f paper
containing the notes he had scrawled for guidance in his address. And
yet when he spoke it was with apparent calmness. Only the deep
tremulous notes of his voice betrayed his emotion.

"May it please your honour," he slowly began, "I wish to establish to
the court before I say anything in behalf of my client, the important
fact that he offered to make full restitution of the property taken,
that he did this voluntarily before he was even suspected of the crime,
and that his offer was refused."

The judge turned to Bivens's lawyers.

"Is this admitted, gentlemen?"

"Without question, your honour," was the instant answer.

The old Recorder lifted his gray eyebrows in surprise, and settled back
into his seat with a low grunt.

"I make the fair inference therefore in the beginning," Stuart went on
evenly, "that the prosecutor in the case, who appears in this court
to-day with an array of distinguished lawyers, whose presence is
unnecessary to serve the ends of justice, is here actuated solely by a
desire for personal vengeance."

Stuart paused and Bivens moved uneasily in his seat.

"I speak to-day, your honour, in behalf of the man who crouches by my
side overwhelmed with shame and grief and conscious dishonour because
he took a paltry package of jewellery from a man who has never added
one penny to the wealth of the world and yet has somehow gotten
possession of one hundred million dollars from those who could not
defend themselves from his strength and cunning. This man stands before
you now with no shame in his soul, no tears on his cheeks, and with
brazen effrontery demands vengeance on a weaker brother.

"Two men are on trial, not one. The majesty of the law has already been
vindicated in the tear-stained plea that has been entered. Between
these two men the court must decide.

"I am not here to defend the crime of theft. The law of property has
long been omnipotent. But I dare to plead with your honour to-day for
the beginning of a new, nobler, higher law of humanity--the law that
shall place man above his chattel. I shall not ask for the mercy of a
light sentence. I am going to appeal to this court for something
bigger, more divine. I am going to ask for justice under the higher law
of man, whose divine code is yet unwritten, but whose day is surely
dawning."

The judge leaned forward with one hand on his cheek, listening intently
to the young lawyer's quivering words. Bivens's face had grown l