So the jury was called back, and Mrs. Greening was excused, and Hammer wiped off the sweat and pushed back his cuffs. And the people who had come in from their farmsteads to hear this trial by jury--all innocent of the traditions and precedents of practice of the law--marveled how it could be. Why, nine people out of nine, all over the township where Sol Greening lived, would take his wife's word for anything where she and Sol had different versions of a story. It looked to them like Sol had told the truth in the first place to his wife, and lied on the witness-stand. And here she was, all ready to show the windy old rascal up, and they wouldn't let her. Well, it beat all two o'clock! Of course, being simple people who had never been at a university in their lives, they did not know that Form and Precedent are the two pillars of Strength and Beauty, the Jachin and Boaz at the entrance of the temple of the law. Or that the proper genuflections before them are of more importance than the mere bringing out of a bit of truth which might save an accused man's life. And so it stood before the jury that Sol Greening had knocked on the door of Isom Chase's kitchen that night and had not been bidden to enter, when everybody in the room, save the jury of twelve intelligent men--who had been taken out to keep their innocence untainted and their judgment unbiased by a gleam of the truth--knew that he had sat up there and lied. Hammer cooled himself off after a few minutes of mopping, and called Ollie Chase to the witness-chair. Ollie seemed nervous and full of dread as she stood for a moment stowing her cloak and handbag in her mother's lap. She turned back for her handkerchief when she had almost reached the little gate in the railing through which she must pass to the witness-chair. Hammer held it open for her and gave her the comfort of his hand under her elbow as she went forward to take her place. A stir and a whispering, like a quick wind in a cornfield, moved over the room when Ollie's name was called. Then silence ensued. It was more than a mere listening silence; it was impertinent. Everybody looked for a scandal, and most of them hoped that they should not depart that day with their long-growing hunger unsatisfied. Ollie took the witness-chair with an air of extreme nervousness. As she settled down in her cloud of black skirt, black veil, and shadow of black sailor hat, she cast about the room a look of timid appeal. She seemed to be sounding the depths of the listening crowd's sympathy, and to find it shallow and in shoals. Hammer was kind, with an unctuous, patronizing gentleness. He seemed to approach her with the feeling that she might say a great deal that would be damaging to the defendant if she had a mind to do it, but with gentle adroitness she could be managed to his advantage. Led by a question here, a helping reminder there, Ollie went over her story, in all particulars the same as she had related at the inquest.