by Jack London
THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT
CARTER WATSON, a current magazine under his arm, strolled slowly along,gazing about him curiously. Twenty years had elapsed since he had beenon this particular street, and the changes were great and stupefying.This Western city of three hundred thousand souls had contained butthirty thousand, when, as a boy, he had been wont to ramble alongits streets. In those days the street he was now on had been a quietresidence street in the respectable workingclass quarter. On this lateafternoon he found that it had been submerged by a vast and vicioustenderloin. Chinese and Japanese shops and dens abounded, all confusedlyintermingled with low white resorts and boozing dens. This quiet streetof his youth had become the toughest quarter of the city.
He looked at his watch. It was half-past five. It was the slack time ofthe day in such a region, as he well knew, yet he was curious to see. Inall his score of years of wandering and studying social conditions overthe world, he had carried with him the memory of his old town as a sweetand wholesome place. The metamorphosis he now beheld was startling. Hecertainly must continue his stroll and glimpse the infamy to which histown had descended.
Another thing: Carter Watson had a keen social and civic consciousness.Independently wealthy, he had been loath to dissipate his energiesin the pink teas and freak dinners of society, while actresses,race-horses, and kindred diversions had left him cold. He had theethical bee in his bonnet and was a reformer of no mean pretension,though his work had been mainly in the line of contributions to theheavier reviews and quarterlies and to the publication over his nameof brightly, cleverly written books on the working classes and theslum-dwellers. Among the twenty-seven to his credit occurred titles suchas, "If Christ Came to New Orleans," "The Worked-out Worker," "TenementReform in Berlin," "The Rural Slums of England," "The people of the EastSide," "Reform Versus Revolution," "The University Settlement as a HotBed of Radicalism" and "The Cave Man of Civilization."
But Carter Watson was neither morbid nor fanatic. He did not lose hishead over the horrors he encountered, studied, and exposed. No hairbrained enthusiasm branded him. His humor saved him, as did his wideexperience and his conservative philosophic temperament. Nor did hehave any patience with lightning change reform theories. As he saw it,society would grow better only through the painfully slow and arduouslypainful processes of evolution. There were no short cuts, no suddenregenerations. The betterment of mankind must be worked out in agony andmisery just as all past social betterments had been worked out.
But on this late summer afternoon, Carter Watson was curious. As hemoved along he paused before a gaudy drinking place. The sign aboveread, "The Vendome." There were two entrances. One evidently led to thebar. This he did not explore. The other was a narrow hallway.Passing through this he found himself in a huge room, filled withchair-encircled tables and quite deserted. In the dim light he made outa piano in the distance. Making a mental note that he would come backsome time and study the class of persons that must sit and drink atthose multitudinous tables, he proceeded to circumnavigate the room.
Now, at the rear, a short hallway led off to a small kitchen, and here,at a table, alone, sat Patsy Horan, proprietor of the Vendome, consuminga hasty supper ere the evening rush of business. Also, Patsy Horanwas angry with the world. He had got out of the wrong side of bed thatmorning, and nothing had gone right all day. Had his barkeepers beenasked, they would have described his mental condition as a grouch. ButCarter Watson did not know this. As he passed the little hallway, PatsyHoran's sullen eyes lighted on the magazine he carried under his arm.Patsy did not know Carter Watson, nor did he know that what he carriedunder his arm was a magazine. Patsy, out of the depths of his grouch,decided that this stranger was one of those pests who marred and scarredthe walls of his back rooms by tacking up or pasting up advertisements.The color on the front cover of the magazine convinced him that it wassuch an advertisement. Thus the trouble began. Knife and fork in hand,Patsy leaped for Carter Watson.
"Out wid yeh!" Patsy bellowed. "I know yer game!"
Carter Watson was startled. The man had come upon him like the eruptionof a jack-in-the-box.
"A defacin' me walls," cried Patsy, at the same time emitting a stringof vivid and vile, rather than virile, epithets of opprobrium.
