blamelessly. He was almost tempted to laugh at this accusation, which
seemed to him so strongly tinctured with prejudice.

On October 20th, at noon precisely, the trial began.

The judges had come to town from the seat of the command of the army
corps. With faces severe and forbidding, they sat at a long table,--a
major, a captain, a first lieutenant, a judge-advocate to conduct the
proceedings according to the statutes, and a second one to conduct the
prosecution.

After Schmitz had given an intelligent account of the facts, Roth was
called as witness. He represented the affair in the most glaring
colors, denied all friendship with the defendant, and likewise denied
in the strongest language that he also had been intoxicated, as
Schmitz had stated. By hook or crook he had gained over as witnesses
for his sober condition on that evening the invalid afflicted with
lung trouble, and likewise the Pole. The latter, because of the
semi-idiotic state of his mind, and because of his insufficient
knowledge of German, he had instructed to simply nod his head to all
the questions asked him. As luck would have it, it so happened that
the questions put to this witness were of a kind to which his mute
nods were the answers most unfavorable to the defendant. The wonder
was, however, that the court made no objection to such testimony.
Finally the "Vice" swore, with a voice shaken by no tremor, to the
truth of his deposition.

This, of course, was an unexpected turn in the affair. Schmitz had not
expected, and he had not forearmed himself against such a tissue of
lies. His hopes sank considerably when he noticed that the major, as
chairman of the commission, was shaking his head in grave disapproval
on hearing the unfavorable testimony.

Next followed the address of the prosecuting judge-advocate, which
conformed in almost every detail to the substance of the act of
accusation.

Then Schmitz's counsel arose. In eloquent words he described the event
as it had actually occurred, weighed the peculiar circumstances, and
pointed with great emphasis to the former intimacy of accuser and
defendant,--an intimacy the existence of which had been corroborated
by several witnesses who had deposed during the preliminary stage of
the case. Lastly, he made as much as he could out of the fact that the
whole occurrence had been an outgrowth of a friendly birthday
celebration. In consideration of all these things, and also because of
the irrepr