ith a
large party of friends was sitting quietly in the restaurant when Sardi
Babu came in with a revolver in his hand, which he fired at Hassoun, and
that then, and only then, a small dark man whose identity cannot be
established--evidently a stranger--seized Babu before he could fire
again, and killed him--in self-defense."

Mr. William Montague Pepperill's jaw dropped as if he had seen the ghost
of one of his colonial ancestors. He could not believe that he had heard
Mr. Tutt correctly. Why, the old lawyer had the thing completely turned
round! Sardi Babu hadn't gone to the restaurant. He had been in the
restaurant, and it had been Kasheed Hassoun who had gone there.

Yet, one by one, placidly, imperturbably, the dozen witnesses foretold
by Mr. Tutt, and gathered in by Bonnie Doon, marched to the chair and
swore upon the Holy Bible that it was even as Mr. Tutt had said, and
that no such persons as Mokarzel, Kahoots, Abbu, Shikrie and Elias had
been in the restaurant at any time that evening, but on the contrary
that they, the friends of Hassoun, had been there eating Turkish pie--a
few might have had mashed beans with _taheenak_--when Sardi Babu,
apparently with suicidal intent, entered alone to take vengeance upon
the camel owner.

"That is all. That is our case," said Mr. Tutt as the last Syrian left
the stand.

But there was no response from the bench. Judge Wetherell had been
dozing peacefully for several hours. Even Pepperill could not avoid a
decorous smile. Then the clerk pulled out the copy of Al-Hoda and
rustled it, and His Honor, who had been dreaming that he was riding
through the narrow streets of Bagdad upon a jerky white dromedary so
tall that he could peek through the latticed balconies at the plump,
black-eyed odalisques within the harems, slowly came back from Turkey to
New York.

"Gentlemen of the jury," said he, pulling himself together, "the
defendant here is charged by the Grand Jury with having murdered Fatima
the daughter of Abbas--I beg your pardon! I mean--who was it?--one Sardi
Babu. I will first define to you the degrees of homicide--"

* * * * *

One day three months later, after Kasheed Hassoun had been twice tried
upon the same testimony and the jury had disagreed--six to six, each
time--Mr. Tutt, who had overstayed his lunch hour at the office, put on
his stovepipe hat and strolled along Washington Street, looking for a
place to pick up a bite to