e and the district
attorney has not sought to prove any, my learned and eloquent adversary,
Mr. Magnus, having a proper regard for the constitutional rights of
every unfortunate whom he brings to the bar of justice. If therefore I
can prove to you that Mr. Higgleby was never lawfully married to
Tomascene Startup in Chicago on the eleventh of last May or at any other
time, the allegation of bigamy falls to the ground; at any rate so far
as this indictment is concerned. For unless the indictment sets forth a
valid prior marriage it is obvious that the subsequent marriage cannot
be bigamous. Am I clear? I perceive by your very intelligent facial
expressions that I am. Well, my friends, Mr. Higgleby never was lawfully
married to Tomascene Startup last May in Chicago, and you will therefore
be obliged to acquit him! Come here, Mr. Smithers."

Caput Magnus suddenly experienced the throes of dissolution. Who was
Smithers? What could old Tutt be driving at? But Smithers--evidently the
Reverend Sanctimonious Smithers--was already placidly seated in the
witness chair, his limp hands folded across his stomach and his thin
nose looking interrogatively toward Mr. Tutt.

"What is your name?" asked the lawyer dramatically.

"My name is Oswald Garrison Smithers," replied the reverend gentleman in
Canton-flannel accents, "and I reside in Pantuck, Iowa, where I am
pastor of the Reformed Lutheran Church."

"Do you know the defendant?"

"Indeed I do," sighed the Reverend Smithers. "I remember him very well.
I solemnized his marriage to a widow of my congregation on July 4, 1917;
in fact to the relict of our late senior warden, Deacon Pellatiah
Higgins. Sarah Maria Higgins was the lady's name, and she is alive and
well at the present time."

He gazed deprecatingly at the jury. If meekness had efficacy he would
have inherited the earth.

"What?" ejaculated the foreman. "You say this man is married to _three_
women?"

"Trigamy--not bigamy!" muttered the clerk, _sotto voce_.

"You have put your finger upon the precise point, Mister Foreman!"
exclaimed Mr. Tutt admiringly. "If Mr. Higgleby was already lawfully
married to a lady in Iowa when he married Miss--or Mrs.--Startup in
Chicago last May, his marriage to the latter was not a legal marriage;
it was in fact no marriage at all. You can't charge a man with bigamy
unless you recite a legal marriage followed by an illegal one.
Therefore, since the indictment fails to set forth a lega