y loss. Still, if you think you're
all ready, and want to take the chance----"

He knew I did, and was only egging me on. What he and all the rest of
them were working for was to get me out of the way as swiftly as
possible. I knew this afterward, after I had time to think it out and
piece it together; and God knows, they gave me all the time I needed to
do the thinking.

So, with the prisoner's counsel making no motion to the contrary, the
trial date stood, and shortly I found myself in the dock, with good old
Judge Haskins peering down at me over the top of his spectacles. Like
many of the older people in the county, the judge had known my father
well, and I am willing to believe that it was not easy for him to sit
in judgment upon that father's son.

The trial was fair enough, as such things go. In the selection of the
jury, Whitredge made free use of his challenging privilege; but it
seemed to me that he always objected to the intelligent man and chose
the other kind. When our Anglo-Saxon ancestors fought for the right of
trial by jury, and got it, they passed down to us a sword with two
edges. Their idea, which was embodied in the common law, was that a
man should be tried by a jury of his peers. But the way things have
worked out, the man of average intelligence is apt to have to face a
dozen jurors who are chosen partly for their lack of intelligence, and
partly because their earning ability is so low that they are willing to
serve for the paltry wage of a juror, whatever it may be.

So far as the presentation of the case went, the county attorney had it
all his own way. Certain of the bank's moneys were missing, and they
had been replaced by worthless mining stock. Specifically, the charge
was that I had been borrowing the bank's money and investing it in the
mining stock--all without authority from anybody higher up--and that at
the last I had grown panic-stricken, or something, and had turned the
stock in as part of the bank's assets.

Chandler, the prosecuting attorney, called only two witnesses, Withers
and Fitch. They both testified that they had heard me admit that I was
guilty. There were no details given which could involve Agatha Geddis.
It was merely stated that my admission of guilt was made at Abel
Geddis's house, and both witnesses asserted that Geddis himself was not
present.

Whitredge leaned over and whispered to me while this evidence was being
taken.

"Chandler knows, and w