that case there would be no money to pay the great lawyer whom they must
at once engage to defend her son--Mr. Hogan, one who had the pull and
called all the judges by their first names. He would not usually go into
court for less than five hundred dollars, but Mr. Simpkins said he would
explain the circumstances to him and could almost promise Mrs. Mathusek
that he would persuade him to do it this once for one hundred and fifty.
So well did he act his part that Tony's mother had to force him to take
the money, which she unsewed from inside the ticking of her mattress.
Then he conducted her to the station house to show her how comfortable
Tony really was and how much better it was to let him stay in jail one
night and make sure of his being turned out the next afternoon by giving
the money to Mr. Hogan, than to use it for getting bail for him and
leave him lawyerless and at the mercy of his accusers. When Mrs.
Mathusek saw the cell Tony was in she became even more frightened than
she had been at first. But by that time she had already given the money
to Simpkins.

Second thoughts are ofttimes best. Most crooks are eventually caught
through their having, from long immunity, grown careless and yielded to
impulse. Once he had signed the complaint in which he swore that he had
seen Tony throw the brick, Delany had undergone a change of heart. Being
an experienced policeman he was sensitive to official atmosphere, and he
had developed a hunch that Judge Harrison was leery of the case. The
more he thought of it the less he liked the way the son-of-a-gun had
acted, the way he'd tried to get Mathusek to ask for an immediate
hearing. Why had he ever been such a fool as to sign the complaint
himself? It had been ridiculous--just because he was mad at the boy for
trying to get away and wanted to make things easy for Froelich. If he
went on the stand the next afternoon he'd have to make up all sorts of
fancy details, and Hogan would have his skin neatly tacked to the barn
doors for keeps. Thereafter, no matter what happened, he'd never be able
to change his testimony. After all, it would be easy enough to abandon
the charge at the present point. It was a genuine case of cold feet. He
scented trouble. He wanted to renig while the renigging was good. What
in hell had Froelich ever done for him, anyhow? A few measly pieces of
roast!

When Hogan returned home that evening with the little Hogans from the
movies he found the cop waiting