Her nose? Sampson hadn't the faintest idea how to describe a nose.
Noses, he maintained, are industrial or economic devices provided by
nature for the sole purpose of harbouring colds, and are either lovely
or horrid. There is no intermediate class in noses. You either have
a nose that is fearfully noticeable or you have one that isn't. A
noticeable nose is one that completely and adequately describes itself,
sparing you the effort, while the other kind of a nose--such as Miss
Hildebrand's--is one that you wouldn't see at all unless you made an
especial business of it. That sort of a nose is simply a part of one's
face. There are faces, on the other hand, as you know, that are merely a
part of one's nose.
His rather hasty analysis of yesterday was supported by the more
deliberate observations of to-day. She was a cool-headed, discerning
young woman, and not offensively clever as so many of her sex prove
to be when it is revealed to them that they possess the power to
concentrate the attention of men. Her interest in the proceedings was
keen and extremely one-sided. She was not at all interested in the men
who failed to come up to her notion of what a juror ought to be. It was
always she who put the final stamp of approval on the jurors selected.
Two or three times she unmistakably overcame the contentions of her
grandfather's counsel, and men got into the box who, without her
support, would have been challenged--and rightly, too, thought Sampson.
No. 7 for instance. He certainly was not an ideal juror for the
defendant, thought Sampson. And the fat little bachelor--why, he
actually had admitted under oath that he knew the district attorney
and a number of his assistants, and was a graduate of Yale. But Miss
Hildebrand picked him as a satisfactory juror.
Sampson's reflections--or perhaps his ruminations--were brought to an
end by the completion of the jury. The last man accepted was a callow
young chap with eye-glasses, who confessed to being an automobile
salesman.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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