, simply order him to discharge the
prisoner. So, after dragging the culprit to the jail door to scare him
well and make his clemency the more impressive, he turned him over to
the others on condition that he would mount his mule and go straight
home and not come back again during the term. This Turkle was so glad to
do that he struck out at once for the stable at what Thompson called a
"turkey trot," and five minutes later he was galloping down the road,
swinging mightily on his sorrel mule, but whipping for life.

That night Thompson was much toasted about the court-house for his
humanity. Several of his admirers, indeed, got into somewhat the same
condition that Turkle had been in.

Even Dick Creel, who had come to court that day, lapsed from virtue and
fell a victim to the general hilarity.

III

The next morning when court was opened, the Judge was even more than
usually dignified and formal. The customary routine of the morning
was gone through with; the orders of the day before were read and
were signed by the Judge with more than wonted solemnity. The Clerk, a
benignant-looking old man with a red face and a white beard, took up his
book and adjusted his glasses to call the pending docket: the case of
"_Dolittle vs. Dolittle's Ex'ex._," and the array of counsel drew their
chairs up to the bar and prepared for the work of the day, when the
Judge, taking off his spectacles, turned to the Sheriff's desk.

"Mr. Sheriff, bring in that unfortunate inebriate whom I sentenced to
confinement in the gaol yesterday. The Court, while sensible of the
imperative necessity of protecting itself from all unseemly disorder and
preserving its dignity undiminished, nevertheless always leans to the
side of mercy. The Court trusts that a night's incarceration may have
sufficiently sobered and chastened the poor creature. The Court will
therefore give him a brief admonition and will then discharge him."

The Judge sat back in his large arm-chair and waited benignantly with
his gaze resting placidly in front of him, while a deathly silence fell
on the crowd and every eye in the courthouse was turned on the Sheriff.

Thompson, standing at his desk, was staring at the Judge with jaw
dropped and a dazed look like a man who had suddenly to face judgment.
He opened his lips twice as if to speak, then turned and went slowly out
of the court-house like a man in a dream, while those left behind looked
in each other's eyes, some hal