n shown how the little building
of the bank had been entered. Skilled locksmiths from the city had
testified that the safe was opened with a key, and that the lock was
broken afterward, from the inside, plainly to raise the theory of a
forcible entry by strangers.

It had been proved that the only key in existence, not counting that
kept by the president, was in the possession of Wood, who was filling,
for a few days, the place of the cashier--the president's brother--in
his absence. It had been shown that Wood was met, at one o'clock of
the night in question, crossing the fields toward his home, from
the direction of the bank, with a large wicker basket slung over his
shoulders, returning, as he had said, from eel-spearing in Harlow's
Creek; and there was other circumstantial evidence.

Mr. Clark, the president of the bank, had won the sympathy of every one
by the modest way in which, with his eye-glasses in his hand, he had
testified to the particulars of the loss which had left him penniless,
and had ruined others whose little all was in his hands. And then in
reply to the formal question, he had testified, amid roars of laughter
from the court-room, that it was not he who robbed the safe. At this,
even the judge and Wood's lawyer had not restrained a smile.

This had left the guilt with Wood. His lawyer, an inexperienced young
attorney,--who had done more or less business for the bank and would
hardly have ventured to defend this case but that the president had
kindly expressed his entire willingness that he should do so,--had, of
course, not thought it worth while to cross-examine Mr. Clark, and had
directed his whole argument against the theory that the safe had been
opened with a key, and not by strangers. But he had felt all through
that, as a man politely remarked to him when he finished, he was only
butting his "head ag'in a stone wall."

And while he was arguing, a jolly-looking old lawyer had written, in
the fly-leaf of a law-book on his knee, and had passed with a wink to a
young man near him who had that very morning been admitted to the bar,
these lines:--

"When callow Blackstones soar too high,
Quit common-sense, and reckless fly,
Soon, Icarus-like, they headlong fall,
And down come client, case, and all."

The district-attorney had not thought it worth while to expend much
strength upon his closing argument; but being a jovial stump-speaker, of
a wide reputation within narro