mr. weems.—tom bennet’s way.—mr. gunn’s proposal.—breach of promise.—the trial.
o
ne morning, mr. julius weems sat in his studio, dressed in velvet working jacket and slouching hat. with palette on thumb, brush in hand, and pipe in mouth, mr. weems was endeavoring to give a sufficiently aged appearance to a “saul and witch of endor,” by salvator rosa.
“hang it,” said mr. weems to himself, as he placed a dab of burnt umber on the withered cheek of the hag, “everything seems to go wrong! it was bad enough to have old cowdrick dupe me in the way he did; but right on top of that, to hear from crook and gudgem that the rubens business is being overdone, and that they have had eight st. ethelbertas offered to them during the week, is a little too much. if the entire profession of artists is going to turn to painting old masters, i will have to come down to modern art and poor prices. it’s165 the worst luck! there is no chance at all for a man to earn an honest living!”
mr. weems’s soliloquy was interrupted by a light knocking upon his door. hastily throwing a cloth over the picture upon his easel, and turning two titians and a raphael with their faces to the wall, mr. weems opened the door and admitted the visitor.
“good morning!” said the intruder. “don’t know me, i suppose?”
“no.” responded mr. weems.
“my name is gunn; benjamin p. gunn.”
“i have heard of you. you are interested in life assurance, i believe? a canvasser, or something?”
“yes, i was; but i have given that up now. the business was overdone. i grew tired of it!”
“you don’t know anything, then, about mr. cowdrick’s case? i mean whether he had much on his life or not?”
“oh! well, i have heard that he was insured for fifty thousand or so; i don’t remember the exact amount. but it makes no difference.”
“will the widow be likely to get it if he is dead?”
“in my opinion she will have a mighty slim chance of collecting anything, even if she can prove that he is actually deceased. from what i know of the president of the widows’ and orphans’ mutual life insurance company, i believe he will166 fight the claim through all the courts. that is his rule. nearly all the companies do it.”
“what! even if it is a clear case for the policy-holder?”
“of course! that is the regular thing. they’ll worry a widow so that she will be glad to compromise on half the claim, and by the time she has paid her lawyers most of that is gone.”
“that seems hard!”
“yes; that is one of the reasons why i quit. take the case of lemuel a. gerlach, for example. you remember it?”
“no.”
“well, sir, i did my best to persuade that man to insure. he didn’t want to; but i harried him into it. i waited on him at his office; i disturbed him at his meals; i lay in wait for him when he came home from the club; i followed him to the sea-shore in summer; when he went yachting i pursued him with a steam-tug; when he was sick i got the apothecary to enclose our circulars with his medicine; i sat next to him in church for four consecutive sundays, and slipped mortality tables into his prayer-book; i rode with him in the same carriage when he went to funerals, and lectured him all the way out to the cemetery upon the uncertainty of human life. finally, he succumbed. i knew he would. it was only a question of time. i took him down to the office; the company’s surgeon167 examined him, and said he was the healthiest man he ever saw—not a flaw in him anywhere. so he paid his premium and got his policy. two months later he died. when mrs. gerlach called to get her money, the president threatened to have her put out of the office because she denied that gerlach’s liver was torpid when he took out his policy.”
“did they pay, finally?”
“pay! not a dollar! the widow sued to recover, and the company put the surgeon and eight miscellaneous doctors on the stand to prove that gerlach for years had been a complete physical wreck, with more diseases than most people ever heard of; and they undertook to show that gerlach had devoted the latter part of his life to organizing a scheme for foisting himself upon the company for the purpose of swindling it. that was five years ago. the case is pending in the courts yet, and the widow has already spent twenty per cent. more than the face of the policy.”
“it was not a very profitable speculation, certainly.”
“no, sir; it wasn’t. i’ll tell you what, mr. weems, if a man wants to realize on his departed relatives, that is not the way to do it. anything is better than life insurance; even tom bennet’s way.”
“how was that?”
168 “why, tom bennet, you know, is a friend of mine, who lives out in arkansas. and one day, some years ago, a little cemetery in the town in which he lived was sold out by the sheriff. tommy was looking about for a site on which to build a house for himself, and, as this one happened to suit him, he bid on it, and got it at a very low figure. when he began to dig the cellar, tom found that the folks who were interred in the place had been petrified, to a man. every occupant turned to solid stone! so tom, you know, being a practical kind of man, made up his mind to quarry out the departed, and to utilize them for building material.”
