good for the people of his continent...."

"Yeah, we'd of lynched him, when he got back, if somebody hadn't chopped
him up here in New Austin!" a voice from the rear of the courtroom broke
in.

The prosecution hemmed and hawed for a moment, and then announced, in a
hasty mumble, that it rested.

"I will now close the court," Judge Nelson said. "I advise everybody to
keep your seats. I don't think it's going to be closed very long."

And then, he actually closed the court; pressing a button on the bench,
he raised a high black screen in front of him and his colleagues. It
stayed up for some sixty seconds, and then dropped again.

"The Court of Political Justice has reached a verdict," he announced.
"Wilbur Whately, and your attorney, approach and hear the verdict."

The defense lawyer motioned a young man who had been sitting beside him
to rise. In the silence that had fallen, I could hear the defendant's
boots squeaking as he went forward to hear his fate. The judge picked up
a belt and a pair of pistols that had been lying in front of him.

"Wilbur Whately," he began, "this court is proud to announce that you
have been unanimously acquitted of the charge of political
irresponsibility, and of unjustified and excessive atrocity.

"There was one dissenting vote on acquitting you of the charge of
political irresponsibility; one of the associate judges felt that the
late unmitigated scoundrel, Austin Maverick, ought to have been skinned
alive, an inch at a time. You are, however, acquitted of that charge,
too.

"You all know," he continued, addressing the entire assemblage, "the
reason for which this young hero cut down that monster of political
iniquity, S. Austin Maverick. On the very morning of his justly-merited
death, Austin Maverick, using the powers of his political influence,
rammed through the Finance and Revenue Committee a bill entitled 'An Act
for the Taxing of Personal Incomes, and for the Levying of a Withholding
Tax.' Fellow citizens, words fail me to express my horror of this
diabolic proposition, this proposed instrument of tyrannical extortion,
borrowed from the Dark Ages of the Twentieth Century! Why, if this young
nobleman had not taken his blade in hand, I'd have killed the
sonofabitch, myself!"

He leaned forward, extending the belt and holsters to the defendant.

"I therefore restore to you your weapons, taken from you when, in
compliance with the law, you were formally arrested. Buckle th