f us all" does human sympathy play ducks
and drakes with conscience? Does it blind the eye of reason? Rather,
does it not illumine and expose the fallacies of logic and the falsities
of the syllogism? Do two and two make four in human polity as in
mathematics? Sometimes it would not seem so.

Certainly you would have picked Mr. Bently Gibson, of The Gibson Woolen
Mills, as a model juror. One look at him as a prospective talesman in a
murder case and you would have unhesitatingly murmured, "The defense
challenges peremptorily!" His broad forehead, large well-shaped nose,
firm chin and clear calm eye evidenced his common sense, his
conscientiousness and his uncompromising adherence to principle. His
customs declarations were complete to the smallest item, his income-tax
returns models of self-sacrifice, he was patriotic and civic, he
belonged to the Welfare League and the Citizens' Union, and--I hesitate
to confess it--he subscribed to the annual deficit of the Society for
the Suppression of Sin. On the face of it, he was the kind of man the
district attorney tries to select as foreman of a jury when he has to
prosecute a woman who had kidnaped her own child out of a foundling
asylum.

The heelers and hangers-on of the criminal courts would have described
him as a highbrow and as a holier-than-thou; perhaps he might in a
moment of jocularity have even so described himself--for he had his
human--perhaps I should have said, his weaker--side. Surely he seemed
human enough when he kissed Eleanor good-by at the door of their country
place on the Sound the morning he had been subpoenaed to serve as a
juryman in Part Five of the General Sessions. He had planned to take a
week's holiday that spring, and he had gone to infinite trouble to
arrange his business in order to have it, for they had become engaged
eleven years before at the moment when the apple blossoms and the
dogwoods were at the height of their glory, even as they were now.

When, however, he found the brown subpoena at his office directing him
to present himself for service the following Monday he simply gave a
half sigh, half grunt of disgust, and let the longed-for vacation go;
for one of his pet theories was that the jury system was the chief
bulwark of the Constitution, the cornerstone of liberty. Had he only
been disingenuous enough he need never have served on any jury, for no
lawyer for the defense hearing him enlarge on what he considered the
duties of a