as not a single shady
transaction in which we had participated, not one attempt at
blackmail, not a crooked defence that we had interposed that he
had not investigated and stood prepared to question us about in
detail.

"What shall we do?" whispered Gottlieb nervously. "Do you want to
take the stand?"

"How can we?" I asked petulantly. "If we did we should be convicted
--not for this but for every other thing we ever did in our lives.
Let's take a chance and go to the jury on the case as it stands."

After consulting with our counsel, the latter agreed that this was
the best course to pursue; and so, rising, he informed the court
that in his opinion no case had been made out against us and that
we should, therefore, interpose no defence. This announcement
caused a great stir in the court-room, and I could see by the faces
of the jury that it was all up with us. I had already surrendered
all hope of an acquittal and I looked upon the verdict of the jury
as a mere formality.

"Proceed, then, with the summing up," ordered the judge. "I wish
the jury to take this case and finish it to-night."

So, with that, our counsel began his argument in our behalf--a lame
and halting effort it seemed to me, for all that we had paid him
twenty-five thousand dollars for his services--pointing out how
neither Dillingham nor Hawkins was worthy of belief, and how the
case against us rested entirely upon their testimony and upon that
of the clerk, who was an insignificant and unimportant witness
injected simply for the sake of apparent corroboration. Faugh!
I have heard Gottlieb make a better address to the jury a thousand
times, and yet this man was supposed to be one of the best! Somehow
throughout the trial he had seemed to me to be ill at ease and sick
of his job, a mere puppet in the mummery going on about us; yet we
had no choice but to let him continue his ill-concealed plea for
mercy and his wretched rhetoric, until the judge stopped him and
said that his time was up.

When the district attorney arose and the jury turned to him with
uplifted faces, then, for the first time, I realized the real
attitude of the community toward us; for in scathing terms he
denounced us both as men not merely who defended criminals but who,
in fact, created them; as plotters against the administration of
justice; as arch-crooks, who lived off the proceeds of crimes which
we devised and planned for others to execute. It was false and
un