The court-room rapidly emptied itself into the corridors. Supple Jim waited on the steps of the building until a young woman, carrying a baby, came wearily out, and, as she passed, thrust a roll of bills into her hand. "Your feller's been _done dirt_!" he growled. "Take that, and put it out of sight. Don't give it to any _lawyer_, now! You'll need it yourself." Then he sprang lightly upon the rear platform of a surface car as it whizzed by, and vanished from her astonished gaze. Thus was an innocent man convicted, while crime triumphant played the part of benefactor. II The next morning Supple Jim, sitting in the warm sunshine in the bay-window of his favorite restaurant, lazily finished a hearty breakfast of ham and eggs, glancing casually, meanwhile, at the morning paper which lay open before him. At a respectful distance his attendant awaited the moment when this important guest should snap his fingers, demand his damage, and call for a Carolina Perfecto. These would be forthcoming with alacrity, for Mr. James Hawkins was more of an autocrat on Fourteenth Street than a Pittsburg oil magnate at the Waldorf. Just now the Supple James was reading with keen enjoyment how, the day before, a quick-witted old gentleman had brought a malefactor to justice. At one of the paragraphs he broke into a gentle laugh, perusing it again and again, apparently with intense enjoyment. Had ever such a farce been enacted in the course of justice! He tossed away the paper and swore softly. Of course, the only thing that had rendered such a situation possible at all was the fact that the aged Farlan was a superlative old ass. To hear him tell his yarn on the stand, you would have thought that it gave him positive pain to testify against a fellow being. Did you ever see such white hair and such a big white beard? Why, he looked like Dowie or Moses, or some of those fellows. When Jim had tripped him up and slipped off the ring, the old chap had already swallowed half a dozen "County Antrims," and wasn't in a condition to remember anything or anybody. The idea of his going so piously into court and swearing the thing on to Monohan; it gave you the creeps! A fellow might go to "the chair" as easy as not, in just the same way. Of course, Jim had not intended to get the young greenhorn into any trouble when he had sold him the pawn-ticket. He had been just an easy mark. And when the police had arrested him and found the ticket in his pocket, there was not any call for Jim to set them straight. That was just Monohan's luck, curse him! Let him look out for himself. But to see the patriarch carefully forging the shackles upon the wrong man, had filled Jim with a wondering and ecstatic bewilderment. The stars in their courses had seemed warring in his behalf.