Hunter said stiffly: "I think you could trust me to prevent any nonsense of that kind." Warner studied him, dark eyes searching and sad in their slightly yellowed and bloodshot fields of white. Hunter went on: "Your hypothetical was a dilly, by the way. The defense introduces testimony at this point? You want the State to pack up and go home?" "Why wouldn't I?" "Fine! You going to claim the Volkswagen wasn't there?" Warner shook his head indifferently. Mann said: "T. J., I still want your view, on Welsh. I'd be half minded to throw the book, only I'm not sure Welsh is that important." "Well, I don't think she is, Judge. But I'm sort of indifferent. The facts of her testimony will remain with the jury, and that's all that concerns me. The contempt thing--important to the Court, and to me as a lawyer, but not so important to _People vs. Blake_." "For a prosecutor," said Warner, "you're curiously frank, T. J. Now that she's squeezed in her 'anything-in-pants' remark, you're content, you can go fishing--that's what you're saying." "Look here--" Judge Mann struck the desk lightly with the flat of his hand. "Cecil, do you have many more questions for her?" "Not many, Judge. Ought to be done in a few minutes, before one o'clock anyhow." "Hope so--I'm unjudicially hungry and I'll be glad to see the last of her. I'm not holding her in contempt, Cecil, unless she pulls another one. It's not quite justified, I'm not even too sure of the ground, and--" he rubbed out his cigarette, glancing at the somewhat frozen face of T. J. Hunter--"I particularly don't want to make a martyr out of her. Let's get back on the job." Maud Welsh's rigid face told him the ten minutes of anticipation might have been punishment enough. He had not intended that: merely a courtroom happen-so. "Miss Welsh, contempt of court is a serious thing. It must be, to preserve respect for law. For willfully disregarding the instructions given you about limiting your answers and avoiding prejudicial comments, you could, if this court so ordered, be severely punished." _There she goes sniffling, and to some of the jury she'll have the face of Mom._ "It is not the present intention of the Court to hold you in contempt. You are being let off with a warning, for the last time. Consider yourself fortunate. Mr. Warner?" "Miss Welsh, I quote to you certain words: 'Assume a virtue if you have it not.' Are those words familiar to you?" Her streaked face glowing, perhaps with relief, Maud Welsh also looked bewildered. "No--no, sir, I don't think so." "Have you ever read Shakespeare's play _Hamlet_?" "I'm sure we had it in school, but--" she smiled placatingly--"that's quite a while. I never get the time to read much." "Here are some other famous lines from the same source: 'Forgive me this my virtue; for in the fatness of these pursy times virtue itself of vice must pardon beg'--familiar?" "That's what I heard C'lista say to her mother." "Did you overhear anything else?"