"If I have given any offense I did not mean to--"
But that was as far as the visitor got. Patsy interrupted.
"Get out wid yeh; yeh talk too much wid yer mouth," quoted Patsy,emphasizing his remarks with flourishes of the knife and fork.
Carter Watson caught a quick vision of that eating-fork inserteduncomfortably between his ribs, knew that it would be rash to talkfurther with his mouth, and promptly turned to go. The sight of hismeekly retreating back must have further enraged Patsy Horan, for thatworthy, dropping the table implements, sprang upon him.
Patsy weighed one hundred and eighty pounds. So did Watson. In this theywere equal. But Patsy was a rushing, rough-and-tumble saloon-fighter,while Watson was a boxer. In this the latter had the advantage, forPatsy came in wide open, swinging his right in a perilous sweep. AllWatson had to do was to straight-left him and escape. But Watson hadanother advantage. His boxing, and his experience in the slums andghettos of the world, had taught him restraint.
He pivoted on his feet, and, instead of striking, ducked the other'sswinging blow and went into a clinch. But Patsy, charging like a bull,had the momentum of his rush, while Watson, whirling to meet him, had nomomentum. As a result, the pair of them went down, with all their threehundred and sixty pounds of weight, in a long crashing fall, Watsonunderneath. He lay with his head touching the rear wall of the largeroom. The street was a hundred and fifty feet away, and he did somequick thinking. His first thought was to avoid trouble. He had no wishto get into the papers of this, his childhood town, where many of hisrelatives and family friends still lived.
So it was that he locked his arms around the man on top of him, held himclose, and waited for the help to come that must come in response to thecrash of the fall. The help came--that is, six men ran in from the barand formed about in a semi-circle.
"Take him off, fellows," Watson said. "I haven't struck him, and I don'twant any fight."
But the semi-circle remained silent. Watson held on and waited. Patsy,after various vain efforts to inflict damage, made an overture.
"Leggo o' me an' I'll get off o' yeh," said he.
Watson let go, but when Patsy scrambled to his feet he stood over hisrecumbent foe, ready to strike.
"Get up," Patsy commanded.
His voice was stern and implacable, like the voice of God calling tojudgment, and Watson knew there was no mercy there.
"Stand back and I'll get up," he countered.
"If yer a gentleman, get up," quoth Patsy, his pale blue eyes aflamewith wrath, his fist ready for a crushing blow.
At the same moment he drew his foot back to kick the other in the face.Watson blocked the kick with his crossed arms and sprang to his feet soquickly that he was in a clinch with his antagonist before the lattercould strike. Holding him, Watson spoke to the onlookers:
"Take him away from me, fellows. You see I am not striking him. I don'twant to fight. I want to get out of here."
The circle did not move nor speak. Its silence was ominous and sent achill to Watson's heart.
Patsy made an effort to throw him, which culminated in his putting Patsyon his back. Tearing loose from him, Watson sprang to his feet and madefor the door. But the circle of men was interposed a wall. He noticedthe white, pasty faces, the kind that never see the sun, and knew thatthe men who barred his way were the nightprowlers and preying beastsof the city jungle. By them he was thrust back upon the pursuing,bull-rushing Patsy.
Again it was a clinch, in which, in momentary safety, Watson appealedto the gang. And again his words fell on deaf ears. Then it was thathe knew of many similar knew fear. For he had known of many similarsituations, in low dens like this, when solitary men were man-handled,their ribs and features caved in
, themselves beaten and kicked to death.And he knew, further, that if he were to escape he must neither strikehis assailant nor any of the men who opposed him.
Yet in him was righteous indignation. Under no circumstances couldseven to one be fair. Also, he was angry, and there stirred in himthe fighting beast that is in all men. But he remembered his wife andchildren, his unfinished book, the ten thousand rolling acres of theup-country ranch he loved so well. He even saw in flashing visions theblue of the sky, the golden sun pouring down on his flower-spangledmeadows, the lazy cattle knee-deep in the brooks, and the flash of troutin the riffles. Life was good-too good for him to risk it for a moment'ssway of the beast. In short, Carter Watson was cool and scared.
