DISPENSING JUSTICE.
The driver bristled with indignation.
“It’s an outrage!” he cried. “We must get to Albion in time to catch
the three-forty train. You can’t stop us.”
“I’ve stopped ye already,” said Deputy Sheriff Newberry serenely.
“Under the circumstances it don’t become you to tell me what I can’t
do. You’ll be permitted to proceed on your way to Albion after Jedge
Wiggin attends to your case. So you might as well soople down and
take it calm.”
“But you don’t understand, you don’t know who you’re holding up in
this high-handed fashion. You are interfering with——”
“Wait, Hitchens!” cut in the other man, giving a glance at his
watch. “Never mind telling him who we are.”
“’Tain’t necessary,” stated Newberry. “You’ll have to tell the
jedge, anyhow.”
“How long,” asked the man with the watch, “will it require to get
through with this business so that we may go on. It is most
important that we should get that train.”
“Wull,” drawled the deputy, “if the jedge is around handy, and he
don’t read you too long a lecture before he slaps on the fine, mebbe
you’ll git started ag’in in half or three-quarters of an hour;
’tain’t likely to be more’n an hour, anyhow.”
“Half an hour will make us miss the train. Can’t we fix it with
you?”
“Now take keer, take keer! Don’t you go for to offer no bribes to an
officer of the law. I couldn’t take them nohow,” he added as
Constable Small came hurrying up with Constable Buzzell wheezing and
sniffling at his heels.
“But,” protested Hitchens, “if you knew who——”
“Never mind that,” interrupted the older man sharply. “The other
business will have to wait. I have a curiosity to see just how Judge
Wiggin handles cases of this sort.”
“Your cur’osity,” assured Deputy Sheriff Newberry, swinging open the
tonneau door, “will be satisfied. Git in, boys!”
When the three men had all piled into the rear of the car the one in
command directed Hitchens to drive straight down the long main
street of the town, and proceeded slowly.
Their appearance in the village was the signal for various
inhabitants who observed them to grin and wag their heads, making
uncomplimentary and derisive remarks, while a number of small boys,
hooting and laughing, assembled and followed the car as far as
Turner’s grocery, over which, in a bare and sparsely furnished room,
Judge Wiggin dispensed justice by mulcting the unfortunate speeders
who were arraigned before him. A number of idle citizens, who had
been gossiping and swapping stories on the store steps, rose at once
and followed the prisoners, conducted by Newberry and Buzzell, up
the narrow back stairs to the “courtroom.” Jeremiah Small had been
sent to fetch the judge.
The automobilists were given chairs facing a table which served as a
desk, and an anæmic-looking young man in horn-rimmed spectacles
seated himself at the table and began making out the complaint,
having first questioned Buzzell about the speed which the offenders
had been making when they ran into the trap.
“Your name?” inquired the clerk, turning to the older man.
“Put down John Doe,” said the latter, “and Richard Roe,” he added,
nodding toward his companion. “I am the owner of the car. Richard
was driving when we were held up.”
The younger man gave him a queer look, and leaned closer, whispering
something behind his hand. The answer was a grim smile and a shake
of the head. After slight hesitation, the clerk wrote down the names
as given.
The sound of heavy steps on the stairs preceded the entrance of
Constable Small, who announced that the judge was out somewhere, but
that Willie Baker and Nubby Snell had been sent scouting to find
him.
“I never heard of such an outrage!” exploded the intensely annoyed
Hitchens. “Somebody is going to regret this imposition. Time is
valuable to us, and——”
“Don’t git flustered and fly off the handle, mister,” advised Deputy
Newberry, twisting off a quid of War Horse with his teeth and
stowing it, bulging, into his cheek with a tongue made dexterous by
long practice. “It won’t joggle things along no faster, and I
ca’late you’ll be the one to do the regrettin’ if you go shootin’
off a lot of loose talk. If you git sassy before the jedge, I warn
ye now that it’ll prob’ly land ye in the caboose. ‘Go slow’ is a
motter it’s best to toiler around here.”
“Why don’t you tell them something?” persisted Hitchens, again
appealing to his companion.
“What talking I decide to do will be done to the judge himself,”
said the older man.