“rather unkind, wasn’t it?”
“tom didn’t appear to think so. and as the building made progress, he rubbed down mr. flaherty for a door-sill, and had judge paterson chipped off with a chisel into the handsomest hitching-post that you ever saw.”
“horrible!”
“yes. some of the mcturk family were put into the bow-window, between the sashes, and the whole of the families of major magill and mr. dougherty were worked into the foundation. and when the roof was going on, tom bennet took general hidenhooper, and bored a flue through the crown of his head downward, so as to use him for a chimney-top. the edifice, when completed, presented a rather striking appearance.”
169 “what did the surviving relatives have to say?”
“they were indignant, of course; but as the courts decided that the petrifactions, without doubt, were part of the real estate, and were included in the title-deeds, they could do nothing but remonstrate, and tom paid no attention to that.”
“then it is your professional opinion,” said mr. weems, returning to the subject uppermost in his mind, “that the insurance company will not pay, even if mr. cowdrick be found to be dead!”
mr. gunn smiled in a peculiar manner, and then, after a moment’s hesitation, he said: “really, you know, mr. weems, there is no use of discussing that contingency. cowdrick is not dead.”
“how do you know?”
“why, that is the very thing i called to see you about. i am on the detective force now. regularly employed by the police authorities. i know exactly where cowdrick is, and i have had him under surveillance from the very first day that he left home.”
“why haven’t you arrested him, then?”
mr. gunn laughed. “oh, it was not worth while. i knew i could get him whenever i wanted him. it never pays to be in a hurry with such matters.”
“a heavy reward has been offered for him, i believe,” said mr. weems.
“that’s just it,” replied mr. gunn.
170 “i don’t understand you.”
“why, the authorities express their anxiety to catch him, by offering to pay five hundred dollars to accomplish the feat. now, the question is, will cowdrick’s friends express their wish that he shall not be caught, by going a little higher, say up to one thousand dollars?”
“but i cannot imagine why you should come to me with such a proposition. why don’t you go to mrs. cowdrick?”
“i’d rather deal with a man; a man understands business so much better. and as you are interested in cowdrick’s family, going, as it were, to be near and dear to him, it struck me that maybe you might give him a chance to go off quietly upon a trip to europe, or somewhere, and save him from a term of years in jail. how does it strike you?”
“very unfavorably. in the first place, i have not enough money for your purpose; and, in the second place, if i did have it, i should decline to expend it for the benefit of mr. cowdrick.”
“then you refuse to negotiate?”
“yes, positively.”
“very well,” said mr. detective gunn, rising, “i merely wished to ascertain what your views were. pardon me for interrupting you. no offence, i hope? good morning.” and mr. gunn withdrew, while weems closed and bolted the door.
the artist had hardly seated himself, and resumed171 the work of depicting the witch of endor, when another visitor knocked at the door. mr. weems arose, drew the bolt, and opened the door wide enough to permit him to look out.
“may i come in?” asked leonie cowdrick, with an effort at cheeriness in her voice.
“oh, certainly. glad to see you,” replied mr. weems, admitting her. but mr. weems did not look as if he really felt very glad.
“pardon me for calling, julius,” she said, “but i think i must have left my satchel when i was here last week. i cannot find it anywhere.”
poor thing! any excuse would have sufficed to account for her coming to try to discover why it was that her lover had not visited her for nearly a week.
“i do not think it is here,” said mr. weems; “i am sure it is not, or i should have seen it.”
“then it is lost beyond recovery,” exclaimed leonie, sinking into a chair, and fanning herself, while she looked very hard at the artist, who pretended to be busy with his picture.
“haven’t heard anything from your father yet, i suppose?” said mr. weems, after a painful interval of silence.
“nothing; absolutely nothing. poor mother is nearly distracted. we are in great trouble. and i thought, julius, you would have been with us more during this trial.”
172 “well,” said mr. weems, “you see i have been so very busy, and i have had so many engagements, that i could not find time enough to call very frequently.”
“it looked almost like neglect,” said leonie, sadly. “i could hardly bear it.” and she put her handkerchief to her eyes.
“confound it!” said mr. weems to himself, “now there is going to be a scene.”
“mother said she could hardly believe that you really loved me,” continued leonie.
“she said that, did she?” asked mr. weems, somewhat bitterly. “did she ask you if you really loved me?”
“no, julius; she knows that i do. you know it, too.”
