ged and incensed that such a crime should have been committed in
their law-abiding and respectable community. With whom does the fault
lie? On whose head is this murder? Not with the authorities, for they
do not countenance crime. Has it come to the pass that, counting on
juggleries of the law, criminals believe that they may kill, maim,
burn, and slay as they list without punishment? Is this to be another
instance of the law's delays and immunity for a hideous crime,
compassed by a cunning and cynical trickster of legal technicalities?
The people of Canaan cry out for a speedy trial, speedy conviction, and
speedy punishment of this cold-blooded and murderous monster. If he is
not dealt with quickly according to his deserts, the climax is upon us
and the limit of Canaan's patience has been reached.

"One last word, and we shall be glad to have its significance noted: J.
Louden, Esq., has been retained for the defence! The murderer, before
being apprehended by the authorities, WENT STRAIGHT FROM THE SCENE OF
HIS CRIME TO PLACE HIS RETAINER IN HIS ATTORNEY'S POCKET! HOW LONG IS
THIS TO LAST?"

The Tocsin was quoted on street corners that morning, in shop and store
and office, wherever people talked of the Cory murder; and that was
everywhere, for the people of Canaan and of the country roundabout
talked of nothing else. Women chattered of it in parlor and kitchen;
men gathered in small groups on the street and shook their heads
ominously over it; farmers, meeting on the road, halted their teams and
loudly damned the little man in the Canaan jail; milkmen lingered on
back porches over their cans to agree with cooks that it was an awful
thing, and that if ever any man deserved hanging, that there Fear
deserved it--his lawyer along with him! Tipsy men hammered bars with
fists and beer-glasses, inquiring if there was no rope to be had in the
town; and Joe Louden, returning to his office from the little
restaurant where he sometimes ate his breakfast, heard hisses following
him along Main Street. A clerk, a fat-shouldered, blue-aproned,
pimple-cheeked youth, stood in the open doors of a grocery, and as he
passed, stared him in the face and said "Yah!" with supreme disgust.

Joe stopped. "Why?" he asked, mildly.

The clerk put two fingers in his mouth and whistled shrilly in
derision. "You'd ort to be run out o' town!" he exclaimed.

"I believe," said Joe, "that we have never met before."

"Go on, you shyste