Page:Upbuilders by Lincoln Steffens.djvu/152



was an evil deed done to be overcome with good. There was the gang.

“Will you fellers bring in the rest of the gang to-morrow ? ”

“Sure they would.” But they didn’t. The seven turned up the next day without their “crowd.”

“The other fellers was askeared to come,” they reported.

“Well, what are you going to do?” the Judge asked the seven.

They believed that if the Judge would write a letter to the gang, they would come.

“A warrant,” said the Judge, seizing the chance to take the terror out of another instrument of the Law. “I’ll write you out a warrant, and you shall serve it on the gang. But what’ll I write ? ”

One little fellow spoke up. “You begin it,” he said; “begin by saying, ‘No kid has snitched, but if you’ll come, the Judge’ll give you a square deal.’”

This showed what the matter was, and it brought home to the Judge the force of his own feeling against snitching.

The Judge began the “warrant” as the little fellow suggested, and thus he ended it, too. The boys took it, and evidently they served it, for the next day the gang came pouring into t