ly been returned and the jury polled and discharged. If possible
he must drag his summing up over until the following day. Something
might happen.

"About two hours, Your Honor," he replied.

The jury stirred impatiently. It was clear that they regarded a two-hour
speech from him under the circumstances as an imposition. But Babson
wished to preserve the fiction of impartiality.

"Very well," said he. "You may sum up until four-thirty, and have half
an hour more to-morrow morning. See that the doors are closed, Captain
Phelan. We do not want any interruption while the summations are going
on."

"All out that's goin' out! Everybody out that's got no business, with
the court!" bellowed Captain Phelan.

Mr. Tutt with an ominous heightening of the pulse realized that the real
ordeal was at last at hand, for the closing of the case had wrought in
the old lawyer an instant metamorphosis. With the words "The defense
rests" every suggestion of the mountebank, the actor or the shyster had
vanished. The awful responsibility under which he labored; the
overwhelming and damning evidence against his client; the terrible
consequences of the least mistake that he might make; the fact that only
the sword of his ability, and his alone, stood between Angelo and a
hideous death by fire in the electric chair--sobered and chastened him.
Had he been a praying man in that moment he would have prayed--but he
was not.

For his client was foredoomed--foredoomed not only by justice but also
by trickery and guile--and was being driven slowly but surely towards
the judicial shambles. For what had he succeeded in adducing in his
behalf? Nothing but the purely apocryphal speculation that the dead
barber might have threatened Angelo with his razor and that the
witnesses might possibly have drawn somewhat upon their imaginations in
giving the details of their testimony. A sorry defense! Indeed, no
defense at all. All the sorrier in that he had not even been able to get
before the jury the purely sentimental excuses for the homicide, for he
could only do this by calling Rosalina to the stand, which would have
enabled the prosecution to cross-examine her in regard to the purchase
of the pistol and the delivery of it to her husband--the strongest
evidence of premeditation. Yet he must find some argument, some plea,
some thread of reason upon which the jury might hang a disagreement or a
verdict in a lesser degree.

With a shuffling of feet the la