“love,” said the artist, “means faith, trust, fair play, and candor, among other things, i have always thought.”
“what do you mean by that, julius?”
“well, i don’t want to be unkind, leonie; but do you think that a woman who truly loved a man would misrepresent her age to him; or that she would be absolutely silent respecting previous engagements that she had contracted? how do i know that you care more for me than you did for baxter and the others?”
“mr. weems,” exclaimed leonie, indignantly, “this is cruel. it is worse,—it is shameful. you173 seem to have known all there was to know, without seeking information from me.”
“that is what made it so very painful,” replied mr. weems, trying to look as if his feelings had experienced a terrible wrench. “it was dreadful to learn from outside sources what i should have heard from your own lips. when a woman pretends to give me her heart, i expect her to give me her confidence also.”
“pretends!” exclaimed leonie, rising. “pretends! what do you mean, sir, by ‘pretends’! do you dare to insinuate that i deliberately deceived you?”
“well,” said mr. weems, calmly, “that is perhaps a rather violent construction of my language; but we will not quarrel over phrases.”
“i did not think,” said leonie, tearfully but vehemently, “that i should be insulted when i came here,—insulted in the midst of my grief. it is unmanly, sir! it is cowardly! it is infamous!”
“i am sorry that you take that view of it. i did not intend to be discourteous, i am sure. pray pardon me if i was so. it is clear, however, that, after what has passed, we can hardly sustain our former relation to each other.”
“i understand you, sir,” replied leonie, scornfully; “i fully realize your meaning. you intended at the outset to break our engagement. well, sir, it is broken. i am glad to break it. i regard you174 with scorn and contempt. hereafter we shall be as strangers to each other.”
“i submit to your decision,” returned the artist. “but—but, of course, you will return my letters?”
leonie laughed a wild and bitter laugh, and, gathering up her skirts as if she feared contamination, she swept haughtily from the room, without speaking another word.
“that is settled, at any rate!” said mr. weems, as he closed the door. “that is just what i wanted. i can’t afford to marry poverty. but it is a bad business about those letters of mine! i wonder if she intends to use them against me?” and mr. weems, relighting his pipe, sat down in his easy-chair to make a mental review of the situation.
mr. weems was not permitted to remain long in doubt respecting the intentions of miss cowdrick. upon the very next day he received from messrs. pullock and shreek, attorneys, formal notice that miss leonie cowdrick had authorized them to bring a suit against him for breach of promise of marriage, the claim for pecuniary damages being laid at thirty thousand dollars.
mr. weems regarded the proceeding with not a little alarm; but, upon consulting his lawyer, mr. porter, and detailing to him the conversation between the artist and leonie at the time of the rupture, mr. weems was assured that he could make an excellent defence upon the theory that the lady175 had broken the engagement; and he was strongly advised to permit the case to go to trial.
it did so right speedily; for the attorneys for the plaintiff secured for it an early place upon the list, and they manifested a disposition to push the defendant in the most unmerciful manner permitted by the law.
when the case was called for trial, mr. weems’s lawyer moved for a postponement; and he pleaded, argued, fought, and begged for his motion as if the life of his client and his own happiness were staked upon a brief delay. as mr. weems was quite ready to proceed, he could not imagine why there should be such earnest contention respecting this point. but, of course, it was the regular professional thing to do. mr. weems’s lawyer did not really want a continuance. he merely cared to put himself right upon the record by conducting the performance in the customary manner.
messrs. pullock and shreek, counsel for the plaintiff, resisted the motion vigorously. when mr. shreek arose to address the court, with regard to it, the unpractised spectator would have supposed that the learned counsel was amazed as well as shocked at the conduct of the defence in asking that the arm of justice should be stayed, even for a week, from visiting punishment upon the monster who was now called to answer for his offences. it seemed really to grieve mr. shreek, to distress and176 hurt him, that the counsel for the defence, a member of an honorable profession, and a man who, upon ordinary occasions, had the respect of society and the confidence of his fellow-creatures, should so far set at defiance all considerations of propriety, all sense of what was due to the lovely sufferer who came here for protection and redress, and all the demands of justice, honor, and decency, as to try to keep the hideous facts of this case even for a time from the attention of an intelligent and sympathetic jury.
mr. shreek, as he brought his remarks to a close, was so deeply moved by the scandalous nature of the conduct of counsel for the defence, that mr. weems was disposed to believe that the breach between them was final and irreparable; but a moment later, when judge winker decided that the trial must proceed at once, mr. weems was surprised to perceive his lawyer and mr. shreek chatting and laughing together precisely as if mr. shreek had not regarded mr. porter’s behavior with mingled horror and disgust.
