II
Carter Watson was genuinely angry. Not only had he been
wantonly assaulted, badly battered, and arrested, but the
morning papers without exception came out with lurid accounts
of his drunken brawl with the proprietor of the notorious
Vendome. Not one accurate or truthful line was published. Patsy
Horan and his satellites described the battle in detail. The
one incontestable thing was that Carter Watson had been drunk.
Thrice he had been thrown out of the place and into the gutter,
and thrice he had come back, breathing blood and fire and
announcing that he was going to clean out the place. "EMINENT
SOCIOLOGIST JAGGED AND JUGGED," was the first head-line he
read, on the front page, accompanied by a large portrait of
himself. Other headlines were: "CARTER WATSON ASPIRED TO
CHAMPIONSHIP HONORS"; "CARTER WATSON GETS HIS"; "NOTED
SOCIOLOGIST ATTEMPTS TO CLEAN OUT A TENDERLOIN CAFE"; and
"CARTER WATSON KNOCKED OUT BY PATSY HORAN IN THREE ROUNDS."
At the police court, next morning, under bail, appeared Carter
Watson to answer the complaint of the People Versus Carter
Watson, for the latter's assault and battery on one Patsy
Horan. But first, the Prosecuting Attorney, who was paid to
prosecute all offenders against the People, drew him aside and
talked with him privately.
"Why not let it drop!" said the Prosecuting Attorney. "I tell
you what you do, Mr. Watson: Shake hands with Mr. Horan and
make it up, and we'll drop the case right here. A word to the
Judge, and the case against you will be dismissed."
"But I don't want it dismissed," was the answer. "Your office
being what it is, you should be prosecuting me instead of
asking me to make up with this--this fellow."
"Oh, I'll prosecute you all right," retorted the Prosecuting
Attorney.
"Also you will have to prosecute this Patsy Horan," Watson
advised; "for I shall now have him arrested for assault and
battery."
"You'd better shake and make up," the Prosecuting Attorney
repeated, and this time there was almost a threat in his voice.
The trials of both men were set for a week later, on the same
morning, in Police Judge Witberg's court.
"You have no chance," Watson was told by an old friend of his
boyhood, the retired manager of the biggest paper in the city.
"Everybody knows you were beaten up by this man. His reputation
is most unsavory. But it won't help you in the least. Both
cases will be dismissed. This will be because you are you. Any
ordinary man would be convicted."
"But I do not understand," objected the perplexed sociologist.
"Without warning I was attacked by this man; and badly beaten.
I did not strike a blow. I--"
"That has nothing to do with it," the other cut him off.
"Then what is there that has anything to do with it?"
"I'll tell you. You are now up against the local police and
political machine. Who are you? You are not even a legal
resident in this town. You live up in the country. You haven't
a vote of your own here. Much less do you swing any votes. This
dive proprietor swings a string of votes in his precincts--a
mighty long string."
"Do you mean to tell me that this Judge Witberg will violate
the sacredness of his office and oath by letting this brute
off?" Watson demanded.
"Watch him," was the grim reply. "Oh, he'll do it nicely
enough. He will give an extra-legal, extra-judicial decision,
abounding in every word in the dictionary that stands for
fairness and right."
"But there are the newspapers," Watson cried.
"They are not fighting the administration at present. They'll
give it to you hard. You see what they have already done to
you."
"Then these snips of boys on the police detail won't write the
truth?"
"They will write something so near like the truth that the
public will believe it. They write their stories under
instruction, you know. They have their orders to twist and
color, and there won't be much left of you when they get done.
Better drop the whole thing right now. You are in bad."
"But the trials are set."
"Give the word and they'll drop them now. A man can't fight a
machine unless he has a machine behind him."
III
But Carter Watson was stubborn. He was convinced that the
machine would beat him, but all his days he had sought social
experience, and this was certainly something new.
The morning of the trial the Prosecuting Attorney made another
attempt to patch up the affair.
"If you feel that way, I should like to get a lawyer to
prosecute the case," said Watson.
"No, you don't," said the Prosecuting Attorney. "I am paid by
the People to prosecute, and prosecute I will. But let me tell
you. You have no chance. We shall lump both cases into one, and
you watch out."
Judge Witberg looked good to Watson. A fairly young man, short,
comfortably stout, smooth-shaven and with an intelligent face,
he seemed a very nice man indeed. This good impression was
added to by the smiling lips and the wrinkles of laughter in
the corners of his black eyes. Looking at him and studying him,
Watson felt almost sure that his old friend's prognostication
was wrong.
