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in. "Captain Meagher is the first witness," said the policeman. "He's the one that's makin' the charge." "What is the charge?" put in Rogers. "At this distance I couldn't make out--Cap Meagher, he mumbles so," confessed the doorkeeper. "Somethin' about misuse of police property, I take it to be." "Aha!" gloated La Farge in his gratification. "Come on, Rogers--I don't want to miss any of this." It was plain, however, that they had missed something; for, to judge by his attitude, Captain Meagher was quite through with his testimony. He still sat in the witness chair alongside the deputy commissioner's desk; but he was silent and he stared vacantly at vacancy. Captain Meagher was known in the department as a man incredibly honest and unbelievably dull. He had no more imagination than one of his own reports. He had a long, sad face, like a tired workhorse's, and heavy black eyebrows that curved high in the middle and arched downward at each end--circumflexes accenting the incurable stupidity of his expression. His black mustache drooped the same way, too, in the design of an inverted magnet. Larry Magee had coined one of his best whimsies on the subject of the shape of the captain's mustache. "No wonder," he said, "old Meagher never has any luck--he wears his horseshoe upside down on his face!" Just as the two reporters, re-entering, took their seats the trial deputy spoke. "Is that all, Captain Meagher?" he asked sonorously. "That's all," said Meagher. "I note," went on Donohue, glancing about him, "that the accused does not appear to be represented by counsel." A man on trial at headquarters has the right to hire a lawyer to defend him. "No, sir," spoke up Weil briskly. "I've got no lawyer, commissioner." His speech was the elaborated and painfully emphasized English of the self-taught East Sider. It carried in it just the bare suggestion of the racial lisp, and it made an acute contrast to the menacing Hibernian purr of Donohue's heavier voice. "I kind of thought I'd conduct my own case myself." Donohue merely grunted. "Do you desire, Lieutenant Weil, for to ask Captain Meagher any questions?" he demanded. Weil shook his oily head of hair. "No, sir. I wouldn't wish to ask the captain anything." "Are there any other witnesses?" inquired Donohue next. There was no answer. Plainly there were no other witnesses. "Lieutenant Weil, do you desire for to say something in your own be
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