arresting officer, complainant, interpreter, and to a large extent
prosecuting attorney. To swear a Turk who spoke only Turkish through
another Turk, who mangled a little Spanish, for a judge who would not
recognize a non-American word from the voice of a steam-shovel, with a
solemn "So Help Me God!" to clinch and strengthen it when the witness
was a follower of the prophet of Medina--or nobody--was not without its
possibilities of humor. The trial proceeded; the witnesses witnessed in
their various tongues, the perspiring arresting officer reduced their
statements to the common denominator of the judge's single tongue, and
the smirking bullet-headed defendant was hopelessly buried under the
evidence. Wherefore, when the shining black face of his lawyer,
retained during the two minutes between the "Oye!" and the opening of
the case, rose above the scene to purr:

"Your Honor, the prosecution has shown no case. I move the charge
against my client be quashed."

I choked myself just in time to keep from gasping aloud, "Well, of all
the nerve!" Never will I learn that the lawyer's profession admits
lying on the same footing with truth in the defense of a culprit.

"Cause shown," mumbled the Judge without looking up from his writing,
"defendant bound over for trial in the circuit court."

A week later, therefore, there was a similar scene a story higher in
the same building. Here on Thursdays sits one of the three members of
the Zone Supreme Court. Jury trial is rare on the Isthmus--which makes
possibly for surer justice. This time there was all the machinery of
court and I appeared only in my legal capacity. The judge, a man still
young, with an astonishingly mobile face that changed at least once a
minute from a furrowy scowl with great pouting lips to a smile so broad
it startled, sat in state in the middle of three judicial arm-chairs,
and the case proceeded. Within an hour the defendant was standing up,
the cheery grin still on his black countenance, to be sentenced to two
years and eight months in the Zone penitentiary at Culebra. A deaf man
would have fancied he was being awarded some prize. One of the
never-ending surprises on the Zone is the apparent indifference of
negro prisoners whether they get years or go free. Even if they testify
in their own behalf it is in a listless, detached way, as if the matter
were of no importance anyway. But the glance they throw the innocent
arresting officer as they pass out on