nce it was now impossible to drive his cows home along
the highroad. He was excused.

Number 7, who had once owned a flourishing poultry farm, had been
obliged to give it up.

"On account of motors?"

"Yes, and because it didn't pay."

Did he feel his prejudice was such as to prevent his rendering an
impartial verdict in this case?

Number 7 looked blank and sulky, like a little boy stumped in class, and
at last said it wouldn't.

"Excused," said Wiley.

"But I said it wouldn't," Number 7 protested.

"Excused," said Wiley, fluttering his hand.

Lydia had tapped twice on the table--the agreed signal.

By four o'clock the jury was satisfactory to both sides; and then, just
as Lydia's nerves were tightened for the beginning of the great game,
the court adjourned until ten o'clock the next morning. The judge,
looking up from his writing, admonished the jury not to discuss the case
with anyone, not even among themselves. The jurors produced unexpected
hats and coats like a conjuring trick. The court attendant began
shouting "Keep your seats until the jury has passed out," and the whole
picture of the court dissolved.

Wiley was whispering to Lydia, "A very nice jury--a very intelligent,
reasonable group of men." He rubbed his hands.

Lydia's eyes followed O'Bannon's back as he left the court with Foster
trotting by his side.

"I wonder if the district attorney is equally pleased with them," she
said.

Bobby Dorset drove back with them and stayed to dinner. Miss Bennett,
who had a headache from the hot air and the effort of concentrating her
mind, would have been glad to forget the trial, but Lydia and Bobby
talked of nothing else. She kept a pad and pencil at hand to note down
points that occurred to her. Bobby, with a mind at once acute and
trivial, had collected odd bits of information--that the judge was
hostile, that the door man said the verdict would be not guilty, and he
had never been wrong in twenty-seven years.

Proceedings began the next morning by O'Bannon's opening for the
prosecution. Lydia saw a new weapon directed against her that her
advisers did not seem to appreciate--O'Bannon's terrible sincerity. His
voice had not an artificial note in it. Meaning what he said, he was
able to convince the jury.

"Gentlemen of the jury," he began, "the indictment in this case is
manslaughter in the first degree. That is homicide without intent to
effect death by a person committing or attempting to c