Hampstead, as he uttered the last words, had shifted his blazing glance
to Searle, who at first disconcerted and endeavoring to pull Miss Dounay
back into her seat, now rose and turned toward the defendant, his own
face aflame, and hot words poised upon his tongue.
But Judge Brennan was rapping for silence.
"Compose yourself, madam!" he ordered sternly.
But before the minister’s accusing glance, Miss Dounay was already
dropping back into her chair, and as if in dismay at her outbreak,
buried her face in her hands, while Searle, quivering with fury, snarled
out:
"I resent, your Honor, with all my manhood, the epithet which this
defendant has gratuitously and insultingly flung at me."
"Be seated, Mr. Searle," commanded the judge. "Doctor Hampstead’s
position is very distressing. He will withdraw the objectionable
epithet."
"I withdraw it," acknowledged the minister, recovering his poise; yet he
said it doggedly and uncompromisingly, qualifying his withdrawal with:
"But your Honor will take into account that the manner of the
representative of the District Attorney has been offensive to me, though
some of the time veiled by an exaggerated pretense of courtesy. It has
seemed to me the manner of an accomplice of the complaining witness, and
I withdraw the statement more out of respect to this Court than out of
consideration for him."
Searle glared, but resumed his seat, giving vent to his temper in a
violent jerk of his chair as he dropped into it.
"You may conclude your remarks," observed the Court to Hampstead.
"There is nothing to add," replied the minister, after a reflective
interval, "except to urge again that your Honor consider the grave
consequences of yielding to a one-sided view of the case. I ask only
that truth be honored and justice done!"
With this the defendant sat down.
Miss Dounay appeared to have regained her composure, but, white and
still, her glance was now fixed as noticeably upon the face of the
defendant as before she had markedly avoided it.
With a hitch to his vest and a forward thrust of the chin, Searle rose
to attack the plea of the defendant.
"Your Honor may well ask with Pilate: ’What is truth?’" he began, the
manner of his speech showing that while his self-control was admirable,
his mood was that vindictive one into which many a prosecutor appears to
work himself when arising to assail the cause of a defendant.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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