n from
something far more subtle--the tone of the voice, the expression of the
eyes, the lines of the face or even from an aura unperceived by the
senses. However that may be, the wisdom of the Constitutional safeguard
guaranteeing that every person charged with crime shall be confronted by
the witnesses against him was instantly made apparent when Mrs.
Tunnygate took the stand, for without hearing a word from her firmly
compressed lips the jury simultaneously swept her with one comprehensive
glance and turned away. Students of women, experienced adventurers in
matrimony, these plumbers, bird merchants "delicatessens" and the rest
looked, perceived and comprehended that here was the very devil of a
woman--a virago, a shrew, a termagant, a natural-born trouble-maker; and
they shivered and thanked God that she was Tunnygate's and not theirs;
their unformulated sentiment best expressed in Pope's immortal couplet:

Oh woman, woman! when to ill thy mind
Is bent, all hell contains no fouler fiend.

She had said no word. Between the judge and jury nothing had passed, and
yet through the alpha rays of that mysterious medium of communication
by which all men as men are united where woman is concerned, the
thought was directly transmitted and unanimously acknowledged that here
for sure was a hell cat!

It was as naught to them that she testified to the outrageous illegality
of the Appleboys' territorial ambitions, the irascibility of the wife,
the violent threats of the husband; or that Mrs. Appleboy had been
observed to mail a suspicious letter shortly before the date of the
canine assault. They disregarded her. Yet when Tutt upon
cross-examination sought to attack her credibility by asking her various
pertinent questions they unhesitatingly accepted his implied accusations
as true, though under the rules of evidence he was bound by her denials.

Peck 1: "Did you not knock Mrs. Appleboy's flower pots off the piazza?"
he demanded significantly.

"Never! I never did!" she declared passionately

But they knew in their hearts that she had.

Peck 2: "Didn't you steal her milk bottles?"

"What a lie! It's absolutely false!"

Yet they knew that she did.

Peck 3: "Didn't you tangle up their fish lines and take their
thole-pins?"

"Well, I never! You ought to be ashamed to ask a lady such questions!"

They found her guilty.

"I move to dismiss, Your Honor," chirped Tutt blithely at the conclusion
of her testimony.