"No, I don't recall the exact date. Perhaps you can," he emphasized, with a contemptuous twist of his black mustache. "It was the day I brought the sheriff there with a warrant for your arrest." Marvin, undaunted by this attempt to slander him, took occasion to give a thrust at Blodgett, who had been glaring at him all through the case. "Possibly the sheriff will remember the date," he said, with a smile, while Blodgett squirmed in his chair. "And you also met Mr. Thomas on that same day, did you not?" Hammond made no reply. It was his desire to make the court think that he and Thomas had never known each other previous to this transaction. He directed an imploring and searching squint toward Thomas. Receiving no help and seeing trouble in the gray pallor that had spread over Thomas's face, he floundered on, "Yes, I think that was the day I met Raymond Thomas--and Miss Buckley was there, too." "Are you sure you had never met Miss Buckley or Mr. Thomas before? In his office in San Francisco, for instance?" Hammond hesitated. He had been in Thomas's office several times while Millie was employed there, and, though he had not met her, it was more than likely that she had seen him. The moment was dangerous. "No, I don't think I had ever met them before," he said, slowly. "All right," said Marvin, nodding his head complacently and going closer to the witness-stand. "Mr. Hammond," he went on, "you have told the court that Mr. Jones was a lawbreaker." Hammond fairly jumped to this question. "Yes," he flared. "You were a fugitive from justice and Jones was harboring you in his house." Marvin smiled. "Didn't you just testify that Mrs. Jones was the sole owner of that house? That being so, how could Mr. Jones harbor a fugitive in his house, if he didn't own a house?" Caught in his own net, Hammond twisted angrily in his chair, reddening as the spectators laughed and the sheriff pounded for order. "Well, I don't suppose he could," he blurted. "Then you will withdraw the statement that he broke the law?" "Yes, I withdraw it," Hammond drawled. Bill got up smiling from his chair and went over to Marvin, patting him proudly on the shoulder; but a look from the judge and a snarl from Blodgett sent him back again. Marvin continued. "Now, up to the time you met Mr. Jones you did not know anything about him, did you?" Hammond shrugged, drawing his mouth into an angry curve. "Of course not, but it didn't take me long to find out about him." Marvin gave the arm of the witness-chair two angry thumps. "I agree with you there, Mr. Hammond," he said. "Eight hours after you first saw Mr. Jones he was driven from his house and you have never set eyes on him since. Yet you have testified that he is a drunkard, a loafer, a liar, and a lawbreaker!" Hammond, startled at the swiftness with which Marvin had turned his testimony to profit, shrugged himself into a straight position. "Well, it didn't take me one hour to see what Jones was," he said.