold you potatoes and those potatoes were so decayed you could not eat them, would it suffice me to say I did not warrant they were fit for food? Would that content you, Mr. Paulding?"

A fat-nosed juror in the second row started at the words as though an insect had suddenly flown into his glazed and staring eyes.

"Would that satisfy you, Mr. Thompson?"

The foreman huddling in the corner of the box pulled himself together at the question, started to answer it, but ended by clearing his throat.

"Would it serve me to say I sold you potatoes and not food?" continued the speaker. "Would it avail me to protest I did