the jury were locked into their room again for the night, Mr.
Eldridge sat down by Eli and lit his pipe.

"I understand," he said, "just how you feel. Now, between you and me,
there was a good-hearted fellow that kept me out of a bad mess once. I
've never told anybody just what it was, and I don't mean to tell you
now, but it brought my blood up standing, to find how near I 'd come to
putting a fine steamer and two hundred and forty passengers under water.
Well, one day, a year or so after that, this man had a chance to get a
good ship, only there was some talk against him, that he drank a little.
Well, the owners told him they wanted to see me, and he come to me, and
says he, 'Mr. Eldridge, I hope you 'll speak a good word for me; if
you do, I 'll get the ship, but if they refuse me this one, I 'm dished
everywhere.' Well, the owners put me the square question, and I had to
tell 'em. Well, I met him that afternoon on Sacramento Street, as white
as a sheet, and he would n't speak to me, but passed right by, and that
night he went and shipped before the mast. That's the last I ever heard
of him; but I had to do it. Now," he added, "this man 's been good to
you; but the case is proved, and you ought to vote with the rest of us."

"It ain't proved," said Eli. "The judge said that if any man had a
reasonable doubt, he ought to hold out. Now, I ain't convinced."

"Well, that 's easy said," replied Mr. Eldridge, a little hotly, and he
arose, and left him.

The jurymen broke up into little knots, tilted their chairs back, and
settled into the easiest positions that their cramped quarters allowed.
Most of them lit their pipes; the captain, and one or two whom he
honored, smoked fragrant cigars, and the room was soon filled with a
dense cloud.

Eli sat alone by the window.

"Sometimes sell two at one house," said a lank book-agent, arousing
himself from a reverie; "once sold three."

"I think the Early Rose is about as profitable as any," said a little
farmer, with a large circular beard. "I used to favor Jacobs's Seedling,
but they have n't done so well with me of late years."

"Sometimes," said the book-agent, picking his teeth with a quill, "you
'll go to a house, and they 'll say they can't be induced to buy a book
of any kind, historical, fictitious, or religious; but you just keep on
talking, and show the pictures--'Grant in Boyhood,' 'Grant a Tanner,'
Grant at Head-quarters,' 'Grant in the White House,' 'Grant be