u have to say on your own
behalf?"

The District Attorney turned his face, as did all the others, but he
did not see the prisoner. He still saw himself holding the court-room
with a spell, and heard his own periods ringing against the
whitewashed ceiling. The others saw a tall, broad-shouldered man
leaning heavily forward over the bar of the prisoner's box. His face
was white with the prison tan, markedly so in contrast with those
sunburnt by the wind and sun turned toward him, and pinched and
hollow-eyed and worn. When he spoke, his voice had the huskiness which
comes from non-use, and cracked and broke like a child's.

"I don't know, Judge," he said, hesitatingly, and staring stupidly at
the mass of faces in the well beneath him, "that I have anything to
say--in my own behalf. I don't know as it would be any use. I guess
what the gentleman said about me is all there is to say. He put it
about right. I've had my fun, and I've got to pay for it--that is, I
thought it was fun at the time. I am not going to cry any baby act and
beg off, or anything, if that's what you mean. But there is something
I'd like to say if I thought you would believe me." He frowned down at
the green table as though the words he wanted would not come, and his
eyes wandered from one face to another, until they rested upon the
bowed head of the only woman in the room. They remained there for some
short time, and then Barrow drew in his breath more quickly, and
turned with something like a show of confidence to the jury.

"All that man said of me is true," he said. He gave a toss of his
hands as a man throws away the reins. "I admit all he says. I
_am_ a back number; I _am_ out of date; I _was_ a loafer and a
blackguard. I never shot any man in the back, nor I never assassinated
no one; but that's neither here nor there. I'm not in a place where I
can expect people to pick out their words; but, as he says, I _am_ a
bad lot. He says I have enjoyed a reputation as a desperado. I am not
bragging of that; I just ask you to remember that he said it. Remember
it of me. I was not the sort to back down to man or beast, and I'm not
now. I am not backing down, now; I'm taking my punishment. Whatever
you please to make it, I'll take it; and that," he went on, more
slowly, "makes it harder for me to ask what I want to ask, and make
you all believe I am not asking it for myself."

He stopped, and the silence in the room seemed to give him some faint
encoura