By Advice of Counsel Part 36

"Step up here, Mr. Brown."

Mr. Brown, the supposed Doctor Simon whose horse Danny had attended, seated himself complacently in the witness chair and bowed to the jury in a professional manner. He had, he told them, been a detective employed by the state board of health for over sixteen years. It was his duty to go round and arrest people who pretended to be licensed pract.i.tioners of medicine and a.s.sumed to doctor other people and animals. There were a lot of 'em, too; the jury would be surprised--

Mr. Tutt objected to their surprise and it was stricken out by order of the court.

"I'll strike out 'and there are a lot of 'em, too,' if you say so, Mr.

Tutt," offered the court, smiling, but Mr. Tutt shook his head.

"No; let it stand!" said he significantly. "Let it stand!"

"Well, anyway," continued Mr. Brown, "this here defendant Lowry, as he calls himself, is well known--"

Objected to and struck out.

"Well, this here defendant makes a practise--"

"Strike it out! What did he do?" snapped the octogenarian baboon on the bench.

"I'm tellin' you, judge," protested Brown vigorously. "This here defendant--"

"You've said that three times!" retorted the baboon. "Get along, can't you? What did he do?"

"He treated my horse for spavin here in New York at 500 West 24th Street at my request on the twentieth of last March and I paid him five dollars. He said he was a licensed veterinary and he gave me his card.

Here it is."

"Well, why didn't you say so before?" remarked the judge more amiably.

"Let me see the card. All right! Anything more, Mr. Hingman?"

But Mr. Hingman had long before this subsided into his chair and was emitting sounds like those from a saxophone.

"That is plain, simple testimony, Mr. Tutt," remarked the judge. "Go ahead and cross-examine."

Ephraim Tutt slowly unjointed himself, the quintessence of affability, though Mr. Brown clearly held him under suspicion.

"How long have you earned your living, my dear sir, by going round arresting people?"

"Sixteen years."

"Under what name--your own?"

"I use any name I feel like."

Mr. Tutt nodded appreciatively.

"Let us see, then. You go about pretending to be somebody you are not?"

"Put it that way, if you choose."

"And pretending to be what you are not?"

Mr. Brown eyed Mr. Tutt savagely. "What do you mean by that?"

"Didn't you tell this old gentleman beside me that you were a doctor of medicine but not a doctor of veterinary medicine--and beg him to treat your horse for that reason?"

"Sure I did. Certainly."

"Well, are you a licensed medical pract.i.tioner?"

"Look here! What's that got to do with it?" snarled Mr. Brown, looking about for aid from the sleeping Hingman.

"The question is a proper one. Answer it," directed the judge.

"No, I'm not a licensed doctor."

"Well, didn't you treat Mr. Lowry?"

The jury by this time had caught the drift of the examination and were listening with intent appreciation.

Mr. Brown leaned forward, a sickening smile of sneering superiority curling about his yellow molars.

"Ah!" he cried. "That's where I have you, sir! I only pretended to treat him. I didn't really. I only scribbled something on a piece of paper."

"You knew he couldn't read, of course?"

"Sure."

Mr. Tutt turned to the uplifted faces of the twelve. "So," he retorted, pursing his wrinkled lips and placing his fingers together in that att.i.tude of piety which we frequently observe upon effigies of defunct ecclesiastics--"so you did the very thing for which you threw this old man at my side into jail--and for which he is now on trial! You lied to him about being a doctor! You deceived him about giving him the medical treatment he so much needed! And you arrested him after he had worked for hours to relieve the sufferings of a sick animal. By the way, it was a sick animal, wasn't it?"

"The sickest I could find," replied Brown airily.

"And he did relieve its sufferings, did he not?" continued Mr. Tutt gently.

"Very likely. I wasn't particularly interested in that end of it."

Mr. Tutt's meager frame seemed suddenly to expand until he hung over the witness chair like the genii who mushroomed so unexpectedly out of the fisherman's bottle in the Arabian Nights Entertainments.

"You were not interested in ministering to a poor horse, so sick it could hardly stand! You were only interested in imprisoning and depriving of his only form of livelihood this old man whose heart was not hardened like yours! May I ask at whose instance you went and lied to him?"

"Mr. Tutt! Mr. Tutt!" interjected the octogenarian angel. "Your examination is exceeding the bounds of judicial propriety."

Ephraim Tutt bowed low.

"A thousand pardons, Your Honor! My emotions swept me away! I most humbly apologize! But when this witness so unblushingly confesses how he played the scoundrel's part, aged case hardened pract.i.tioner as I am, my heart cries out against such infamous treachery--"

Bang! went the judge's gavel.

"You are only making it worse!" declared the court severely. "Proceed with your examination."

"Very well, Your Honor!" replied Mr. Tutt, his lips trembling with well-simulated indignation. "Now, sir, who instigated this miserable deception--I beg Your Honor's pardon! Who put you up to this game--I mean, this course of conduct?"