Page:Train - Tutt and Mr Tutt (Scribner, 1922).djvu/90

 factors in the proceedings they did not count, except to receive their two dollars per diem, board, lodging and hack fare.

The trial of Mock Hen being conducted in a foreign language, the first judicial step was the swearing of an interpreter. The On Gees had promptly produced one, whom O'Brien told the court was a very learned man; a graduate of the Imperial University at Peking, and a Son of the Sacred Dragon. Be that as it may, he was not prepossessing in his appearance and Mr. Tutt assured Judge Bender that far from being what the district attorney pretended, the man was a well-known gambler, who made his living largely by blackmail. He might be a son of a dragon or he might not; anyway he was a son of Belial. An interpreter was the conduit through which all the evidence must pass. If the official were biased or corrupt the testimony would be distorted, colored or suppressed.

Now he—Mr. Tutt—had an interpreter, the well-known Dr. Hong Su, against whom nothing could be said, and upon whose fat head rested no imputation of partiality; a graduate of Harvard, a writer of note, a

O'Brien sprang to his feet: "My interpreter says your interpreter is an opium smuggler, that he murdered his aunt in Hong Kong, that he isn't