“You shall pay well for this!” he cried, frowning at the distressed proprietor, while Newbegin leaned piteously against a papier-mache pillar.  “This is an outrage!  You shall be held liable in heavy damages for my client’s indigestion!”

And thus Tutt & Tutt got their first case out of Newbegin, for under the influence of the eloquence of Mr. Tutt a jury was induced to give him a verdict of one thousand dollars against the Comers Hotel, which the Court of Appeals sustained in the following words, quoting verbatim from the learned brief furnished by Tutt & Tutt, Ephraim Tutt of counsel: 

“The only legal question in the case, or so it appears to us, is whether there is such a sale of food to a guest on the part of the proprietor as will sustain a warranty.  If we are not in error, however, the law is settled and has been since the reign of Henry the Sixth.  In the Ninth Year Book of that Monarch’s reign there is a case in which it was held that ’if I go to a tavern to eat, and the taverner gives and sells me meat and it corrupted, whereby I am made very sick, action lies against him without any express warranty, for there is a warranty in law’; and in the time of Henry the Seventh the learned Justice Keilway said, ’No man can justify selling corrupt victual, but an action on the case lies against the seller, whether the victual was warranted to be good or not.’  Now, certainly, whether mouse meat be or be not deleterious to health a guest at a hotel who orders a portion of kidney stew has the right to expect, and the hotel keeper impliedly warrants, that such dish will contain no ingredients beyond those ordinarily placed therein.”

* * * * *

“A thousand dollars!” exulted Tutt when the verdict was rendered.  “Why, anyone would eat mouse for a thousand dollars!”

The Comers Hotel became in due course a client of Tutt & Tutt, and the mouse which made Mr. Tutt famous did not die in vain, for the case became celebrated throughout the length and breadth of the land, to the glory of the firm and a vast improvement in the culinary conditions existing in hotels.

“Come in, Mr. Barrows!  Come right in!  I haven’t seen you for—­well, how long is it?” exclaimed Mr. Tutt, extending a long welcoming arm toward a human scarecrow upon the threshold.

“Five years,” answered the visitor.  “I only got out day before yesterday.  Fourteen months off for good behavior.”

He coughed and put down carefully beside him a large dress-suit case marked E.V.B., Pottsville, N.Y.

“Well, well!” sighed Mr. Tutt.  “So it is.  How time flies!”

“Not in Sing Sing!” replied Mr. Barrows ruefully.

“I suppose not.  Still, it must feel good to be out!”

Mr. Barrows made no reply but dusted off his felt hat.  He was but the shadow of a man, an old man at that, as was attested by his long gray beard, his faded blue eyes, and the thin white hair about his fine domelike forehead.