Page:That Royle Girl (Balmer).pdf/275

 Calvin recollected, after a few moments, that he must put another question or dismiss the witness. Having nothing himself, he glanced down at Ellison, who shortly shook his head. "That's all," said Calvin, and Max Elmen, grinning his delight, advanced with ostentatious gallantry to escort the girl from the stand.

Nimbly Max's mind diagnosed the fresh elements in the immediate situation and discerned that, if ever it could be said to be safe to present Mr. James Morton Royle to a court of law, the extraordinary occasion had arrived.

Dads, debonair and entirely distinguished in his new (and paid-for) cutaway of dark gray, took the oath with one hand solemnly raised and two fingers of the other lightly applied to his precisely clipped moustache. His attire, tonsure, complexion, stance and state of being appeared faultless to the eye and wholly pleasing; for Dads never erred by assuming a monopoly of distinction; he dispensed it to all onlookers, endowing them with an agreeable feeling of increased importance by virtue of the mere sight of him.

Particularly flattering was it for a man to feel himself the patron of one who appeared so great a personage, whatever the facts of the matter might be; and no one knew better than Dads the nuances which enlisted liking.

By the time he had seated himself, half the jurymen were smiling. Every man of them had heard this day extensive details of Dads' manner of living, but they remained reluctant to attach the unpleasant narrative to the totally agreeable person before them. Hotel-keepers habitually had suffered from identical reluctances.

Elmen glanced at the jury and blandly, with appropriate deference to Dads, he conducted the direct examination, leading to testimony, couched in Dads' distinguished diction, that the witness was in his apartment at