His opponent, locked by his masterly clinch, was striving to throw him.Again Watson put him on the floor, broke away, and was thrust back bythe pasty-faced circle to duck Patsy's swinging right and effect anotherclinch. This happened many times. And Watson grew even cooler, whilethe baffled Patsy, unable to inflict punishment, raged wildly and morewildly. He took to batting with his head in the clinches. The firsttime, he landed his forehead flush on Watson's nose. After that, thelatter, in the clinches, buried his face in Patsy's breast. But theenraged Patsy batted on, striking his own eye and nose and cheek on thetop of the other's head. The more he was thus injured, the more and theharder did Patsy bat.
This one-sided contest continued for twelve or fifteen minutes. Watsonnever struck a blow, and strove only to escape. Sometimes, in the freemoments, circling about among the tables as he tried to win the door,the pasty-faced men gripped his coat-tails and flung him back at theswinging right of the on-rushing Patsy. Time upon time, and timeswithout end, he clinched and put Patsy on his back, each time firstwhirling him around and putting him down in the direction of the doorand gaining toward that goal by the length of the fall.
In the end, hatless, disheveled, with streaming nose and one eye closed,Watson won to the sidewalk and into the arms of a policeman.
"Arrest that man," Watson panted.
"Hello, Patsy," said the policeman. "What's the mix-up?"
"Hello, Charley," was the answer. "This guy comes in--"
"Arrest that man, officer," Watson repeated.
"G'wan! Beat it!" said Patsy.
"Beat it!" added the policeman. "If you don't, I'll pull you in."
"Not unless you arrest that man. He has committed a violent andunprovoked assault on me."
"Is it so, Patsy?" was the officer's query.
"Nah. Lemme tell you, Charley, an' I got the witnesses to prove it, sohelp me God. I was settin' in me kitchen eatin' a bowl of soup, whenthis guy comes in an' gets gay wid me. I never seen him in me born daysbefore. He was drunk--"
"Look at me, officer," protested the indignant sociologist. "Am Idrunk?"
The officer looked at him with sullen, menacing eyes and nodded to Patsyto continue.
"This guy gets gay wid me. 'I'm Tim McGrath,' says he, 'an' I can do thelike to you,' says he. 'Put up yer hands.' I smiles, an' wid that, biffbiff, he lands me twice an' spills me soup. Look at me eye. I'm fairmurdered."
"What are you going to do, officer?" Watson demanded.
"Go on, beat it," was the answer, "or I'll pull you sure."
The civic righteousness of Carter Watson flamed up.
"Mr. Officer, I protest--"
But at that moment the policeman grabbed his arm with a savage jerk thatnearly overthrew him.
"Come on, you're pulled."
"Arrest him, too," Watson demanded.
"Nix on that play," was the reply.
"What did you assault him for, him a peacefully eatin' his soup?"
II
Carter Watson was genuinely angry. Not only had he been wantonlyassaulted, badly battered, and arrested, but the morning papers withoutexception came out with lurid accounts of his drunken brawl with theproprietor of the notorious Vendome. Not one accurate or truthful linewas published. Patsy Horan and his satellites described the battle indetail. The one incontestable thing was that Carter Watson had beendrunk. Thrice he had been thrown out of the place and into the gutter,and thrice he had come back, breathing blood and fire and announcingthat he was going to clean out the place. "EMINENT SOCIOLOGIST JAGGEDAND JUGGED," was the first head-line he read, on the front page,accompanied by a large portrait of himself. Other headlines were:"CARTER WATSON ASPIRED TO CHAMPIONSHIP HONORS"; "CARTER WATSON GETSHIS"; "NOTED SOCIOLOGIST ATTEMPTS TO CLEAN OUT A TENDERLOIN CAFE"; and"CARTER WATSON KNOCKED OUT BY PATSY HORAN IN THREE ROUNDS."
