Captain Proctor’s affidavit was more of a problem, for there were no two ways about it. Proctor had signed his name to his own impeachment, and Katzmann and Williams had never denied the substance of it. Nevertheless, it was Thayer’s opinion that Proctor had meant what he said in court, and that the jury had so understood it. “If Captain Proctor found no facts to believe that the mortal bullet passed through the Sacco pistol, why, when he had a perfect opportunity so to do, did he not say that his opinion was then, as it is now, that it was not _consistent_ with it?” Thayer did not feel there had been any conniving by Katzmann and Williams to shape the question in advance. He did not try to explain why Proctor had afterward made the refuting statement. “If I have erred in my judgment (and I fully realize I am human),” Thayer concluded with a sense of relief at freeing himself from the burden, “let me express the assurance that the supreme judicial court of this Commonwealth in due time will correct such error.” Neither Moore nor Thompson had expected any other outcome, but the motions had served their purpose. They had postponed the defendants’ execution, and they had provided questions of law to be ruled on by a higher court. With the Goodridge, Pelser, Andrews, and Daley affidavits Thompson felt there was nothing more to be gained, that these were to a degree liabilities, but he appealed the denials of the Ripley, Gould, and Hamilton-Proctor motions. After he had filed his findings with the clerk of court, Thayer felt he deserved a holiday, and for him a holiday in the autumn meant Hanover, New Hampshire. The Dartmouth-McGill football game that Saturday was only an excuse for the trip, since the Big Green was the odds-on favorite. But to get back to Dartmouth gave Thayer a sense of renewing himself, as if when he walked across the campus he was again for one miraculous moment Bobby Thayer, the baseball captain who could not quite make up his mind whether he wanted to be a big-league player or a lawyer. He felt that he belonged in Hanover. There was his familiar table by the window in the dining room of the Hanover Inn, the waiter who knew him, the faces of old friends as they came through the doorway. Much had changed, much had been added, but there were still the white buildings of Dartmouth Row, the Senior Fence where he had carved his initials over forty years ago, the arching elms, still looking just as they had when he arrived as a freshman. Each autumn brought him back, almost as if he had never left.