Page:Melville Davisson Post--The Man of Last Resort.djvu/287

Rh miserable, and the crime,—some petty revenue infraction. He would be presently required to pay his fine, and, failing that, would be locked up in a cell. It was the law, heartless as an image. Yet Carper wondered listlessly if one from beyond the world's rim on the quest of the good would not take this man, and leave the others, leave all the others—the judge with his blue-veined patriciate face, the clerks with their lank jaws, the attorneys, with their expression of abominable indifference, and himself. Well, the machinery of human justice was awry. Then he wondered at the condition that bred this surmise. How was it possible to reflect so indolently upon the condition of another when his own was perilous. Still, such speculations obtained with men, it is said, in great crises, and at the grave's edge.

Presently the judge laid down his papers and began to speak. Carper heard him as one speaking a long distance away. At first the words seemed indistinct and without meaning; then he caught them full, as one waking suddenly catches and understands the conversation of his fellow.