At the police court, next morning, under bail, appeared Carter Watsonto answer the complaint of the People Versus Carter Watson, forthe latter's assault and battery on one Patsy Horan. But first, theProsecuting Attorney, who was paid to prosecute all offenders againstthe People, drew him aside and talked with him privately.
"Why not let it drop!" said the Prosecuting Attorney. "I tell you whatyou do, Mr. Watson: Shake hands with Mr. Horan and make it up, and we'lldrop the case right here. A word to the Judge, and the case against youwill be dismissed."
"But I don't want it dismissed," was the answer. "Your office being whatit is, you should be prosecuting me instead of asking me to make up withthis--this fellow."
"Oh, I'll prosecute you all right," retorted the Prosecuting Attorney.
"Also you will have to prosecute this Patsy Horan," Watson advised; "forI shall now have him arrested for assault and battery."
"You'd better shake and make up," the Prosecuting Attorney repeated, andthis time there was almost a threat in his voice.
The trials of both men were set for a week later, on the same morning,in Police Judge Witberg's court.
"You have no chance," Watson was told by an old friend of his boyhood,the retired manager of the biggest paper in the city. "Everybody knowsyou were beaten up by this man. His reputation is most unsavory. But itwon't help you in the least. Both cases will be dismissed. This will bebecause you are you. Any ordinary man would be convicted."
"But I do not understand," objected the perplexed sociologist. "Withoutwarning I was attacked by this man; and badly beaten. I did not strike ablow. I--"
"That has nothing to do with it," the other cut him off.
"Then what is there that has anything to do with it?"
"I'll tell you. You are now up against the local police and politicalmachine. Who are you? You are not even a legal resident in this town.You live up in the country. You haven't a vote of your own here. Muchless do you swing any votes. This dive proprietor swings a string ofvotes in his precincts--a mighty long string."
"Do you mean to tell me that this Judge Witberg will violate thesacredness of his office and oath by letting this brute off?" Watsondemanded.
"Watch him," was the grim reply. "Oh, he'll do it nicely enough. He willgive an extra-legal, extra-judicial decision, abounding in every word inthe dictionary that stands for fairness and right."
"But there are the newspapers," Watson cried.
"They are not fighting the administration at present. They'll give it toyou hard. You see what they have already done to you."
"Then these snips of boys on the police detail won't write the truth?"
"They will write something so near like the truth that the public willbelieve it. They write their stories under instruction, you know. Theyhave their orders to twist and color, and there won't be much left ofyou when they get done. Better drop the whole thing right now. You arein bad."
"But the trials are set."
"Give the word and they'll drop them now. A man can't fight a machineunless he has a machine behind him."
III
But Carter Watson was stubborn. He was convinced that the machine wouldbeat him, but all his days he had sought social experience, and this wascertainly something new.
The morning of the trial the Prosecuting Attorney made another attemptto patch up the affair.
"If you feel that way, I should like to get a lawyer to prosecute thecase," said Watson.
&
nbsp; "No, you don't," said the Prosecuting Attorney. "I am paid by the Peopleto prosecute, and prosecute I will. But let me tell you. You have nochance. We shall lump both cases into one, and you watch out."
Judge Witberg looked good to Watson. A fairly young man, short,comfortably stout, smooth-shaven and with an intelligent face, he seemeda very nice man indeed. This good impression was added to by the smilinglips and the wrinkles of laughter in the corners of his black eyes.Looking at him and studying him, Watson felt almost sure that his oldfriend's prognostication was wrong.
