The district attorney nodded briefly. The lawyers for the murderer, confabbing with their heads together, gave no sign of demur. The presiding justice, a large man, heavily moustached and with more chins than he could possibly need, who had been taking a light nap, was aroused by the hush which now befell and sat up, rustling in his black silk sleeping gown. Behind Chester Pilkins' waistcoat Chester Pilkins' heart gave a little gratified jump. He was about to be accepted; he would be in the papers. He saw a sketch artist, who sat just beyond the rail, squint at him from under his eyebrows and lower a pencil to a scratch pad which was poised upon a right kneecap. A picture would be published. What mattered it though this picture would purely look excessively unlike him? Would not the portrait be suitably labelled? Mentally he visualised the precious lines: Juror No. 9--Chester K. Pilkins, No. 373 Japonica Avenue; certified accountant; 39; married; no children. From somewhere back of the moustache His Honour's voice was heard rumbling forth hoarsely: "If-no-objections-from-either-side-let-juror-be-sworn." At Mr. Pilkins' side appeared a court functionary bearing a grimed and venerable volume containing many great truths upon its insides and many hungry germs upon its outside. Mr. Pilkins arose to his feet and stretched forth a slightly tremulous hand to rest it upon The Book. In this moment he endeavoured to appear in every outward aspect the zealous citizen, inspired solely by a sense of his obligations to himself and to the state. A sort of Old Roman pose it was. And in that same moment the blow fell and the alabaster vase was shattered. Senior counsel for the defence--the one with the long frock coat and the sobbing catch in his voice--bobbed up from where he sat. "Defence-excuses-this-gentleman," he grunted, all in one word, and sat down again. The artist scratched out a shadowy outline of the lobe of Mr. Pilkins' left ear and the southeastern slope of his skull--for already this talented draftsman had progressed thus far with the portrait--and in less than no time our Mr. Pilkins, surcharged now with a sense of injury and vaguely feeling that somehow his personal honour had been impugned, was being waved away from the stand to make room for a smallish, darkish gentleman of a Semitic aspect. With his thoughts in such turmoil that he forgot to take with him the bone-handled umbrella which he had carried for two years and better, he left the courtroom.