in selecting the jurymen, the manifest purpose of the lawyers upon both sides was to reject every man of ordinary intelligence, and to prefer the persons who seemed, from their appearance, least likely to possess the power of reaching a rational conclusion upon any given subject. and when the jury had been obtained, mr. weems, looking at177 them, thought that he had never, in all his life, seen twelve more stupid-looking men.
leonie cowdrick came in as the case opened, and took a seat close by mr. pullock. she was dressed with exquisite taste, and mr. weems was really surprised to perceive that she seemed quite pretty.
her face was partly covered by a veil, and in her hand she carried a kerchief, with which occasionally she gently touched her eyes.
it was clear enough that mr. pullock had her in training for the purpose of producing effects upon the jury, for whenever during the proceedings anything of a pathetic nature was developed, mr. pullock signalled her, and at once her handkerchief went to her face.
the trial endured through two days, and much of the time was occupied by wrangles, squabbles, and fierce recriminations between the lawyers, who, after working themselves into furious passion, and seeming ready to fall upon each other and tear each other to pieces, invariably resumed their friendly intercourse during the recesses, and appeared ready to forgive and forget all the injuries of the past.
one of the jurymen was asleep during the larger portion of the sessions upon both days; two others paid no attention to the evidence, but persistently gaped about the court-room, and the remainder seemed to consider the quarrels between the counsel178 as the only matters of genuine importance in the case. during the first day mr. detective gunn came in, and seeing mr. weems, went over to whisper in his ear that cowdrick had been arrested, and would reach town upon the morrow.
“we had to take the reward,” said gunn. “not one of his friends would give any more. it’s a pity for the old man, too! i see well enough now why you wouldn’t lend a hand.” and mr. gunn looked toward leonie, and laughed.
when mr. porter was not engaged in examining or cross-examining a witness, he addressed his attention to the task of getting upon terms of jolly good-fellowship with the members of the jury who remained awake. he sat near to the foreman, and he was continually passing jokes to that official, with the back of his hand to his mouth—jokes which the foreman manifestly relished, for he always sent them further along in the jury-box.
this mirthfulness appeared to have a very depressing effect upon mr. pullock, for whenever he observed it he assumed a look of deep mournfulness, as if it distressed him beyond measure that any one should have an impulse to indulge in levity in the presence of the unutterable woe which had made the life of his fair but heart-broken client simply a condition of hopeless misery. and while the reckless jurymen laughed, mr. pullock would shake his head sadly, seeming to feel as if justice179 had expanded her wings and fled forever from the tribunals of man; and then he would nudge the lovely victim by his side, as a hint for her to hoist her handkerchief as another signal to the jury that she was in distress.
but mr. porter’s humor, brutal and unfeeling though it might be, could not be restrained. particularly did many of the points in the evidence offered by the plaintiff impress him ludicrously; and at times, when mr. shreek was developing what he evidently regarded as a fact of high and solemn importance, mr. porter would wink at the foreman, and begin to writhe upon his chair in his efforts to restrain himself from violating the decorum of the temple of justice by bursting into uproarious laughter.
these rather scandalous attempts to convey to the jurymen who were awake mr. porter’s theory that the testimony for the prosecution was nonsense of the most absurd description, and to impress them with the belief that when mr. porter’s turn came, he would knock it, so to speak, higher than a kite, provoked mr. shreek to such an extent, that, finally, he stopped short in his examination of a witness, to snarl out to mr. porter:—
“what are you laughing at? i don’t notice anything in the testimony that is so very funny!”
“the muscles of my face are my own,” rejoined mr. porter, “and i will use them as i please.”
180 “but you have no right to divert the attention of the jury by your buffoonery!” replied mr. shreek, angrily.
“i will laugh when, and how, and at what i please,” said mr. porter. “i shall not accept any dictation from you. it’s not my fault if you have a ridiculous case!”
“i will show you how ridiculous it is before i get through,” answered mr. shreek.