But Watson was soon to learn. Patsy Horan and two of his satellitestestified to a most colossal aggregation of perjuries. Watson could nothave believed it possible without having experienced it. They deniedthe existence of the other four men. And of the two that testified, oneclaimed to have been in the kitchen, a witness to Watson's unprovokedassault on Patsy, while the other, remaining in the bar, had witnessedWatson's second and third rushes into the place as he attempted toannihilate the unoffending Patsy. The vile language ascribed to Watsonwas so voluminously and unspeakably vile, that he felt they wereinjuring their own case. It was so impossible that he should utter suchthings. But when they described the brutal blows he had rained on poorPatsy's face, and the chair he demolished when he vainly attempted tokick Patsy, Watson waxed secretly hilarious and at the same time sad.The trial was a farce, but such lowness of life was depressing tocontemplate when he considered the long upward climb humanity must make.
Watson could not recognize himself, nor could his worst enemy haverecognized him, in the swashbuckling, rough-housing picture that waspainted of him. But, as in all cases of complicated perjury, rifts andcontradictions in the various stories appeared. The Judge somehow failedto notice them, while the Prosecuting Attorney and Patsy's attorneyshied off from them gracefully. Watson had not bothered to get a lawyerfor himself, and he was now glad that he had not.
Still, he retained a semblance of faith in Judge Witberg when he wenthimself on the stand and started to tell his story.
"I was strolling casually along the street, your Honor," Watson began,but was interrupted by the Judge.
"We are not here to consider your previous actions," bellowed JudgeWitberg. "Who struck the first blow?"
"Your Honor," Watson pleaded, "I have no witnesses of the actual fray,and the truth of my story can only be brought out by telling the storyfully--"
Again he was interrupted.
"We do not care to publish any magazines here," Judge Witberg roared,looking at him so fiercely and malevolently that Watson could scarcelybring himself to believe that this was same man he had studied a fewminutes previously.
"Who struck the first blow?" Patsy's attorney asked.
The Prosecuting Attorney interposed, demanding to know which of the twocases lumped together was, and by what right Patsy's lawyer, at thatstage of the proceedings, should take the witness. Patsy's attorneyfought back. Judge Witberg interfered, professing no knowledge of anytwo cases being lumped together. All this had to be explained. Battleroyal raged, terminating in both attorneys apologizing to the Court andto each other. And so it went, and to Watson it had the seeming of agroup of pickpockets ruffling and bustling an honest man as they tookhis purse. The machine was working, that was all.
"Why did you enter this place of unsavory reputations?" was asked him.
"It has been my custom for many years, as a student of economics andsociology, to acquaint myself--"
But this was as far as Watson got.
"We want none of your ologies here," snarled Judge Witberg. "It is aplain question. Answer it plainly. Is it true or not true that you weredrunk? That is the gist of the question."
When Watson attempted to tell how Patsy had injured his face in hisattempts to bat with his head, Watson was openly scouted and flouted,and Judge Witberg again took him in hand.
"Are you aware of the solemnity of the oath you took to testify tonothing but the truth on this witness stand?" the Judge demanded. "Thisis a fairy story you are telling. It is not reasonable that a man wouldso injure himself, and continue to injure himself, by striking the softand sensitive parts of his face against your head. You are a sensibleman. It is unreasonable, is it not?"
"Men are unreasonable when they are angry," Watson answered meekly.
Then it was that Judge Witberg was deeply outraged and righteouslywrathful.
"What right have you to say that?" he cried. "It is gratuitous. It hasno bearing on the case. You are here as a witness, sir, of events thathave transpired. The Court does not wish to hear any expressions ofopinion from you at all."
"I but answered your question, your Honor," Watson protested humbly.
"You did nothing of the sort," was the next blast. "And let me warn you,sir, let me warn you, that you are laying yourself liable to contempt bysuch insolence. And I will have you know that we know how to observe thelaw and the rules of courtesy down here in this little courtroom. I amashamed of you."
And, while the next punctilious legal wrangle between the attorneysinterrupted his tale of what happened in the Vendome, Carter Watson,without bitterness, amused and at the same time sad, saw rise before himthe machine, large and small, that dominated his country, the unpunishedand shameless grafts of a thousand cities perpetrated by the spideryand vermin-like creatures of the machines. Here it was before him, acourtroom and a judge, bowed down in subservience by the machine to adive-keeper who swung a string of votes. Petty and sordid as it was, itwas one face of the many-faced machine that loomed colossally, in everycity and state, in a thousand guises overshadowing the land.