In the course of fifteen minutes Judge Wiggin appeared. He was a
lean and wiry man with a somewhat grim jaw and a steely blue eye.
There was dignity in his manner. He scarcely glanced at the
prisoners as he seated himself at the table opposite the clerk and
adjusted his spectacles to read the complaint.
“Hats off!” he ordered, rapping with his knuckles. “John Doe and
Richard Roe, by the complaint of a deputy sheriff and two
constables, by the town of Greenbush duly and legally authorized,
you are hereby charged with catawamping a hossless vehicle over a
public highway, lying within the town limits, at a speed of forty
miles an hour, thereby rupturing the law made and provided, and
wantonly and willfully endangering the peace and safety of other
persons who might find it necessary to locomote upon said highway.
“According to the complaint,” the judge continued, “the
before-mentioned Richard Roe was the driver, and the
before-mentioned John Doe the owner, of said hossless vehicle at the
time of the infraction of said law. That being the fact, the penalty
administered, in case the charge is admitted or proven, will be
applied in full to the person who was engaged in piloting the
juggernaut when you was nabbed. And let me add that in this court,
with the exception of the judge presiding, unnecessary talk is a
luxury, and luxuries add to the high cost of living. A word to the
wise is a seed sown upon good ground that springeth up and beareth
the fruit of economy. Richard Roe, guilty or not guilty?”
Biting his lip with annoyance, the younger of the two prisoners
started to protest: “It was necessary—er—your honor, that we
should catch the westward-bound train at Albion. If you were aware
who we are, who your petty officers, hiding like highwaymen in
ambush, had ventured to hold up——”
Again Judge Wiggin’s knuckles smote the desk. “Apparently,” he said,
“my observation regarding the expense of unnecessary talk in this
court failed to sink in, or even to make a dent. No excuse of
private necessity condones infractions of the law. Your careless
remark, as well as the suspicious nature of the names you have
given, leads me to believe that you are pirooting around the country
under false colors, and makes it rather probable that you are old
offenders trying in that way to dodge the extreme penalty the court
might see fit to administer if your real identities was known. I
shall bear this in mind in passing sentence.”
The grinning spectators tittered guardedly. The older man reached
out and placed a hand on his companion’s knee.
“You can see that you are simply making matters worse,” he
whispered. “Anything you may say will be used against us. Plead
guilty at once.”
Squirming and rebellions, Hitchens complied. However, instead of
passing sentence without delay, the judge squared away on his chair,
locked the fingers of his hands before him, and proceeded to read
the culprits a lengthy lecture anent the rights of the common people
upon the highways and the outrageous and criminal manner in which
these rights were disregarded by automobilists in general.
During this scathing harangue he scarcely looked at either of the
impatient and suffering victims, but kept his gaze fixed, for the
most part, on the rafters above their heads. He was the possessor of
a fluent flow of language, and a somewhat homely native wit that was
keen and stinging; and certain it was that his vituperation was in
no degree delicately barbed. Even the self-restraint of the elder
man was tested to the limit.
And presently, when the fine of twenty-five dollars and
costs—twenty-eight dollars and thirty cents, all told—had been
inflicted and paid over, the owner of the motor car released the
safety valve.
“Judge Wiggin,” he said, “I’m compelled to tell you that it has
never been my misfortune to witness a greater farce or a more
ridiculous travesty of justice. You made it absolutely evident that,
from the very beginning, your mind was made up and that you would
impose a fine, regardless of extenuating circumstances. You
practically warned us that any attempt at defense would merely
increase the sum of money you were determined to get out of us. Such
narrow-minded bigotry stamps you as a man unfit to represent this
district in the legislature.”
Nathan Wiggin bent a grim and steady eye upon him. “And them few
remarks,” he returned placidly, “constitute a clear case of
contempt, for which I shall have to tuck on another twenty-five
dollars, to preserve the dignity of the court. However, considering
the fact that the last time I heard you speak from the stump you
shot off a whole lot of balderdash, for all of which the so-called
intelligent voters of this State saw fit to elect you governor, I’ll
remit the fine. And discretion being the better part of valor, let
me suggest that you bottle up further seething criticism until we
both get outside, where, as man to man, we can tell each other jest
what we think, without mincin’ words.”