“i know all about it already!” said mr. porter.
then mr. shreek proceeded with his examination, and mr. porter laughed almost out loud two or three times, merely to show the jury that he regarded mr. shreek’s remonstrance with positive contempt. but it must be confessed that mr. porter’s mirthfulness, in this instance, seemed to lack heartiness and spontaneity.
but when mr. porter’s turn came to address the jury, his sense of humor had become completely benumbed, while that of mr. shreek had undergone really abnormal development; for mr. porter could hardly attempt to plunge into pathos, or to permit his unfettered imagination to take a little flight, without mr. shreek’s humorous susceptibilities being aroused in such a manner that the closure of his mouth with his handkerchief alone prevented him from offending the dignity of the court.
mr. porter’s appeal to the jury in behalf of his client was based upon his asseveration that this181 was the most intelligent jury that he had ever had the honor of addressing, and upon his solemn conviction that the jurymen not only represented accurately the most respectable portion of the community, but that, as upon this occasion the jury system itself was upon trial to prove whether it truly was the bulwark of liberty, that barrier against injustice and oppression which it was vaunted to be, so this jury were, it might be said, called upon to determine whether the system was to retain the respect and confidence of mankind or to be branded by public sentiment as a wretched failure, and to be regarded in the future by all honorable men with loathing and contempt.
as two of the jurymen happened to be irishmen, and one of them was a member of the odd fellows’ society, mr. porter did not neglect to allude to the circumstance that mr. weems’s great-grandfather was born in ireland; and the learned counsel took occasion to speak with indignant warmth of the wrongs that have been endured by ireland, and to express his deep sympathy with her unfortunate and suffering people.
of the noble aims and splendid achievements of the odd fellows’ society, it was hardly necessary for mr. porter to speak at length. he could never hope to command language of sufficient force to explain his appreciation of the services rendered to society by this invaluable organization; but the182 fact that both he and his client had for years belonged to the sacred brotherhood, to which they gave their energies and their devotion, was a sufficient guarantee of the strength of their affection for it.
in concluding, mr. porter merely desired to direct the attention of the gentlemen of the jury to the fact that if designing women were to be permitted to decoy unsuspecting men into contracts of marriage merely for the purpose of securing by artful means repudiation of the contract, so that the ground would be laid for a demand for money, then no man was safe, and no one could tell at what moment he might fall into a snare laid for him by an unprincipled adventuress. mr. porter then expressed his entire confidence in the intention of the jury to give a verdict for his client, and he sat down with a feeling that he had discharged his duty in an effective manner.
mr. shreek, in reply, observed that he should begin with the assertion that in two particulars this was one of the most remarkable cases that it had ever been his fortune to try. in the first place, he was unable to refer to an occasion, during more than twenty years’ experience at the bar, when he had had the honor of addressing a jury so intelligent and so worthy of being entrusted with interests of the very highest character as this one was; and never had he felt so much confidence as he now183 felt when he came before these highly-cultivated, keenly sagacious, and thoroughly representative gentlemen to ask for justice, simple justice, for an unhappy woman. in the second place, while it had fallen to his lot to witness more than one painful and repulsive scene, more than one example of the capacity of human beings for reaching the deepest depths of degradation, in their efforts to rob justice of her own, and to make her very name a by-word and a reproach among the wise and the good, he had never yet received so violent a shock as that which came to him to-day, when, with mortification and grief, he had heard a member of the bar, sworn to seek to uphold the sanctity of the law and the honor of a proud profession, not only misrepresent the truth most villanously, but so far forget his manhood as to stoop to insult, to revile, to smite with a ribald and envenomed tongue, a fair and noble woman, who already bent beneath an awful load of domestic sorrow, and whose only fault was that she had come here to seek redress for an injury the depth of which no tongue could tell, the agony of which the imagination of him who has not fathomed all the mystery of a woman’s love could never hope to realize. he would only say, in dismissing this most distressing and humiliating portion of the subject, that he left the offender to the punishment of a conscience which, hardened and seared though it was, still must have in store184 for him pangs of remorse of which he, mr. shreek, trembled to think.
the learned counsel for the plaintiff asked the gentlemen of the jury to review with him the facts of the case, as presented to them by the evidence.
already they knew something of the trustfulness and confidence of woman’s nature; their experience within the sacred privacy of the domestic circle had taught them that when a woman gave her affection, she gave it wholly, never doubting, never suspecting, that the object of it might be unworthy to wear so priceless a jewel. such a creature,—the peerless being of whom the poet had eloquently said, that earth was a desert, eden was a wild, man was a savage, until woman smiled—was peculiarly exposed to the wiles of artful and unscrupulous men, who, urged by those satanic impulses which appear in some men as unquestionable proof of the truthfulness of the scriptural theory of demoniac possession, should attempt to gain the prize only to trample it ruthlessly in the dust.