A familiar phrase rang in his ears: "It is to laugh." At the height ofthe wrangle, he giggled, once, aloud, and earned a sullen frown fromJudge Witberg. Worse, a myriad times, he decided, were these bullyinglawyers and this bullying judge then the bucko mates in first qualityhell-ships, who not only did their own bullying but protected themselvesas well. These petty rapscallions, on the other hand, sought protectionbehind the majesty of the law. They struck, but no one was permitted tostrike back, for behind them were the prison cells and the clubs of thestupid policemen--paid and professional fighters and beaters-up ofmen. Yet he was not bitter. The grossness and the sliminess of it wasforgotten in the simple grotesqueness of it, and he had the saving senseof humor.
Nevertheless, hectored and heckled though he was, he managed in the endto give a simple, straightforward version of the affair, and, despitea belligerent cross-examination, his story was not shaken in anyparticular. Quite different it was from the perjuries that had shoutedaloud from the perjuries of Patsy and his two witnesses.
Both Patsy's attorney and the Prosecuting Attorney rested theircases, letting everything go before the Court without argument. Watsonprotested against this, but was silenced when the Prosecuting Attorneytold him that Public Prosecutor and knew his business.
"Patrick Horan has testified that he was in danger of his life and thathe was compelled to defend himself," Judge Witberg's verdict began. "Mr.Watson has testified to the same thing. Each has sworn that the otherstruck the first blow; each has sworn that the other made an unprovokedassault on him. It is an axiom of the law that the defendant shouldbe given the benefit of the doubt. A very reasonable doubt exists.Therefore, in the case of the People Versus Carter Watson the benefitof the doubt is given to said Carter Watson and he is herewith ordereddischarged from custody. The same reasoning applies to the case of thePeople Versus Patrick Horan. He is given the benefit of the doubt anddischarged from custody. My recommendation is that both defendants shakehands and make up."
In the afternoon papers the first headline that caught Watson's eye was:"CARTER WATSON ACQUITTED." In the second paper it was: "CARTER WATSONESCAPES A FINE." But what capped everything was the one beginning:"CARTER WATSON A GOOD FELLOW." In the text he read how Judge Witberg hadadvised both fighters to shake hands, which they promptly did. Further,he read:
"'Let's have a nip on it,' said Patsy Horan.
"'Sure,' said
Carter Watson.
"And, arm in arm, they ambled for the nearest saloon."
IV
Now, from the whole adventure, Watson carried away no bitterness. It wasa social experience of a new order, and it led to the writing of anotherbook, which he entitled, "POLICE COURT PROCEDURE: A Tentative Analysis."
One summer morning a year later, on his ranch, he left his horse andhimself clambered on through a miniature canyon to inspect some rockferns he had planted the previous winter. Emerging from the upper endof the canyon, he came out on one of his flower-spangled meadows, adelightful isolated spot, screened from the world by low hills andclumps of trees. And here he found a man, evidently on a stroll from thesummer hotel down at the little town a mile away. They met face to faceand the recognition was mutual. It was Judge Witberg. Also, it wasa clear case of trespass, for Watson had trespass signs upon hisboundaries, though he never enforced them.
Judge Witberg held out his hand, which Watson refused to see.
"Politics is a dirty trade, isn't it, Judge?" he remarked. "Oh, yes,I see your hand, but I don't care to take it. The papers said I shookhands with Patsy Horan after the trial. You know I did not, but let metell you that I'd a thousand times rather shake hands with him and hisvile following of curs, than with you."
Judge Witberg was painfully flustered, and as he hemmed and hawed andessayed to speak, Watson, looking at him, was struck by a sudden whim,and he determined on a grim and facetious antic.
