Mr. Tutt loitered into the corridor, stepped unostentatiously behind a pillar, slipped into the adjoining court room—­which happened to be empty—­and thence back into the passage upon which the jury rooms opened.  He found Cap Phelan standing before one of these with a finger to his lips.

“Pst!  They’re at it a-ready!” whispered Phelan as Mr. Tutt slipped him a stogy.

The transom above was open and through it drifted out a faint blue cloud.  A great hubbub was going on inside.  Suddenly above it a harsh voice rang out:  “That ain’t a reasonable doubt!  I tell you, that ain’t a reasonable doubt!  Aw, you give me a pain, you do!”

“I’ve got ’em!” grinned Mr. Tutt contentedly.  “Phelan, bring me a chair!”

Now right here is where this story begins—­only here.

“Vell, gen’l’muns,” said the foreman, who was a glove merchant and looked like Sam Bernard, as they took their seats round the battered oak table.  “Vot you say?  Shall we disguss or take a vote?”

“Let’s take a smoke!” amended a real-estate broker.  “No use goin’ back right off and getting stuck onto another damn case!  Where’s that cuspidor?”

“Speakin’ of veterinaries,” chuckled a man with three rolls of fat on his neck, “did y’ever hear the story of the negro and the mule with the cough?”

None of them apparently ever had, so the stout brother told all about how—­ha, ha!—­the mule coughed first.

“I remember that story now,” remarked one of the jury reminiscently while the fat man glared at him.  “If I had my way all these veterinaries would be in jail!  They’re a dangerous lot.  I had a second cousin once who’d paid a hundred dollars—­a hundred dollars!—­for a horse and it got the colic.  So he called in a veterinary and it died.”

“Well, the vet didn’t kill it, did he?” inquired the fat man scornfully.

“My cousin always claimed he did!” replied the other solemnly.  “There was some mistake about what he gave the horse—­wood alcohol or something—­I forget what it was.  Anyhow, I think they’re all a dangerous lot.  They all ought to be locked up.  I move to convict!”

“But neither of these fellers is a veterinary!” retorted a sad-looking gentleman in black.  “The charge is that one of ’em pretended to be—­but wasn’t.  So if he wasn’t how could you convict him of being a veterinary?”

“Well, if he had been I’d have convicted him all right,” asserted the first.  “They’re dangerous—­like all these clairvoyants and soothsayers.”

“Will somebody tell me?” requested a tall man who had been looking intently out of the window, “whether a veterinary is the same thing as a veterinarian?  I always supposed a veterinarian was a sort of religion, like a Unitarian.  Veteran means old—­I thought it was some old form of religion; or a feller who didn’t believe in eatin’ meat.”

“Lead that nut out!” shouted somebody.  “Let’s get busy.  The question is:  Did this old guy pretend he was a horse doctor when he wasn’t?  I say he did.”