in this instance the destroyer came to find a pure and beautiful love, with its tendrils ready to cling fondly to some dear object. by honeyed phrases, by whispered vows so soon to be falsified, by tender glances from eyes which revealed none of the desperate wickedness of the soul within, by all the arts and devices employed upon such occasions,185 the defendant had persuaded those tendrils to cling to him, to entwine about him. artless, unsophisticated, unlearned in the ways of the sinful world, the beautiful plaintiff had listened and believed; and for a few short weeks she was happy in the fond belief that this reptile who had crawled across the threshold of her maiden’s heart was a prince of men, an idol whom she might worship with unstinted adoration.
but she was soon to be undeceived. choosing the moment when her natural defender was absent, when his coward’s deed could be done without the infliction of condign punishment from him who loved this his only child far better than his life, the defendant, scoffing at the holiest of the emotions, despising the precious treasure confided to his keeping, and gloating over the misery inflicted wantonly and savagely by his too brutal hand, cast off her love, closed his ears to her sighs, observed unmoved the anguish of her soul, and flung her aside, heart-broken and despairing, while he passed coldly on to seek new hearts to break, new lives to blast and ruin, new victims to dupe and decoy with his false tongue and his vile hypocrisy.
in support of his assertions, mr. shreek proposed to read to the jury some of the letters addressed by the defendant to the plaintiff, while still he maintained an appearance of fidelity to her; and the jury would perceive more clearly than ever186 the blackness of the infamy which characterized the defendant’s conduct, when at last he showed himself in his true colors.
mr. shreek then produced a bundle of letters, which had been placed in evidence; and when he did so, the newspaper reporters sharpened their pencils, the somnolent juryman awoke, the judge laid down his pen to listen. leonie again wiped her eyes, and the crowd of spectators made a buzz, which indicated their expectation that they were going to hear something of an uncommonly interesting nature.
mr. weems alone seemed wholly sad.
mr. shreek would first invite the attention of the jury to a letter, dated simply “tuesday morning,” and signed with the name of the defendant. it was as follows:—
“my sweet rosebud” (laughter from the spectators),—“before me lies your darling little letter of yesterday. i have read it over and over again, and kissed it many times.” (merriment in the court-room.) “why do you wish that you had wings, that you might fly away and be at rest?” (“no wonder she wanted wings,” interjected mr. shreek.) “am i not all you wish?” (“he didn’t seem to be,” said mr. shreek.) “cannot i make you perfectly happy? oh, how i love you, my sweet, pretty, charming rosebud! you are all in all to me. i think i can look down the dim vista of time, and see you going with me hand-in-hand through all the long and happy years.” (“he was not quite so short-sighted as he appears to be,” said mr. shreek; whereupon there was general laughter. even leonie laughed a little.)187 “and now, my own sweet love” (laughter), “i must bid you good-night. i send you a thousand kisses from your own, ever constant
julius.”
“rosebud! gentlemen,” said mr. shreek, as he folded the letter away and took out another. “yes, a rosebud, and he the vile canker-worm that was eating away its life! but this is only one of many such effusions. upon another occasion, he says:
“my birdie,” (general laughter,)—“this morning a blessing came to me by the hands of the postman, and what do you think? the writer did not sign her name, and i am not sure whom i should thank, but i am going to risk thanking you, my own dear, loving leonie. why do you call me an angel, darling?” (“that,” observed mr. shreek, “was enough to astonish him!” and then everybody laughed again.) “i am only a plain, prosy man,” (“a close shave to the truth,” said mr. shreek,) “but i am exalted by having your love. if i were an angel, i would hover over you, my sweet,” (“and very likely drop something on her,” added mr. shreek,) “and protect you. you ask me if i think of you often! think of you, leonie! i think of nothing else.” (laughter.) “you are always in my mind; and if i keep on loving you more and more, as i am doing, i shall die with half my love untold.” (laughter. “wonderful how he loved her, wasn’t it?” remarked mr. shreek.) “again i send you a million kisses” (merriment), “and a fond good-night, and pleasant dreams.
“your adoring j.”
“observe,” said mr. shreek, taking out still another letter, “how he mocked her! how hollow,188 how infamous all of that sounds, in view of his subsequent treachery!”
here miss cowdrick bowed her head and wept, and mr. weems looked as if he felt that death at the stake would be mere pastime in comparison with this experience.
