I did not hear any more, for I was in a hurry, and the roll that morning rather long, but the appealing face, the tears, and hurriedly breathed outpourings of that poor mother’s heart, followed me right into the court-room. Frantic and voluble appeals under such circumstances are common, but this one was quiet, sudden, and overpowering. I looked at the prisoner for the first time with special interest. He was a young lad of sixteen or so, rather strongly built, and manly-looking, but, of course, hanging his head in shame as they generally do the first time. The case was a very simple one. Jim was an apprentice plumber in a big workshop; quantities of brass-fittings, copper wire, and tin had been missed, and at last I was set to watch the workers. I followed several innocent ones for a time, but at length came to Jim. I should have overlooked him, for he had rather an innocent face, but for a certain bulkiness about his body. Jim did not go straight home, but took a certain broker’s on the way. He went through to the back shop, and I surprised him there in the act of unloading. The broker, of course, protested perfect innocence, but I took them both. The broker got off by some means, and Jim now stood there alone. The charge was theft, and confined to the articles taken with him, though that did not cover a hundredth part of his pilferings. Was he guilty? “Yes sir, guilty,” was Jim’s hurried answer, with his head lower on his breast. “Hae mercy on him!” rang out from the benches behind in the unmistakable tones of Jim’s mother, as the magistrate paused in doubt, possibly feeling to send such a fine lad to prison. “Let him off this time, and he’ll never come back again.” I was motioned to the side of the magistrate to give my opinion in an undertone. I did try to make it light for the lad. I said I thought he had been prompted to the acts by some one who was uncaught, that his home training had been against such a course, and that he had never been in court before. But I could not refute the statements of his employers, that their losses had extended over more than a year, and been serious indeed. A few moments thought, and the magistrate spoke out without comment of any kind—“Thirty days.” There was an impassioned outcry in a woman’s voice, but I did not turn in that direction, as I did not want to see anything. I hurried out the prisoner by the side door a moment or two later, and was again clutched by the mother. “He’ll come oot waur than he gangs in,” she exclaimed in despairing accents, and with bitter reproach. “Exactly, there’s little doubt of that,” I answered with assumed coolness. “Is that a just punishment?” she pursued, almost choked with tears, as she clung to the arm of her son, who now seemed to shrink from her in shame, and to long for the seclusion of the cells. “It’s the Nemesis of crime—the chief part of the punishment,” I returned; “they should think of that before they begin.”