"Well, no, I kind of let the wife do the heavy reading." Crowd laughter mildly rumbled; Anson evidently didn't mind it. "Have you ever been the victim of a robbery or burglary?" "No, sir, never was." Routine questions continued a while, Hunter relaxed and casual yet really wasting no time.... "Mr. Anson, my next question has been under a good deal of discussion in recent years. Like any good citizen, you must have given it thought. Have you, sir, any conscientious objection to the death penalty?" "Well ..." The man was unhappy. "I been asking myself that, ever since I got called. All's I can say, if I was certain-sure about the guilt, I mean the first-degree thing, I wouldn't hesitate to vote for the ch--for the death penalty--if I was certain-sure, that's what I'd have to do." "And you would do it?" "I would," said Mr. Anson. "Seems--seems only right." Another yawn assailed the Judge. He groped for causes of his weariness other than lack of sleep. "_The world is too much with us_--" if too much for Wordsworth long ago, what about now? A tractor-trailer answered the thought, groaning through the street three stories below, a Cyclops in anguish, rattling windows, sending elderly foundations into a sympathetic shudder. Judge Mann wondered if he might be coming down with a cold. II Edith Nolan studied eleven faces, and the twelfth now giving the prosecutor stiffly reasonable answers. She wondered if Cecil Warner would dislike, as she did, Mr. Francis Fielding's buttoned-in upper lip. A statistician in the records office of Winchester's biggest department store, forty, consciously literate, rather too good to be true. Edith sensed the fanatic, the acrid mind that must be always right. But such a disposition might harden in favor of acquittal instead of conviction. Since her tasteless sandwich luncheon, the afternoon had been for Edith a desert of echoes, all voices unfamiliar except Cecil Warner's. Fast work, she supposed, to have a jury almost complete, and the hour not quite four. The heat had been turned higher after the noon recess, the courtroom growing sickly with a mustiness of flesh, disinfectant, dust. Edith's head ached, a dull frontal throb. The hard seat nagged at thin buttocks, unpadded backbone. When Callista looked her way, Edith wriggled and grimaced, trying to add a mild humor to her silent message: _Head up, Cal! We're going to win._ Briefly, Callista smiled.