asked the judge at this point.
“A hard blow!” said Mrs. Robinson indignantly, “I should say it was. I had hot and cold applications on my nose all night.”
—“on her nose all night.”
This echo came from the witness bench where two faded ladies were leaning forward eagerly and nodding their heads in corroboration.
“Were the lights on?” asked the judge.
No, but everyone around had seen the incident and some people had taken hold of the man right then and there.
This concluded the case for the plaintiff. Her two companions gave similar evidence and in the minds of everyone in the courtroom the incident defined itself as one of unprovoked and inexcusable brutality.
The one element which did not fit in with this interpretation was the physiognomy of the prisoner himself. Of any one of a number of minor offenses he might have appeared guilty—pickpockets were notoriously mild-mannered, for example—but of this particular assault in a crowded theatre he seemed physically incapable. He did not have the kind of voice or the kind of clothes or the kind of mustache that went with such an attack.
“Charles David Stuart,” said the judge, “you’ve heard the evidence against you?”
“Yes.”
“And you plead guilty?”
“Yes.”
“Have you anything to say before I sentence you?”
“No.” The prisoner shook his head hopelessly. His small hands were trembling.
“Not one word in extenuation of this unwarranted assault?”
The prisoner appeared to hesitate.
“Go on,” said the judge. “Speak up—it’s your last chance.”
“Well,” said Stuart with an effort, “she began talking about the plumber’s stomach.”
There was a stir in the courtroom. The judge leaned forward.
“What do you mean?”
“Why, at first she was only talking about her own stomach to—to those two ladies there”—he indicated the cousin and Miss Ingles—“and that wasn’t so bad. But when she began talking about the plumber’s stomach it got different.”
“How do you mean—different.”
Charles Stuart looked around helplessly.
“I can’t explain,” he said, his mustache wavering a little, “but when she began talking about the plumber’s stomach you—you had to listen.”
A snicker ran about the courtroom. Mrs. Robinson and her attendant ladies on the bench were visibly horrified. The guard took a step nearer as if at a nod from the judge he would whisk off this criminal to the dingiest dungeon in Manhattan.
But much to his surprise the judge settled himself comfortably in his chair.
“Tell us about it, Stuart,” he said not unkindly. “Tell us the whole story from the beginning.”
This request was a shock to the prisoner and for a moment he looked as though he would have preferred the order of condemnation. Then after one nervous look around the room he put his hands on the edge of the desk, like the paws of a fox-terrier just being trained to sit up, and began to speak in a quivering voice.
“Well, I’m a night cashier, your honor, in T. Cushmael’s restaurant on Third Avenue. I’m not married”—he smiled a little, as if he knew they had all guessed that—“and so on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons I usually go to the matinee. It helps to pass the time till dinner. There’s a drug store, maybe you know, where you can get tickets for a dollar sixty-five to some of the shows and I usually go there and pick out something. They got awful prices at the box office now.” He gave out a long silent whistle and looked feelingly at the judge. “Four or five dollars for one seat—”
The judge nodded his head.
“Well,” continued Charles Stuart, “when I pay even a dollar sixty-five I expect to see my money’s worth. About two weeks ago I went to one of these here mystery plays where they have one fella that did the crime and nobody knows who it was. Well, the fun at a thing like that is to guess who did it. And there was a lady behind me that’d been there before and she gave it all away to the fella with her. Gee”—his face fell and he shook his head from side to side—“I like to died right there. When I got home to my room I was so mad that they had to come and ask me to stop walking up and down. Dollar sixty-five of my money gone for nothing.
“Well, Wednesday came around again, and this show was one show I wanted to see. I’d been wanting to see it for months, and every time I went into the drug store I asked them if they had any tickets. But they never did.” He hesitated. “So Tuesday I took a chance and went over to the box office and got a seat. Two seventy-five it cost me.” He nodded impressively. “Two seventy-five. Like throwing money away. But I wanted to see that show.”
Mrs. Robinson in the front row rose suddenly to her feet.
“I don’t see what all this story has to do with it,” she broke out a little shrilly. “I’m sure I don’t care—”
The judge brought his gavel sharply down on the desk.
“Sit down, please,” he said. “This is a court of law, not a matinee.”
Mrs. Robinson sat down, drawing herself up into a thin line and sniffing a little as if to say she’d see about this after awhile. The judge pulled out his watch.
“Go on,” he said to Stuart. “Take all the time you want.”
“I got there first,” continued Stuart in a flustered voice. “There wasn’t anybody in there but me and the fella that was cleaning up. After awhile the audience came in, and it got dark and the play started, but just as I was all settled in my seat and ready to have a good time I heard an awful row directly behind me. Somebody had asked this lady”—he pointed to Mrs. Robinson—“to remove her hat like she should of done anyhow and she was sore about it. She kept telling the two ladies that was with her how she’d been at the theatre before and knew enough to take off her hat. She kept that up for a long time, five minutes maybe, and then every once in awhile she’d think of something new and say it in a loud voice. So finally I turned around and looked at her because I wanted to see what a lady looked like that could be so inconsiderate as that. Soon as I turned back she began on me. She said I was insolent and then she said ‘Tchk! Tchk! Tchk!’ a lot with her tongue and the two ladies that was with her said ‘Tchk! Tchk! Tchk!’ until you could hardly hear yourself think, much less listen to the play. You’d have thought I’d done something terrible.
“By and by, after they calmed down and I began to catch up with what was doing on the stage, I felt my seat sort of creak forward and then creak back again and I knew the lady had her feet on it and I was in for a good rock. Gosh!” he wiped his pale, narrow brow on which the sweat had gathered thinly, “it was awful. I hope to tell you I wished I’d never come at all. Once I got excited at a show and rocked a man’s
