The next morning when court was opened, the Judge was even more than usually dignified and formal. The customary routine of the morning was gone through with; the orders of the day before were read and were signed by the Judge with more than wonted solemnity. The Clerk, a benignant-looking old man with a red face and a white beard, took up his book and adjusted his glasses to call the pending docket: the case of “_Dolittle vs. Dolittle's Ex'ex._,” and the array of counsel drew their chairs up to the bar and prepared for the work of the day, when the Judge, taking off his spectacles, turned to the Sheriff's desk. “Mr. Sheriff, bring in that unfortunate inebriate whom I sentenced to confinement in the gaol yesterday. The Court, while sensible of the imperative necessity of protecting itself from all unseemly disorder and preserving its dignity undiminished, nevertheless always leans to the side of mercy. The Court trusts that a night's incarceration may have sufficiently sobered and chastened the poor creature. The Court will therefore give him a brief admonition and will then discharge him.” The Judge sat back in his large arm-chair and waited benignantly with his gaze resting placidly in front of him, while a deathly silence fell on the crowd and every eye in the courthouse was turned on the Sheriff. Thompson, standing at his desk, was staring at the Judge with jaw dropped and a dazed look like a man who had suddenly to face judgment. He opened his lips twice as if to speak, then turned and went slowly out of the court-house like a man in a dream, while those left behind looked in each other's eyes, some half scared and others more than half amused. Outside, Thompson stopped just between two of the great pillars. He rammed his hands deep in his pockets and gazed vacantly over the court-green and up the road. “What will he do with you! Remove you!” asked two or three friends who had slipped out of the door behind him and now stood about him. “He 'll put me in jail--_and_ remove me.” ***** “No matter if he says black 's white and white 's black, don't you open your mouth or you 'll get it. It 's much as I can do to keep you out of jail this minute.” “But, Sheriff--! But, Aleck--! Just wait a minute! I don't----” The next instant he was inside the courthouse and the Sheriff was marching him up the aisle between the upturned faces. He planted him at the bar immediately before the Court, pulling off his hat in such a way as to drag his hair over his face and give him an even more dishevelled appearance than before. Then he moved around to his own desk, keeping his eye fixed piercingly on the astonished Creel's bewildered face. A gasp went over the court-room, and the Bar stared at the prisoner in blank amazement.