Page:Train - Tutt and Mr Tutt (Scribner, 1922).djvu/78

 "There's no point in skinning a Chink just because he is a Chink," said the junior Tutt when his partner had explained the situation to him. "But it isn't the highest-class practise and they ought to pay well."

"What do you call well?" inquired Mr. Tutt.

"Oh, a thousand dollars down, a couple more if he's convicted, and five altogether if he's acquitted."

"Do you think they can raise that amount of money?"

"I think so," answered Tutt. "It might be a good deal for an individual Chink to cough up on his own account, but this is a coöperative affair. Mock Hen didn't kill Quong Lee to get anything out of it for himself, but to save the face of his society."

"He didn't kill him at all!" declared Mr. Tutt, hardly moving a muscle of his face.

"Well, you know what I mean!" said Tutt.

"He wasn't there," insisted Mr. Tutt. "He was way over in Fulton Market buying a terrapin."

"That is what, if I were district attorney, I should call a Mock Hen with a mockturtle defense!" grunted Tutt.

Mr. Tutt chuckled.

"I shall have to get that off myself at the beginning of the case, or it might convict him," he