Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 23.pdf/144

 The Green Bag

120 refreshment

parlor would

usually be

made. It was at a county seat so honored,

and on an afternoon when the judicial labors were timed in minutes and the after refreshments and rest in hours,

time. You will ﬁnd things all tore up in the house terribl and a klot of blud on the kitchen ﬂoor and it looks like there had been some fowl play— You better look after things there rite away, and go after Pete who was the last of

his honor found life to be “one grand

the three saw alive. They say he went west and let out something about medicin

sweet song,” until rudely disturbed by a base and surreptitious meddler—an

hat, maybe thats a place somewhere out west. Yours truly."

that the sheriff had in the company of

anonymous letter writer. The judge had just simultaneously

found the bottom of a stein and the con clusion of his story about a protracted lost-will case he had recently tried in

court. In the story there ﬁgured an account of his honor's persistent unslaked thirst

while listening to very long erudite legal arguments on the question of the admission of vital testimony — the dis

There was no signature nor indication of place or date.

As the sheriff laboriously deciphered the scrawl he became gradually more and more mentally alert and when he

had reached the end he was almost sober.

“That's a hell of a note," he re marked, blissfully unoonscious of any possible pun.

putatious lawyers being a distinguished

"Vets in it?" inquired his honor, who

senator from abroad, pro, and a militant major of home talent, con. l‘How did you ﬁnally decide the point,

had been gravely blinking the little blue

Judge?” asked the sheriff, as he too reached the bottom of his stein. "Vell," said the judge smilingly, "I tolt ‘em dat I guess ve better let de magher hav his vay, and den adjurned de case quick." After the laugh which came easily from the surrounding cronies to the

tune of the flowing steins, the deputy produced the anonymous note for the

sheriff. Apparently written with a labored and unaccustomed hand it read as follows: —

eyes imbedded in the fat cheeks and looking on during the perusal. "In what?" remarked the dazed officer,

and then realizing the purport of the enquiry, continued, “Oh, in the letter! Well, there's hell in it, and murder most

likely." Pending the reading, as there appeared no immediate prospect for more drinks,

the two upholders of the law had been left alone by the hangers-on. Without further elucidating, the sheriff proceeded to re-read the note, and as he grasped more and more of its dire con tents, he became as sober as a judge —

knows where Pete and his wife and Bill Sykes who was sweet on her is and

always ought to be. Then feeling the need of a division of responsibility, he explained the matter to the stolid judge who also became deeply interested, as it was among his multifarious duties to hold preliminary examinations in criminal cases. The two officials became more and

nobody had saw any of them for a long

more deeply absorbed as they discussed

“Sheriff of Hamilton county ——

“Deer Sur: If you will go to the Pete Slidems place a half-mile out from Florafountin, you will ﬁnd the house empty and nobudy there. Nobudy