“we now come,” said mr. shreek, “to letter number three—a document which reveals this moral monster in even a more hideous light.”
“my precious one” (great laughter)—“how can i ever thank you for the trouble you have taken to make me those lovely slippers? they are two sizes too small for me” (laughter); “but i can look at them and kiss them” (“he was a tremendous kisser in his way, you observe,” said the learned counsel), “and think of you meantime. i could not come to see you last evening, for i sprained my ankle; but i looked at your picture and kissed it” (laughter. “at it again, you see,” said mr. shreek); “and i read over your old letters. there is a knock at my door now, and i must stop. but i will say, i love you. oh, how i love you! my life and my light.
fondly your own julius.”
“but,” continued the eloquent counsel for the plaintiff, “this false lover, this maker of vows that were as idle as the whispering of the summer wind, did not always write prose to the unhappy lady whom he had deceived. sometimes he breathed out his bogus affection through the medium of verse. sometimes he invoked the sacred muse to help him to shatter the heart of this loving and trustful woman. with the assistance of a rhyming189 dictionary, or perhaps having, with a bold and lawless hand, filched his sweets from some true poet who had felt the impulses of a genuine passion, he wrote and sent to my lovely but unfortunate client the following lines:
“sweetheart, if i could surely choose
the aptest word in passion’s speech”—
“that,” said the counsel, “indicates that he would steal his poetry if he could.”
“and all its subtlest meaning use,
with eloquence your soul to teach;
still, forced by its intensity,
sweetheart, my love would voiceless be!”
(laughter.)
“and heartless, as well as voiceless,” added the counsel.
“sweetheart, though all the days and hours
sped by, with love in sharpest stress,
to find some reach of human powers,
its faintest impulse to express,
till time merged in eternity,
sweetheart, my love would voiceless be!”
(roars of laughter.)
mr. shreek declared that he would read no more. it made his heart sick—professionally, of course—to peruse these revolting evidences of man’s inhumanity to lovely woman; of the amazing perfidy of the plaintiff, weems. this voiceless lover, who was not only voiceless, but shameless, feelingless,190 and merciless as well, was now before them, arraigned by that law whose foremost function was to protect the weak, and to punish those who assail the helpless. it rests with you, gentlemen, to say whether the cry for help made to that law by this desolate woman with the lacerated heart shall be made in vain. so far as mr. shreek was concerned, he felt perfectly certain that the jury would award to his client the full amount of damages—a miserable recompense, at the best—for which she sued.
the judge’s charge was very long, very dull, and full of the most formidable words, phrases, and references. those who were able to follow it intelligently, however, perceived that it really amounted to nothing more than this: if you find the defendant guilty, it is your duty to bring in a verdict to that effect; while, upon the other hand, if you find him not guilty, you are required to acquit him.
at six o’clock in the evening the jury retired, and the court waited for the verdict. at six-thirty, the jury sent to ask that the love-letters might be given to them; and it was whispered about that one of the jurymen had obtained the impression, somehow, that they were written by miss cowdrick to weems. at a quarter past seven, the jury wanted to know if they could have cigars; and mr. porter sent them a couple of bundles at his191 own expense. at eight, word came out that one of the jurymen, evidently the slumberer, wanted a question of fact cleared up: was the man suing the woman, or the woman the man? this having been settled, the court waited until half past eight, when, amid much excitement, the jury came in, and disappointed everybody with the announcement that it was quite impossible for them to agree.
mr. porter whispered to mr. weems that there was an irishman upon that jury whom he felt confident of from the first.
the judge went over the case again briefly, but learnedly and vaguely, and sent the jury back. at nine o’clock the jury came into court a second time, and presented a verdict of guilty, imposing damages to the amount of five thousand dollars.
there was an outburst of applause; leonie leaned her head upon the breast of mr. pullock, and wept from mingled feelings of joy and grief. mr. shreek observed to mr. porter, that “this is all we ever expected;” and mr. porter said to weems that he was lucky to get off so easily; for he, porter, had anticipated a much worse result.
poor weems alone seemed to regard the verdict with less than perfect satisfaction; and he was no better pleased next morning, when colonel hoker’s crab and all the other papers came out with reports of the trial in flaring type, and192 with the entire batch of love-letters, poetry and all, in full.
the journals also contained an announcement that mr. cowdrick had been captured and brought home, and had at once been released upon bail.
