ences to deter him from
pursuing what he considered to be the right course.

All things come to an end, and so did that Sunday night which Kellson
spent at the hotel. In the early morning he took a brighter view of
things. After breakfast he went up to the Public Offices, and, to the
astonishment of the clerks, introduced himself as their new chief. He
had not mentioned who he was at the hotel, and consequently no one knew
of his arrival. It being Monday, there was a heavy roll of cases for
trial, and when the one attorney and the two agents saw Kellson take
the bench, they were much chagrined at having been done out of the
pleasure of presenting the usual florid address.

Of the criminal cases to be heard, only one was of any importance,
namely that of a young coloured man charged with burglary. His name was
John Erlank. He had evidently more of European than of any other blood
in his veins; his hair was straight and black, and his complexion light
yellow. But the most striking thing about him was the beauty of his
eyes. They were black, large and deep. Although clearly showing signs
of vice and dissipation, there was something prepossessing in his
appearance; a kind of natural refinement was visible through his
evident degradation and in spite of his obviously cringing manner.
Kellson could not imagine whose face it was that the prisoner's
suggested. Although little more than a lad, Erlank had a bad record.
From early youth upwards he had been a criminal, and several
convictions for different crimes were now formally proved against him.
He had in this particular instance been committed to take his trial
before the circuit judge by the previous magistrate, before whom he had
fully admitted his guilt, but the Attorney General had now remitted the
case hack to the magistrate's court for disposal under the "Extended
Jurisdiction Act." Guilt being fully admitted by the prisoner, all
Kellson had to do as magistrate was to read over the depositions and
pass sentence. He considered the case to be one in which severity was
due, so after telling the man he was one on whom exhortation or advice
would be thrown away, he passed the highest sentence allowed by law,
that is two years' imprisonment with hard labour and a flogging of
thirty-six lashes. It was characteristic of Kellson that the prisoner's
prepossessing appearance had the involuntary effect of making the
sentence more severe, or rather, perhaps, of making the magistrat