But Watson was soon to learn. Patsy Horan and two of his
satellites testified to a most colossal aggregation of
perjuries. Watson could not have believed it possible without
having experienced it. They denied the existence of the other
four men. And of the two that testified, one claimed to have
been in the kitchen, a witness to Watson's unprovoked assault
on Patsy, while the other, remaining in the bar, had witnessed
Watson's second and third rushes into the place as he attempted
to annihilate the unoffending Patsy. The vile language ascribed
to Watson was so voluminously and unspeakably vile, that he
felt they were injuring their own case. It was so impossible
that he should utter such things. But when they described the
brutal blows he had rained on poor Patsy's face, and the chair
he demolished when he vainly attempted to kick Patsy, Watson
waxed secretly hilarious and at the same time sad. The trial
was a farce, but such lowness of life was depressing to
contemplate when he considered the long upward climb humanity
must make.
Watson could not recognize himself, nor could his worst enemy
have recognized him, in the swashbuckling, rough-housing
picture that was painted of him. But, as in all cases of
complicated perjury, rifts and contradictions in the various
stories appeared. The Judge somehow failed to notice them,
while the Prosecuting Attorney and Patsy's attorney shied off
from them gracefully. Watson had not bothered to get a lawyer
for himself, and he was now glad that he had not.
Still, he retained a semblance of faith in Judge Witberg when
he went himself on the stand and started to tell his story.
"I was strolling casually along the street, your Honor," Watson
began, but was interrupted by the Judge.
"We are not here to consider your previous actions," bellowed
Judge Witberg. "Who struck the first blow?"
"Your Honor," Watson pleaded, "I have no witnesses of the
actual fray, and the truth of my story can only be brought out
by telling the story fully--"
Again he was interrupted.
"We do not care to publish any magazines here," Judge Witberg
roared, looking at him so fiercely and malevolently that Watson
could scarcely bring himself to believe that this was same man
he had studied a few minutes previously.
"Who struck the first blow?" Patsy's attorney asked.
The Prosecuting Attorney interposed, demanding to know which of
the two cases lumped together was, and by what right Patsy's
lawyer, at that stage of the proceedings, should take the
witness. Patsy's attorney fought back. Judge Witberg
interfered, professing no knowledge of any two cases being
lumped together. All this had to be explained. Battle royal
raged, terminating in both attorneys apologizing to the Court
and to each other. And so it went, and to Watson it had the
seeming of a group of pickpockets ruffling and bustling an
honest man as they took his purse. The machine was working,
that was all.
"Why did you enter this place of unsavory reputations?" was
asked him.
"It has been my custom for many years, as a student of
economics and sociology, to acquaint myself--"
But this was as far as Watson got.
"We want none of your ologies here," snarled Judge Witberg. "It
is a plain question. Answer it plainly. Is it true or not true
that you were drunk? That is the gist of the question."
When 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 behind
the majesty of the law. They struck, but no one was permitted
to strike back, for behind them were the prison cells and the
clubs of the stupid policemen--paid and professional fighters
and beaters-up of men. Yet he was not bitter. The grossness and
the sliminess of it was forgotten in the simple grotesqueness
of it, and he had the saving sense of humor.
Nevertheless, hectored and heckled though he was, he managed in
the end to give a simple, straightforward version of the
affair, and, despite a belligerent cross-examination, his story
was not shaken in any particular. Quite different it was from
the perjuries that had shouted aloud from the perjuries of
Patsy and his two witnesses.
Both Patsy's attorney and the Prosecuting Attorney rested their
cases, letting everything go before the Court without argument.
Watson protested against this, but was silenced when the
Prosecuting Attorney told him that Public Prosecutor and knew
his business.
"Patrick Horan has testified that he was in danger of his life
and that he was compelled to defend himself," Judge Witberg's
verdict began. "Mr. Watson has testified to the same thing.
Each has sworn that the other struck the first blow; each has
sworn that the other made an unprovoked assault on him. It is
an axiom of the law that the defendant should be given the
benefit of the doubt. A very reasonable doubt exists.
Therefore, in the case of the People Versus Carter Watson the
benefit of the doubt is given to said Carter Watson and he is
herewith ordered discharged from custody. The same reasoning
applies to the case of the People Versus Patrick Horan. He is
given the benefit of the doubt and discharged from custody. My
recommendation is that both defendants shake hands and make
up."
In the afternoon papers the first headline that caught Watson's
eye was: "CARTER WATSON ACQUITTED." In the second paper it was:
"CARTER WATSON ESCAPES A FINE." But what capped everything was
the one beginning: "CARTER WATSON A GOOD FELLOW." In the text
he read how Judge Witberg had advised both fighters to shake
hands, which they promptly did. Further, he read:
"'Let's have a nip on it,' said Patsy Horan.
"'Sure,' said Carter Watson.
"And, arm in arm, they ambled for the nearest saloon."
