g for a friend to come in
who boards at the St. Charles."

A sudden laugh ran through the room. "Silence in court!" cried a deputy.

"Who is your friend?" asked the recorder.

The prisoner was silent.

"What is your friend's name?"

Still the prisoner did not reply. One of the group of pettifoggers
sitting behind him leaned forward, touched him on the shoulder, and
murmured: "You'd better tell his name. It won't hurt him, and it may
help you." The prisoner looked back at the man and shook his head.

"Did you strike this officer?" asked the recorder, touching the witness,
who was resting on both elbows in the light arm-chair on the right.

The prisoner made a low response.

"I don't hear you," said the recorder.

"I struck him," replied the prisoner; "I knocked him down." The court
officers below the dais smiled. "I woke and found him spurning me with
his foot, and I resented it. I never expected to be a law-breaker.
I"-- He pressed his temples between his hands and was silent. The
men of the law at his back exchanged glances of approval. The case was,
to some extent, interesting.

"May it please the court," said the man who had before addressed the
prisoner over his shoulder, stepping out on the right and speaking very
softly and graciously, "I ask that this man be discharged. His fault
seems so much more to be accident than intention, and his suffering so
much more than his fault"--

The recorder interrupted by a wave of the hand and a preconceived smile:
"Why, according to the evidence, the prisoner was noisy and troublesome
in his cell all night."

"O sir," exclaimed the prisoner, "I was thrown in with thieves and
drunkards! It was unbearable in that hole. We were right on the damp
and slimy bricks. The smell was dreadful. A woman in the cell opposite
screamed the whole night. One of the men in the cell tried to take my
coat from me, and I beat him!"

"It seems to me, your honor," said the volunteer advocate, "the prisoner
is still more sinned against than sinning. This is evidently his first
offence, and"--

"Do you know even that?" asked the recorder.

"I do not believe his name can be found on any criminal record. I"--

The recorder interrupted once more. He leaned toward the prisoner.

"Did you ever go by any other name?"

The prisoner was dumb.

"Isn't John Richling the only name you have ever gone by?" said his new
friend: but the prisoner silently blushed to the roots of his hair and
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