By Advice of Counsel

Now right here is where this story begins—only here.

"Vell, gen'l'muns," said the foreman, who was a glove merchant and looked like Sam Bernard, as they took their seats round the battered oak table. "Vot you say? Shall we disguss or take a vote?"

"Let's take a smoke!" amended a real-estate broker. "No use goin' back right off and getting stuck onto another damn case! Where's that cuspidor?"

"Speakin' of veterinaries," chuckled a man with three rolls of fat on his neck, "did y'ever hear the story of the negro and the mule with the cough?"

None of them apparently ever had, so the stout brother told all about how—ha, ha!—the mule coughed first.

"I remember that story now," remarked one of the jury reminiscently while the fat man glared at him. "If I had my way all these veterinaries would be in jail! They're a dangerous lot. I had a second cousin once who'd paid a hundred dollars—a hundred dollars!—for a horse and it got the colic. So he called in a veterinary and it died."

"Well, the vet didn't kill it, did he?" inquired the fat man scornfully.

"My cousin always claimed he did!" replied the other solemnly. "There was some mistake about what he gave the horse—wood alcohol or something—I forget what it was. Anyhow, I think they're all a dangerous lot. They all ought to be locked up. I move to convict!"

"But neither of these fellers is a veterinary!" retorted a sad-looking gentleman in black. "The charge is that one of 'em pretended to be—but wasn't. So if he wasn't how could you convict him of being a veterinary?"

"Well, if he had been I'd have convicted him all right," asserted the first. "They're dangerous—like all these clairvoyants and soothsayers."

"Will somebody tell me?" requested a tall man who had been looking intently out of the window, "whether a veterinary is the same thing as a veterinarian? I always supposed a veterinarian was a sort of religion, like a Unitarian. Veteran means old—I thought it was some old form of religion; or a feller who didn't believe in eatin' meat."

"Lead that nut out!" shouted somebody. "Let's get busy. The question is: Did this old guy pretend he was a horse doctor when he wasn't? I say he did."

"Let's take a vote," suggested Bently.

"Vell, let's understand vat we're doin'," admonished the foreman. "Do you gen'l'muns all understand that we're tryin' to convict this feller for doctoring a horse without a prescription?"

"You mean a license, don't you?" inquired Bently.

"Sure—a license. All right! Let's get a vote."

The first ballot resulted in seven for acquittal, four for conviction, and one blank—Bently's.

"I don't know who the fellers are that voted for acquittal!" suddenly announced a juror with a red face. "But I know this Brown personally, and he's all right. You can rely on him absolutely. He goes to the same place as me in the summer—Cottage Point. If any of you gentlemen want a good quiet place—"

"Any mosquitoes?" inquired an unknown irreverently.

"No more'n anywheres else near New York."

They took another ballot and found that the juryman who knew Brown had brought over two others to conviction, so that the jury was now evenly divided, Bently voting irresponsibly for acquittal.

"Look here!" proposed the man in black. "Let's argue this out. Suppose I put the various propositions and you vote on 'em each separately."

"Shoot ahead!" adjured somebody.

"Now, first, all who think this defendant claimed to be a veterinary say aye."

"Wait a minute!" interposed the tall man, who was still standing by the window. "Maybe I am a nut. But I wish someone would explain to me which is the defender. I thought Mr. Tutt was the defender."

"Oh, my Lord!" groaned a flabby salesman in a pink tie. "Defend-ant—a-n-t—remember your ant! He's the man we're trying! The other one is the complainant!"

"The only one that had any complaint was the horse", protested the tall man. "But I understand now—we're tryin' the defendant. I've never served on a jury before. Now, what's the question?"

"Did the defendant—ant—claim to be a licensed veterinary—when he wasn't?"

"Now wait a second," objected the tall man again. "I want to get this straight. Is it the point that if this old man pretended he was a horse doctor when he wasn't he has to go to jail?"

"Sure."

"But the other man pretended he was a doctor."

"But he was trying to trick the defendant."

"But the first feller wasn't a doctor any more than the other feller. Why not convict the first feller?"

There was a chorus of groans from about the table.

"You ought not to be here at all!" remarked the salesman acidly. "You're simple-minded, you are! You keep still now and vote with the majority, or we'll tell the judge on you!"

The tall man subsided.

"Vell," suddenly interjected the foreman, "he admitted he was guilty in the bolice gourt."

"Sure!" "That's so!" "Pass the box again!" came from all hands.

When the foreman had counted the ballots Bently was horrified to discover that ten jurors now thought the defendant guilty, and only two believed him innocent.

"May I suggest," said he earnestly, "that perhaps this old man did not understand in the magistrate's court the elements that went to make up the offense charged against him? He merely stood ready to admit freely whatever the facts were. His opinion on the purely legal question of his own guilt was not of much value. Anyhow, his subsequent plea of not guilty to the indictment neutralizes the significance of the original plea."

There was a murmur of surprise and admiration from Bently's companions.

"That's true, too!" declared the salesman. "I never thought of that! You're some talker—you are, I must say! But how about that business card?"

"It seems to me," argued Bently, "that the card plays no particular part in this case. In the first place the question before us is not whether Lowry ever did—in the past—hold himself out as a veterinary, but whether he did so on the day alleged in the indictment. The fact that he gave the detective a card which he had had printed perhaps years before only tends to show that at some time or other he may have pretended to be a licensed veterinary. And you will recall, gentlemen, that the testimony is merely that he said to the detective in reference to the card: 'That is my name.' He did not say anything to him about being a veterinary."

This somewhat disingenuous argument created a profound impression.

"Say, now you've said something!" declared the salesman. "You'd oughta been a lawyer yourself. Let's take another vote."

Curiously enough Bently's argument seemed to have had a revolutionary effect, for the jury now stood ten to two for acquittal. He began to feel encouraged. If ever there was a case— Then he heard an altercation going on fiercely between the salesman and Brown's summer friend, the latter insisting loudly that the detective was a perfect gentleman and entirely all right.

"Nobody questions Mr. Brown's entire honesty," interposed Bently hastily, in a friendly way. "The question before us is the sufficiency of the evidence. Upon this, it seems to me, there is what might fairly be called a reasonable doubt."

"And you have to give that to the defendant—it's the law!" shouted the salesman in fury.

It was at this point that Mr. Tutt and Phelan had taken up their positions outside the door, and the friend of Brown had told the salesman that he gave him a pain; that his doubt wasn't a reasonable doubt.

"Gentlemen! Gentlemen!" protested Bently. "Let us discuss this matter calmly."