n Watson attempted to tell how Patsy had injured his face in his
attempts to bat with his head, Watson was openly scouted and flouted,
and Judge Witberg again took him in hand.

"Are you aware of the solemnity of the oath you took to testify to
nothing but the truth on this witness stand?" the Judge demanded. "This
is a fairy story you are telling. It is not reasonable that a man would
so injure himself, and continue to injure himself, by striking the soft
and sensitive parts of his face against your head. You are a sensible
man. It is unreasonable, is it not?"

"Men are unreasonable when they are angry," Watson answered meekly.

Then it was that Judge Witberg was deeply outraged and righteously
wrathful.

"What right have you to say that?" he cried. "It is gratuitous. It has
no bearing on the case. You are here as a witness, sir, of events that
have transpired. The Court does not wish to hear any expressions of
opinion from you at all."

"I but answered your question, your Honor," Watson protested humbly.

"You did nothing of the sort," was the next blast. "And let me warn you,
sir, let me warn you, that you are laying yourself liable to contempt by
such insolence. And I will have you know that we know how to observe the
law and the rules of courtesy down here in this little courtroom. I am
ashamed of you."

And, while the next punctilious legal wrangle between the attorneys
interrupted his tale of what happened in the Vendome, Carter Watson,
without bitterness, amused and at the same time sad, saw rise before him
the machine, large and small, that dominated his country, the unpunished
and shameless grafts of a thousand cities perpetrated by the spidery
and vermin-like creatures of the machines. Here it was before him, a
courtroom and a judge, bowed down in subservience by the machine to a
dive-keeper who swung a string of votes. Petty and sordid as it was, it
was one face of the many-faced machine that loomed colossally, in every
city and state, in a thousand guises overshadowing the land.

A familiar phrase rang in his ears: "It is to laugh." At the height of
the wrangle, he giggled, once, aloud, and earned a sullen frown from
Judge Witberg. Worse, a myriad times, he decided, were these bullying
lawyers and this bullying judge then the bucko mates in first quality
hell-ships, who not only did their own bullying but protected themselves
as well. These petty rapscallions, on the other hand, sought protection
b