Mr. Pope then proceeded to say that the case was in a nutshell. The plaintiff had called a car; the driver of the car had pulled up his horses; it was a wet day, the wheels would not stop quickly, and Mrs. Stiles was in a hurry to get on; she tried to board the car while it was in motion, and was thrown off. Was there any law to make a railway company responsible for such accidents as this? or any railway company that would not go out of business immediately if it _were_ to be held so responsible? Then Mr. Pope called his witnesses. He was a very short time examining them; he bit his lips when he heard their answers. Mrs. Tarbell's cross-examination was also short. Alexander whispered to her to cut it short,--that the testimony was almost an admission of her case by itself. But to Mrs. Stiles all these things were terribly significant of victory for Mr. Pope; and the very fact that Mrs. Tarbell offered no rebutting testimony was somehow twisted into another evidence of approaching disaster by her poor stupid old mind. She hardly heard a word of Mrs. Tarbell's speech to the jury. She was looking forward in agony to what Mr. Pope would say. For she knew he was right. She knew that Mrs. Tarbell had been carried away by her sympathies; she was sure of it. Oh, why had she not gone to a gentleman lawyer? He would have advised her not to bring suit; at least he would have allowed her to accept that compromise. She was all alone. Celandine and Mr. Mecutchen had gone away somewhere,--gone to get some ice-cream: they would be back. Should she go and fling herself at Mr. Pope's feet and confess everything? When Mrs. Tarbell sat down there was a hum of applause, and the judge stopped waving his fan for a moment to give Mrs. Tarbell a scarcely-perceptible nod of approval. "If I know anything, it'll be a two-thousand-dollar werdick," mumbled one of the tipstaves. Then Mr. Pope got on his legs. He passed his hand over his face, and there was a countenance for you!--luminous, inspired, magical; a face one moment like to a running brook for poetry and liquid sentiment, the lines and wrinkles on it shifting about and rippling sweetly down into his chin, where they cascaded off, so to speak; the next moment like a mighty and rugged rock, a stronghold of security and protection, on which he presently smote, Moses-like, and the brook of which I spoke gushed out again. "You know already, gentlemen," said he, "my view of this case. I think that by this time it must be yours also." Mrs. Stiles moaned. Then Mr. Pope proved to the jury that it was utter nonsense for Mrs. Stiles's witnesses to pretend that they had seen the accident, because the ordinary pedestrian looks at his nose when he is walking, and not at the car-track. The jury smiled, the room grew hotter and hotter, and the judge whiter and whiter.