"I should scarcely expect any animus from a man of your acquirements andknowledge of the world," the Judge was saying.
"Animus?" Watson replied. "Certainly not. I haven't such a thing in mynature. And to prove it, let me show you something curious, somethingyou have never seen before." Casting about him, Watson picked up a roughstone the size of his fist. "See this. Watch me."
So saying, Carter Watson tapped himself a sharp blow on the cheek. Thestone laid the flesh open to the bone and the blood spurted forth.
"The stone was too sharp," he announced to the astounded police judge,who thought he had gone mad.
"I must bruise it a trifle. There is nothing like being realistic insuch matters."
Whereupon Carter Watson found a smooth stone and with it pounded hischeek nicely several times.
"Ah," he cooed. "That will turn beautifully green and black in a fewhours. It will be most convincing."
"You are insane," Judge Witberg quavered.
"Don't use such vile language to me," said Watson. "You see my bruisedand bleeding face? You did that, with that right hand of yours. You hitme twice--biff, biff. It is a brutal and unprovoked assault. I am indanger of my life. I must protect myself."
Judge Witberg backed away in alarm before the menacing fists of theother.
"If you strike me I'll have you arrested," Judge Witberg threatened.
"That is what I told Patsy," was the answer. "And do you know what hedid when I told him that?"
"No."
"That!"
And at the same moment Watson's right fist landed flush on JudgeWitberg's nose, putting that legal gentleman over on his back on thegrass.
"Get up!" commanded Watson. "If you are a gentleman, get up--that's whatPatsy told me, you know."
Judge Witberg declined to rise, and was dragged to his feet by thecoat-collar, only to have one eye blacked and be put on his back again.After that it was a red Indian massacre. Judge Witberg was humanely andscientifically beaten up. His checks were boxed, his cars cuffed, andhis face was rubbed in the turf. And all the time Watson expositedthe way Patsy Horan had done it. Occasionally, and very carefully, thefacetious sociologist administered a real bruising blow. Once, draggingthe poor Judge to his feet, he deliberately bumped his own nose on thegentleman's head. The nose promptly bled.
"See that!" cried Watson, stepping back and deftly shedding his bloodall down his own shirt front. "You did it. With your fist you did it. Itis awful. I am fair murdered. I must again defend myself."
And once more Judge Witberg impacted his features on a fist and was sentto grass.
"I will have you arrested," he sobbed as he lay.
"That's what Patsy said."
"A brutal---sniff, sniff,--and unprovoked--sniff, sniff--assault."
"That's what Patsy said."
"I will surely have you arrested."
"Speaking slangily, not if I can beat you to it."
And with that, Carter Watson departed down the canyon, mounted hishorse, and rode to town.
An hour later, as Judge Witberg limped up the grounds to his hotel, hewas arrested by a village constable on a charge of assault and batterypreferred by Carter Watson.
V
"Your Honor," Watson said next day to the village Justice, a well todo farmer and graduate, thirty years before, from a cow college, "sincethis Sol Witberg has seen fit to charge me with battery, following uponmy charge of battery against him, I would suggest that both casesbe lumped together. The testimony and the facts are the same in bothcases."
To this the Justice agreed, and the double case proceeded. Watson, asprosecuting witness, first took the stand and told his story.
"I was picking flowers," he testified. "Picking flowers on my own land,never dreaming of danger. Suddenly this man rushed upon me from behindthe trees. 'I am the Dodo,' he says, 'and I can do you to a frazzle.Put up your hands.' I smiled, but with that, biff, biff, he struckme, knocking me down and spilling my flowers. The language he used wasfrightful. It was an unprovoked and brutal assault. Look at my cheek.Look at my nose--I could not understand it. He must have been drunk.Before I recovered from my surprise he had administered this beating.I was in danger of my life and was compelled to defend himself. Thatis all, Your Honor, though I must say, in conclusion, that I cannotget over my perplexity. Why did he say he was the Dodo? Why did he sowantonly attack me?"
