Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v109.djvu/874

812 not know for what purpose they were intended? If I assaulted your ears with such pretensions and insulted your intelligence with such quibbles I should expect to be discredited. There are arguments one cannot listen to without loss of dignity! Yet such is the plaintiff's plea, gentlemen. Will you accept it, Mr. Norton? Will you tolerate it, Mr. Richards?"

The individuals addressed wriggled uneasily and exchanged imbecile smiles of embarrassment.

"I venture to say no such excuse was ever dreamed of in the philosophy of business men! It is a device of counsel—an afterthought—a subterfuge. If I am wrong, however, Mr. Fulsom's business experience of five-and-thirty years will demonstrate my error, and I appeal to him to set me right."

All eyes sought a gray-haired man in the top row, who nervously cracked his knuckle joints without glancing at the speaker.

"You are here as business men to decide a business question," pursued the advocate, "and I feel that I should yield to you without another word. If you asked my opinion on a point of law, Mr. Adams—"

The bench in the centre of the box creaked, as a fat man leaned forward, cocking his head attentively like a huge overfed bird.

"—if you retained me to advise you on law it would be, I assume, because of my special study of that subject. You are asked to judge this case for precisely the same reason—as experts on the facts—as experienced business men. All I can do is to point out the pitfalls of plausibility into which my ingenious adversary will try to lure you. This is my sole office in a commercial controversy. But if I had ever thought to instruct you in your special province the questions which Mr. Foster put to one of the witnesses would have warned me of my presumption—questions, gentlemen, pregnant with meaning, and which paved the way to the pointed inquiries of your colleague, Mr. Orton."

Mr. Foster opened his mouth to protest, but compromised by solemnly spitting on the floor. Mr. Orton crouched down in his overcoat and glared at his neighbor in disgust.

"It was to qualify you as experts, gentlemen, that the court permitted me to ask what business experience each of you had had; and when you asked me, Mr. Ireland, if architecture was a business, you will remember I answered that my definition of the word included all callings which involve a knowledge of those principles of credit and fair dealing on which the mighty commerce of this country rests. Therefore I leave the matter to you who are trained in the practical problems of the workaday world, confident that if I have omitted aught which should be touched upon Mr. Lawton or Mr. Innes or Mr. Ferris is as competent to review it as I, knowing that you are all as qualified as they to pass upon the issues and advance the cause of justice."

The orator resumed his seat, wiping his flushed and perspiring face; the jurymen stirred restlessly in their seats, and the judge, dropping his chair to its normal position, peered over the edge of his desk at the plaintiff's counsel, who was studying a sheet of paper on which he had pencilled some rough notes.

"Now, counsellor," he suggested.

The jury settled back in attitudes of helpless resignation as the lawyer rose, recognized the judge with a courteous inclination of his head, and turning to the jury-box, gazed at its occupants with an expression of comical compassion.

"It seems to me, fellow sufferers," he began in a nasal and melancholy drawl, "that somebody has been calling you gentlemen names."

A slight titter from the back of the room caused the judge to glance up sharply.

"A reprehensible habit, gentlemen," continued the speaker, slowly and sadly, "this