ten o'clock, the courts crowd up and the important
gentlemen bristling with substitute arrangements of words, address
themselves to the daily business of demonstrating whether people have
done right or wrong, and proving, or disproving also, how extensive are
the sins which have been committed. Arrangements of words palaver with
arrangements of words. There ensues a vast shuffling of words, a drone
and a gurgle of syllables. The Case of the State of Illinois Versus Man.
Order in the Court Room. "No talking, please...." "If it Please Your
Honor, the Issue involved in this case is identical with the Issue as
explicitly set forth in the Case of Matthews Versus Matthews, Illinois
Sixth, Chapter Eight, Page ninety two, in which in the Third Paragraph
the Supreme Court decided." The Court Instructs the Jury, "You are to be
Guided by the Law as given You in these instructions and by the Facts as
admitted in Evidence of the Case; the court Instructs the jury they are
the judges of the law as well as of the fact but the Court further
instructs the Jury before You decide for Yourselves that the Law is
Otherwise than as given you by the Court, you are to exercise great Care
and Caution in arriving at your decision...." "Gentlemen, have you
arrived at your verdict?" "We have." "Let the clerk be handed the
verdict." "We the Jury find the Defendant...."

Thus the tick-tock of the great city grown stern and audible, grown
verbose and insistent, speaks aloud in the courts. And here huddled on
benches are the little troupes of mummers who have committed crimes. The
mysterious sprinkling of marionettes not wound up by the watchmaker.
Names that solidify for a moment into the ink headlines. Lusts, dreams,
greeds, and manias sitting sad-faced and dolorous-eyed listening to a
drone and a gurgle of words. Alas! The evil-doers and the doers of good
bear a fatuous resemblance to each other. God Himself might well be
confused by this curious fact. But fortunately there are arrangements of
words capable of adjusting themselves to confusion, capable of
tick-tocking in the midst of disorder. Tick, say the words and tock say
the juries. Tick-tock, the cell door and the scaffold drop. Streets and
windows, paintings of the Virgin Mary, beds of the fifty-cent
prostitutes, cannon at Verdun and police whistles on crossings; the Pope
in Rome, the President in Washington, the man hunting the alleys for a
handout, the languorous women breeding in ornamenta