Counsel for the Defense

ence, novels once unanimously read but now unanimously forgotten. The desk was a helter-skelter of papers. One of the two chairs had its burst cane seat mend

tion; which is perhaps but an indirect manner of stating th

terms, it will be sufficient to remark that whatever the Divine Sculptor had carved his countenance to portray, plainly there had been no thought of re-beautifying the earth with an Apollo. He was constr

st municipal enterprise, its thoroughly modern water-works; and it was an extensive and vivid account of the next day's programme that the editor was pounding so rapidly out of his machine for that afternoon's issue of the Express. Now and then, as he paused an instant to shape an effe

, when there sauntered in from the general editorial room a pale, slight young man of twenty-five. The newcomer had a reckless air, a humo

did not rai

, Billy," he

y about, Arn," d

relaxed cat. He gazed rather languidly over at the Square, its sides abustle with excited preparation. Across the fronts of stores bunting was being tacked; from upper windows crisp cotton flags were being unscrolled. As for the Court House

ward the editor's copy, and, as though reading

kers' stand the Westville Brass Band, in their new uniforms, glittering like so many grand marshals of the emp

ted Bruce, eyes still

the Voters' Union, and the Honourable Hiram Cogshell, Calloway County's able-bodiest orator, will pour forth prodigal and perfervid eloquence upon the populace below. And Dr. David West, he who has d

ressive face that gave a sense of having been modelled by a clinched fist, and of still glowering at the blow. He had gray eyes that gle

n," returned Billy pleasantly,

took a cigarette, broke it open and poured the tobacco

eplied the reporter, lig

e the crowd anyhow. Blake

ned the Governor's telegram. Blake's in Indianapolis to-

octor

y I ever went up against. The way he does dodge the spot-light!-it's enough to make one of your prima donna politicians die o

runted t

orrow I'll bet you and your spavined old Arrangements Committee

o promise to sit f

't want his picture printed; and if we did print it, he thought

. I saw him go into the Court House a little while ago. Better c

inly is a slow old burg you've dragged me down into. If one of your leading citizens wants to catch the se

our stomach now?" d

ours afterward at how this darned place has treated the old boy. If your six-cylinder, sixty-horse power, seven-passenger

idn't under

t didn't!" agre

" said the editor, a little sharply. "Young

was my smallest-th

the dollar, you're sane. If you don't, you're cracked. Doctor West started off like a winner, so they say;

ld me what ma

that. When he stopped practising and began his sci

glad enough to get him to take charg

began to look around for an expert, it found no one the

Then-hurrah! Strike up the band, boys! When I think how that old party has been quietly studying typhoid fever and water supply all these years, with you bunch

best place in Indiana before we get through with it," ret

of typewritten sheets. "Carbon of his to-morrow's speech. He gave it to me, he said, to save us the trouble of taking it d

or two of it with wearied irr

t it. But weed out some o

Hiram's copy of 'Bartlett's Quotations' and that treme

Billy?" pursued the edito

Very pathetic. Also that second-story man was indicted that stole Alderman Big Bill Perkins's clothes. Remember it, don't you? Big Bill's clothes had s

lebration crowds everything else out. Write that about the Governor, and then help Stevens with the telegraph-and see that it'

tion story, isn't it

e "devil" who had appeared through

y stopped me as I was leaving, and asked me to ha

Kenned

d. I guess he wants to talk with you abo

e over here then?" growled B

he couldn

e, with a snap of his heavy

n you wo

eneral affairs the politicians, business men, and the etceteras of this town have got to understand that t

on our high

t's where you've got to be if yo

can keep your saddle. But I guess I'd

telephone, and soon was talking to the prosecuting attorn

to speak with

ook the

Got some people there? Well, bring 'em along.... Why can't they come? Who are they?...

p the receiv

ing after all

d hat. "Kennedy says something big has just broken loose. Sound

ration story?" queried Bi

oked at

can wait." And taking the story back

did his private office. At a long table two young men sat before typewriters, and in

wn to bones!" Bruce called out. And with that he passed