"Not a bit, yer 'Onor!" replied Jim in clarion tones. "You've nailed the wrong man, that's all. I took the ring, pawned it for five dollars, and sold the ticket to Monohan on the corner. I can't stand for his gettin' any fifteen years," he concluded, glancing expectantly at the spectators. A ripple of applause followed this declaration. "Hm!" commented his Honor. "How about the co-defendant in the case, identified here in the court-room? Do you exonerate _him_ as well?" "I've nothin' to do with _him_," answered Jim calmly. "I've got enough troubles of my own without shouldering any more. Only Monohan didn't have any hand in the job. You've got the boot on the wrong foot!" Young Mr. Dockbridge, the Deputy Assistant District Attorney, now asserted himself. "This is all very well," said he with interest, "but we must have it in the proper form. If your Honor will warn this person of his rights, and administer the oath, the stenographer may take his confession and make it a part of the record." Jim was accordingly sworn, and informed that whatever he was about to say must be "without fear or hope of reward," and might be used as evidence against him thereafter. In the ingenious and exhaustive interrogation which followed, the Judge, a noted cross-examiner, only succeeded in establishing beyond peradventure that Jim was telling nothing but the truth, and that Monohan was, in fact, entirely innocent. He therefore consented, somewhat ungraciously, to having the latter's conviction set aside and to his immediate discharge. "As for _this_ man," said he, "commit him to the Tombs pending his indictment by the Grand Jury, and see to it, Mr. District Attorney," he added with significance, "that he be brought before _me_ for sentence." Out into the balconies of the court-house swarmed the mob. Monohan had disappeared with his wife and child, not even pausing to thank his benefactor. It was enough for him that he had escaped from the meshes of the terrible net in which he had been entangled. From mouth to mouth sprang the wonderful story. It was shouted from one corridor to another, and from elevator to elevator. Like a wireless it flew to the District Attorney's office, the reporters' room, the Coroner's Court, over the bridge to the Tombs, across Centre Street into Tom Foley's, to Pontin's, to the Elm Castle, up Broadway, across to the Bowery, over to the Rialto, along the Tenderloin; it flashed to thieves in the act of picking pockets, and they paused; to "second-story men" plotting in saloons, and held them speechless; the "moll-buzzers" heard it; the "con" men caught it; the "britch men" passed it on. In an hour the whole under-world knew that Supple Jim had squealed on himself, had taken his dose to save a pal, had anteed his last chip, had "chucked the game." IV