The _contretemps_ completed Marriott’s sense of utter humiliation and defeat. As if it were not enough to be beaten, he now suffered the chagrin of having been made ridiculous. He was oblivious to everything but his own misery and discomfiture; he forgot even Archie. Bentley and a deputy were hustling the offending old man from the court-room, and he shambled between them loosely, grotesquely, presenting the miserable, demoralizing and pathetic spectacle that age always presents when it has dishonored itself. As they were dragging the old man past Archie, his feet scuffling and dragging like those of a paralytic, Archie spoke: "Why, Dad!" he said. In his tone were all disappointment and reproach. The incident was over, but try as they would, Glassford, Eades, Lamborn, Marriott, all the attachés and officials of the court could not restore to the tribunal its lost dignity. This awesome and imposing structure mankind has been ages in rearing, this institution men had thought to make something more than themselves, at the grotesque gesture of one of its poorest, meanest, oldest and most miserable victims, had suddenly collapsed, disintegrated into its mere human entities. Unconsciously this aged imbecile had taken a supreme and mighty revenge on the institution that had bereft him of his reason and his life; it could not resist the shock; it must pause to reconstruct itself, to resume its lost prestige, and men were glad when Glassford, with what solemnity he could command, told the bailiff to adjourn court. XVII At six o’clock on the evening of the day the State rested, Marriott found himself once more at the jail. He passed the series of grated cells from which their inmates peered with the wistful look common to prisoners, and paused before Archie’s door. He could see only the boy’s muscular back bowed over the tiny table, slowly dipping chunks of bread into his pan of molasses, eating his supper silently and humbly. The figure was intensely pathetic to Marriott. He gazed a moment in the regret with which one gazes on the dead, struck down in an instant by some useless accident. "And yet," he thought, "it is not done, there is still hope. He must be saved!" "Hello, Archie!" he said, forcing a cheerful tone. Archie started, pushed back his chair, drew his hand across his mouth to wipe away the crumbs, and thrust it through the bars. "Don’t let me keep you from your supper," said Marriott. Archie smiled a wan smile. "That’s all right," he said. "It isn’t much of a supper, and I ain’t exactly hungry." Archie grasped the bars above his head and leaned his breast against the door. "Well, what do you think of it, Mr. Marriott?" "I don’t know, Archie." "Looks as if I was the fall guy all right." Marriott bit his lip. "We have to put in our evidence in the morning, you know." "Yes." "And we must decide whether you’re going on the stand or not." "I’ll leave it to you, Mr. Marriott."