Next morning he bought all the morning papers printed in English--there are still a considerable number of morning papers in Greater New York that are printed in English--and with a queer, strangled little beat of anticipatory pride in his throat-pulse he searched assiduously through all of them, page by page and heading by heading, for the account of his accident. He regarded that accident in a proprietary sense. If it wasn't his, whose then was it? Only one paper out of all the lot had seen fit to mention the affair. In a column captioned Small Brevities he found at last a single, miserable, puny six-line paragraph to the effect that a pedestrian--pedestrian, mind you!--giving his name as Charles Piffles, had been knocked down by an unidentified automobile, and after having been given first-aid treatment by Patrolman Roger P. Dugan, of the Peck's Slip Station, and receiving further attention at the hands of Ambulance Surgeon Max Loeb, who came from Battery Place Hospital in response to a call, was able to go to his home, at such and such an address, borough of Brooklyn. And even the house number as set down was incorrect. From that hour dated Chester K. Pilkins' firm and bitter belief in the untrustworthiness of the metropolitan press. The other time was when he was drawn on a panel for jury duty in the trial of a very fashionable and influential murderer. A hundred householders were netted in that venire, and of the number I daresay Chester Pilkins was the hundredth. With the ninety and nine others he reported at a given hour at a given courtroom, and there for two days he waited while slowly the yawning jury box filled with retired real-estate dealers and jobbers in white goods. Finally his own name was reached and the clerk called it out loudly and clearly. Shaking the least bit in his knees and gulping hard to keep his Adam's apple inside his collar, Mr. Pilkins took the stand and nervously pledged himself truthfully to answer all such questions as might be put to him touching on his qualifications for service in the case now on trial. He did answer them truthfully; more than that, he answered them satisfactorily. He had no conscientious scruples against the infliction of capital punishment for the crime of murder in the first degree. From his readings of the public prints he had formed no set and definite opinion as to the guilt or innocence of the accused. He was not personally acquainted with the deceased, with the prisoner at the bar, with the attorneys upon either side, with the officers who had made the arrest, with the coroner's physician who had conducted the autopsy, or with any one connected in any way with the case. He professed himself as willing to be guided by His Honour on the bench in all matters pertaining to the laws of evidence, while exclusively reserving the right to be his own judge of the weight and value of the testimony itself. So far, so good.