"So have I," the son fretfully persisted, "and talked over the whole case, taken the price from him, and promised to be at Slote's in the morning when the case is called."

Old Curry made an impatient gesture. "I suppose we could n't drop Sandler, could we?" he demanded.

"Yes, I suppose we could if there was any sense in it. But we have n't any thing against Sandler. He's been in here and acted square with us, and I can't see what we should drop him for. That's the way it stands with me. I'd like to see this office run on business principles."

"Would you?

man.

thundered the old Have all the

"Well, keep it up. business principles you want. But let me tell you that I'm going to represent Johnny Kells."

Young Curry looked up inflexibly, but with an uneasy glitter in his eye. "I don't suppose I can prevent you."

"And if Sandler is to be represented from this office you'll have to do it on your own account."

"I could do it," admitted Martin in a hard tone. "If it had to be that way I could manage it. The crowd over there

But Old Curry slammed the door and almost knocked backward down the steps the future stenographer of the Supreme Court.

Curry the younger arrived at the office in the morning soon after Tanner had completed certain mystical passes with a feather duster which in the youth's mind were associated with an inconsequent obligation.

Martin spent some minutes in study of the New Code of Criminal Procedure. Of late years consulting the authorities had been Martin's particular duty. Old Curry's eyes were not the good servants they once had been. Moreover the old man's patience had been long since exhausted by the facility with which legislatures deface the noble monuments of law. In cross-examination the senior partner was a tower of strength, and in the summing up he worthily kept alive the traditions of the stalwart past. citations were uncertain, and his temper uneven, but juries believed him, and judges remembered what he had been. If Martin sometimes winced at his father's looser technique, he had seen juries quail and the bench unbend. He admired his father.

His

Having finished his examination of the Code, Martin placed the volume on a corner of his father's table. Just then Old Curry came in.

The old man opened and read his letters without saying a word. He picked up the Code and peered at it for

a time. Then he wheeled about in his chair.

"Are you still for Sandler?" he asked, with an unconciliatory lightness.

Martin was actually in no mood to be obstructive, could he have seen his way out. But no shadow of compromise appeared in his father's tone, and at that moment the door swung open.

dyed a sinister bluish black, called, "John Kells."

Four men stepped to the bar: Kells, a short, thick-set, alert man, with an effect of restrained pugnacity; the elder Curry; Martin, a diminished version of his father; big Sandler towering over all.

Sandler had already lumbered in. "I suppose it's about time t' git across the way," he said. "How are yer, Dan," he added on seeing the senior partner, and continued, with the effect of addressing the two of them, "There's one thing I forgot t' tell yer about this mule "

"I guess you'd better wait till I get out of here," interrupted Old Curry.

"You need n't tear yourself away," observed Martin, but Old Curry had gone.

Sandler looked puzzled. "What's the matter with the old man ?"

"The trouble with him," answered Martin," is that he's going to represent the other side."

"Well, I'll be- You don't mean "Yes, I do. I mean just that. Johnny Kells has got him."

Plainly Sandler was dazed as they descended to the street. On the steps of the Tombs he remarked grimly, "I can't see what Dan's gone back on me for."

They entered the shadow of the gray Egyptian corridor, and turned to the right into the police court, passed between the spectators' benches, and took seats within the inclosure. Behind the desk at the end of the room sat Justice Slote, who at this moment was asking a woman in a group before the railing, "Would you like me to hang him, madam?'

Presently Slote, whose mustache was

"To which he pleads not guilty," answered Old Curry quietly, adding, “ and if Your Honor please, I must move to dismiss the complaint on the ground that it describes no crime, the complainant's redress, if any, being obtainable by civil action."

"The gentleman has evidently forgotten," Martin spoke up with some pressure of quiet," that provision of the New Code which describes detention as larceny, for which the defendant is criminally liable. Your Honor will see by the papers

Justice Slote laid down his pen. "You gentlemen don't seem to be very well agreed in this matter."

"Perhaps," suggested Martin with a strained smile, "Your Honor does n't understand that we appear on opposite sides in this case."

"I-I see," said Slote, with signs of not being at all clear. "On opposite sides." He had known the Currys for twenty years, and the situation naturally struck him as peculiar. He indicated by his later manner that it also struck him as amusing. In the matter of Old Curry's motion, he remarked that it was denied. The New Code distinctly characterized such detention as larceny.

Old Curry shrugged his lofty shoulders, and seemed about to speak, when Slote pushed forward an open copy of the Code, decorated with crosses, index fingers, and other marginal aids.

The old lawyer, without looking at the book or at his son, remarked casually, "I understand there is some doubt as to the value of this mule."

"There ain't no doubt about it," broke in Sandler; but young Curry, subduing his client, very deliberately moved to amend the complaint so that it might read "twenty-four dollars," and Old Curry grinned under his bristles.

The change made the charge one of petty larceny, and sent the case to Special Sessions instead of to the Grand Jury in the County Court. Martin had no heart for the ordeal of the County Court. "I'd rather pay you the difference myself," he afterward growled to Sandler.

It was thus that the case of The People vs. Kells came to trial in the adjoining chamber of the Tombs two days later,

came to trial with the father on one side and the son on the other; with Sandler, big and fierce to the fore, and Johnny Kells defiantly amiable first to last.

