“Why, sir, if anybody be guilty here, I am the one. But a short while ago I was his guest in that little kingdom hedged by the mountain and the glacier. I sang to him the stirring songs of our country. Those songs of which the theme is liberty alone! I thrilled his very soul with the tales of its freedom and justice and equality. I watched his nostrils expand at the words of our great battle-hymn. I beguiled him here with these things—though I did not mean to. And he came—to you, Columbia, land of the brave, who hold out your arms to all the nations of the earth and cry Come! You—you—who invited him! And you meet him with pistol and club and shackles; the home of the free is a prison! He begs for a crust, and you give him a bullet. And what has he done? He has but entered the door you hold open to him. And what will you do? Sick, wounded, and miserable—in peril of his life—at your own hands—what is your verdict? He is in your keeping. And as you hope for mercy at the great day, as you respect the sanctity of your oath, deal in justice and mercy with this stranger who has come within your opened gates—” “One of the difficulties of the young lawyer is to know when he is done,” says the district attorney, slyly, leaning his elbow on the bench and speaking to the judge. The judge nods in a certain gastric irritation which is not well for either the prisoner or his counsel, but answers nothing. “And to cease from college orations in a court of law. Somewhere these things should be taught as part of the law course. I am not aware that they are.” The champion perspires and plunges on—when he had better stop—as any one but he—even the meanest of the benchers—can see. “And there are others in your—keeping, beyond that moaning sea—beside that desolate mountain—by that frozen glacier—on that little spot of earth where the ice always threatens. There they sit desolated—by the graves of their kindred—waiting for him. For he came to make a home for them. Will you send him back to them? Will you send them even the wreck you have made of him? So that he may die there and lie with his fathers? So that he may once more embrace his young wife? Touch the hand of blind Agra? Make smile again simple Lars?” The advocate pauses a moment and his face grows stern with the duty he has set himself.