When Judge Thayer went down to breakfast early Thursday morning and looked hopefully around the club’s almost empty dining room, his eye fell on the frosty George Crocker at a table by the window and he walked over and sat down opposite him. Crocker, an elderly codfish Bostonian, greeted Thayer with a noticeable lack of cordiality. Several times during the month the judge had waylaid him in the lounge and filled his unwilling ears with news about the Dedham trial, insisting that Americans must now stand together to protect themselves against anarchists and Reds. Conservative lawyer that he was, Crocker felt offended at Thayer’s violation of the legal proprieties in even mentioning a current case. Oblivious of the other’s disapproval, Thayer would say that it was nonsense that the defendants were being prosecuted as radicals. Just the same, in his opinion, they were anarchists and draft-dodgers, and they had failed to establish alibis. This morning, before Crocker had finished his grapefruit, Thayer pulled some sheets of paper out of his pocket saying proudly: “I want to read you part of the charge I am going to deliver today.” He talked on, quoting part of Moore’s argument, and then reading more of his charge, smacking his lips at the end with “That will hold them!” Crocker replied sniffily or not at all. On leaving the dining room he warned the steward, “For Heaven’s sake, don’t put me with that man again!” * * * * * Court opened late. Judge Thayer had again timed it that way for dramatic effect. Every seat was taken and the bar enclosure was filled with lawyers as Sacco and Vanzetti took their place in the cage, for it had been noised about in State Street that the judge’s charge would make legal history. The opening, however, had more the air of a graduation ceremony than a murder trial. The judge’s desk was buried in flowers—a huge vase of gladioli sent by the sheriff, and large bouquets of pinks from Mrs. Katzmann and the wife of Assistant District Attorney Kane. Among the spectators were the Marquis Ferrante, Rosina Sacco with the boy Dante, and of course Mrs. Evans and her inevitable notebook. In spite of the heat Sheriff Capen had resumed his blue cutaway. With the clerk’s cry, Judge Thayer rustled in and sat down behind the bank of flowers. For the last time the ritual was intoned, the jury was polled, the defendants answered “Present.” Jerry McAnarney approached the bench with a motion for a directed verdict on the grounds that the district attorney in his argument had disclaimed that Vanzetti was driving the getaway car as it crossed the railroad track. Moore made the conventional request that the court order the jury upon all the evidence to return a not-guilty verdict for Sacco. Neither motion, they knew, would be granted. There were a few more words added to the record about the Berardelli revolver, then the judge’s brittle voice began: