Even so, whispers Hope, that happens every day. Think of the lotteries—the odds in them are many thousands to one against the winning ticket; but one ticket _must_ win. There can be no—That’s it! “The reasonable doubt”! But there has been no defence. It is hopeless. Then the presumption of innocence? Ah, they will disagree; I know it, I am sure of juror number ----; I shall have another chance; but what will the jury do? Perhaps they will exonerate me. The third entry: 5 o’clock. I have gone over the merits of the case again, coolly, dispassionately. I have counted the points against me on the fingers of my right hand, and checked off the points in my favor on the left. I shall be convicted is my conclusion. How will they take it at home—my mother, my—Stop that! _Stop that!_ You are not to speculate on that subject; there must be no redness about the eyes, no twitching mouth when you face that jury for the last time. Use your brain—think of something else. I am sick of the case; it can have but one issue. I must drive it from my mind by some other subject. I must have a proposition to prove—anything. Why does time pass so slowly? for instance; that will do. It _is_ going slowly. This afternoon is a life-time—but why? That is a very good subject; it is an intensely real one. That this afternoon is “a life-time” is not only figurative—it is literal. Think of it; as long a life-time as you will, is composed of what? Of course I mean mentally—not what happens; that is hardly worth chronicling. What constitutes our interest in life? Surely it is because we cannot tell what the next day—or the next moment, for that matter—may bring forth. We hope, but uncertainty gives that hope its zest. Because we cannot discount the future, the unexpected is life, and life is Doubt. Can enough doubt be crowded into a few hours, or even minutes, to constitute a life-time? You will know it possible if you have ever waited—while the jury is out. This must be the secret of the drama—the mimic life—in which the aroused hopes and fears and sympathies are but other names for doubt. Imagine, then, the suspense, the doubt, of the waiting man in this play with real life or death, and concentrate the emotions of a whole audience into that single brain. The fourth entry: 6.30 o’clock. There is a noise in the street below. I look out of the window at the crowd; they are waiting also from curiosity. Newspapers are being sold—newspapers full of unjust and imaginary stories about me and mine. The journalists are eager to sell these inventions while interest in my case lasts, hence the newspapers are “extras.” While watching this I see the jury go to dinner in an old-fashioned white stage, such as used to carry passengers on Broadway. Perhaps it is the same stage in which I rode with my mother to Manhattanville thirty years ago—I a little fellow in kilt skirts and white stockings. How well I remember it! The fifth entry: 8 o’clock.