on
after, and apparently thinking little of what had occurred."

"If honest Tony had not been too much engrossed with the cares of
usury," cried out Curtis from the dock, "he might have remembered that I
said to Rutledge, as he went out, 'The man that injures Joe Curtis owes
a debt that he must pay sooner or latter.'"

"I remember the words now," said Fagan.

"Ay, and so have I ever found it," said Curtis, solemnly. "There are few
who have gone through life with less good fortune than myself, and yet I
have lived to see the ruin of almost every man that has injured me!"

The savage vehemence with which he uttered these words caused a shudder
throughout the crowded court, and went even further to criminate him in
popular opinion than all that had been alleged in evidence.

When asked by the court if he desired to cross-examine the witness,
Curtis, in a calm and collected voice, replied:

"No, my Lord; Tony Fagan will lose a hundred and eighty pounds if you
hang me; and if he had anything to allege in my favor, we should have
heard it before this." Then, turning towards the jury-box, he went on:
"Now, gentlemen of the jury, there's little reason for detaining you any
longer. You have as complete a case of circumstantial evidence before
you as ever sent an innocent man to the scaffold. You have had the
traits of my temper and the tracks of my boots, and, if you believe
Colonel Vereker, the very tones of my voice, all sworn to; but, better
than all these, you have at your disposal the life of a man who is too
sick of the world to stretch out a hand to save himself, and who would
even accept the disgrace of an ignominious death for the sake of the
greater ignominy that is sure to fall later upon the unjust laws and
the corrupt court that condemned him. Ay!" cried he, with an impressive
solemnity of voice that thrilled through every heart, "you 'll array
yourselves in all the solemn mockery of your station; you 'll bewail my
guilt, and pronounce my sentence; but it is I, from this dock, say unto
you upon that bench, the Lord have mercy upon your souls!"

There was in the energy of his manner, despite all its eccentricity and
quaintness, a degree of power that awed the entire assembly; and more
than one trembled to think, "What if he really were to be innocent!"

While this singular address was being delivered, Fagan was engaged in
deep and earnest conversation with the Crown prosecutor; and from his
excited manner mig