They called it a memorable day in that Egyptian cavern (the Bridge of Sighs opening on the left) not alone for the trial itself, which was, after all, but a short affair, but for the audience it evoked. Four aldermen had come in with Supervisor Jo Budd; and the Dolan boys. Under Sheriff Shane shuffled through the door after Wun Lung the Chinese interpreter, tossing the last of a cigar behind the rear benches. Here, too, was Coroner Croker, and the great criminal lawyer Stenthorne himself.

It was not remarkable that Malsted, fattest of the three magistrates who occupied the bench, should awaken from his doze and mutter to Corwin, " What's Stenny doin' here?"

“Dunno," returned Corwin, "unless to see the fun in the Kells case."

After it was over, word went about that the Mayor and the District Attorney had been seated in the outer crowd.

At all events the world seemed to have learned that Old Curry and his son were

to fight a case in the Special Sessions. The place would hold no more. Even the corridor creaked with the would-be spectators, so that it was a momentous matter for Old Curry to get in and to make a path for the Widow Kells, who was a resplendent person that day, her black silk rustling richly as she struggled to her seat within the rail, her tumultuous bonnet shimmering gayly in the grim place.

Big Sandler made a significant grimace when he saw the widow come in, and Old Curry before her making a path. As for Martin Curry, he had no stomach for the business from that moment, though a high rebellion of battered pride remained with him to the end.

The justices had no disposition to hurry matters. The mere situation, quite without regard to the details, was too entertaining. Martin Curry knew this so well that he became nervously eager to finish the affair before it had begun, and he was as curt in his examination of big Sandler as if that large person had been a hostile witness. Moreover he was sure of his case. The ruling of the examining justice had fortified him. Detention was larceny. There was the end of the matter. He had an angry pity for the old man, who must come to the end of his rope before long.

Sandler told the simple story of the mule; of its purchase from Kells; of his later finding of the animal in Kells's stable near the Bend; of his demand for the delivery of the mule, a demand made in peaceable terms; of Kells's outrageous "strike" for money, and his own indignant refusal to pay the same; of Kells's criminal withholding of the mule to the present hour.

Old Curry arose in great pomp for the cross-examination. He was as little in haste as the Court itself. Yet his questions were few. Sandler admitted his ignorance of the precise manner in which the mule came to be in Kells's stable. He admitted that Kells's demand for money

Sandler, eager to answer, then declared that he had given the mule nearly twice the quantity of feed he gave his horse.

"Only twice?" asked Old Curry impressively.

"Nobody could give that mule all he wanted," blurted Sandler.

"You admit that you gave him less than he wanted?"

"I gave him a proper amount," declared Sandler. "I think I understand my business."

"That may be, my friend," murmured the questioner solemnly, "but you don't understand this mule. That is the sad feature of the situation, as I shall show the Court later on. And I shall not ask you another question."

A little man with a big voice, who had

testified to recognizing the mule there detained as the mule Sandler had owned for five days.

Old Curry fixed the little man with his cavernous eyes.

"How did the mule look?"

"He wasn't lookin' that I know." "Didn't he wear the appearance of a well-fed beast?

The objection was sustained, Old Curry waved his hand, the little man stepped down, and the case for the prose cution was closed.

"And now, if Your Honors please," said Old Curry, "deferring a motion to dismiss this extraordinary complaint, I will place before Your Honors, with great brevity, certain facts which in justice to the defendant should be made known. I call as a first witness Mrs. Kells."

All eyes were upon the widow as she arose from her seat by the rail and came forward in her resplendent raiment to the witness chair. The fat policeman who held the Bible opened the volume as he administered the oath, and gallantly submitted to the widow's lips an unsoiled page within.

Mrs. Kells was not yet forty-five, and still capable, as the day proved, of making a potent impression.

"Mrs. Kells," began Old Curry, a new note in his voice, "please tell the Court what you saw on the afternoon of April 7."

The widow complied, with animation. What she saw - from the second-story window of her house was the advent of the mule, the mule her son had sold to Sandler five days before. The beast was strolling down from Mulberry Street, — just as he used to when Kells had left the truck at the shed, and when he came to the alley, turned in and went straight to the old stall in the stable.

"I will ask you," resumed Old Curry, "whether any one urged, guided, called, or constrained the mule to take this step?"

"Not a soul," answered Mrs. Kells, a trifle abashed by some of the words. "That is all."

Martin arose with an irritated stiffness. "Will you kindly inform me, Mrs. Kells, where you were sitting when you saw this mule ? "

"In my own rooms."

"And you could see what happened at the side of the house?"

"I withdraw my objection!" thundered the father. "You will answer counsel's question."

“I do not desire it," insisted Martin. "But I do." Daniel Curry tapped the table with his fist. "Answer him, madam. Who was present?"

The widow snickered becomingly. "Mr. Curry."

Corwin smote the desk, and when silence was restored, "You mean,” said the Justice, "counsel for the defendant?” "Yes, sir. He had just called."

"I see," mused Martin, with an icy evenness, "the mule and the gentleman for the defense."

"Keep to your case," admonished Corwin sharply.

"Begging Your Honor's pardon,” interposed Old Curry, "that is impossible. The gentleman has no case."

"My opponent may change his mind,” retorted Martin.

There were certain other perfunctory questions by the defense, and the widow, with restored radiance, left the stand.

"John Kells," called the accused's counsel, and Johnny bristled to the front, eager to tell how he found the mule in the stall, found him looking wasted for want of food (objection), with a famished look in his face (objection); how he fed him and fed him, and in the morning doubled his allowance; how Sandler came with rough insinuations (objection"Give his words, sir!") and wanted to take the mule without paying the bill