And thus was Sol Witberg given a liberal education in the art ofperjury. Often, from his high seat, he had listened indulgently topolice court perjuries in cooked-up cases; but for the first timeperjury was directed against him, and he no longer sat above the court,with the bailiffs, the Policemen's clubs, and the prison cells behindhim.
"Your Honor," he cried, "never have I heard such a pack of lies told byso bare-faced a liar--!"
Watson here sprang to his feet.
"Your Honor, I protest. It is for your Honor to decide truth orfalsehood. The witness is on the stand to testify to actual events thathave transpired. His personal opinion upon things in general, and uponme, has no bearing on the case whatever."
The Justice scratched his head and waxed phlegmatically indignant.
"The point is well taken," he decided. "I am surprised at you, Mr.Witberg, claiming to be a judge and skilled in the practice of the law,and yet being guilty of such unlawyerlike conduct. Your manner, sir, andyour methods, remind me of a shyster. This is a simple case of assaultand battery. We are here to determine who struck the first blow, and weare not interested in your estimates of Mr. Watson's personal character.Proceed with your story."
Sol Witberg would have bitten his bruised and swollen lip in chagrin,had it not hurt so much. But he contained himself and told a simple,straightforward, truthful story.
"Your Honor," Watson said, "I would suggest that you ask him what he wasdoing on my premises."
"A very good question. What were you doing, sir, on Mr. Watson'spremises?"
"I did not know they were his premises."
"It was a trespass, your Honor," Watson cried. "The warnings are postedconspicuously."
"I saw no warnings," said Sol Witberg.
"I have seen them myself," snapped the Justice. "They are veryconspicuous. And I would warn you, sir, that if you palter withthe truth in such little matters you may darken your more importantstatements with suspicion. Why did you strike Mr. Watson?"
"Your Honor, as I have testified, I did not strike a blow."
The Justice looked at Carter Watson's bruised and swollen visage, andturned to glare at Sol Witberg.
"Look at that man's cheek!" he thundered. "If you did not strike a blowhow comes it that he is so disfigured and injured?"
"As I testified--"
"Be careful," the Justice warned.
"I will be careful, sir. I will say nothing but the truth. He struckhimself with a rock. He struck himself with two different rocks."
"Does it stand to reason that a man, any man not a lunatic, would soinjure himself, and continue to injure himself, by striking the soft andsensitive parts of his face with a stone?" Carter Watson demanded
"It sounds like a fairy story," was the Justice's comment.
"Mr. Witberg, had you been drinking?"
"No, sir."
"Do you never drink?"
"On occasion."
The Justice meditated on this answer with an air of astute profundity.
Watson took advantage of the opportunity to wink at Sol Witberg, butthat much-abused gentleman saw nothing humorous in the situation.
"A very peculiar case, a very peculiar case," the Justice announced,as he began his verdict. "The evidence of the two parties is flatlycontradictory. There are no witnesses outside the two principals. Eachclaims the other committed the assault, and I have no legal way ofdetermining the truth. But I have my private opinion, Mr. Witberg, andI would recommend that henceforth you keep off of Mr. Watson's premisesand keep away from this section of the country--"
"This is an outrage!" Sol Witberg blurted out.
"Sit down, sir!" was the Justice's thundered command. "If you interruptthe Court in this manner again, I shall fine you for contempt. And Iwarn you I shall fine you heavily--you, a judge yourself, who should beconversant with the courtesy and dignity of courts. I shall now give myverdict:
"It is a rule of law that the defendant shall be given the benefit ofthe doubt. As I have said, and I repeat, there is no legal way for meto determine who struck the first blow. Therefore, and much to myregret,"--here he paused and glared at Sol Witberg--"in each of thesecases I am compelled to give the defendant the benefit of the doubt.Gentlemen, you are both dismissed."
"Let us have a nip on it," Watson said to Witberg, as they left thecourtroom; but that outraged person refused to lock arms and amble tothe nearest saloon.