“Tutt, Tutt!  Come in here!” shouted the head of the firm.  “Mine enemy hath been delivered into mine hands!”

“Hey?  What?” inquired Tutt, popping across the threshold.  “Who—­I mean—­”

“Raphael B. Hogan!”

“The devil!” ejaculated Tutt.

“You’ve said it!” declared Mr. Asche devoutly.

* * * * *

That evening under cover of darkness Mr. Ephraim Tutt descended from a dilapidated taxi at the corner adjacent to Froelich’s butcher shop, and several hours later was whisked uptown again to the brownstone dwelling occupied by the Hon. Simeon Watkins, the venerable white-haired judge then presiding in Part I of the General Sessions, where he remained until what may be described either as a very late or a very early hour, and where during the final period of his intercourse he and that distinguished member of the judiciary emptied an ancient bottle containing a sparkling rose-colored liquid of great artistic beauty.

Then Mr. Tutt returned to his own library at the house on Twenty-third Street and paced up and down before the antiquated open grate, inhaling quantities of what Mr. Bonnie Doon irreverently called “hay smoke,” and pondering deeply upon the evils that men do to one another, until the dawn peered through the windows and he bethought him of the all-night lunch stand round the corner on Tenth Avenue, and there sought refreshment.

“Salvatore,” he remarked to the smiling son of the olive groves who tended that bar of innocence, “the worst crook in the world is the man who does evil for mere money.”

“Si, Signor Tutti,” answered Salvatore with Latin perspicacity.  “You gotta one, eh?  You giva him hell?”

“Si!  Si!” replied Mr. Tutt cheerily.  “Even so!  And of a truth, moreover!  Give me another hot dog and a cup of bilge water!”

* * * * *

“People versus Mathusek?” inquired Judge Watkins some hours later on the call of the calendar, looking quite vaguely as if he had never heard of the case before, round Part I, which was as usual crowded, hot, stuffy and smelling of unwashed linen and prisoners’ lunch.  “People versus Mathusek?  What do you want done with this case, Mr. O’Brien?”

“Ready!” chanted the red-headed O’Brien, and, just as he had expected, the Hon. Raphael Hogan limbered up in his slow, genial way and said:  “If Your Honor please, the defendant would like a few days longer to get his witnesses.  Will Your Honor kindly adjourn the case for one week?”

He did not notice that the stenographer was taking down everything that he said.

“I observe,” remarked Judge Watkins with apparent amiability, “that you have had five adjournments already.  If The People’s witnesses are here I am inclined to direct you to proceed.  The defendant has been under indictment for six weeks.  That ought to be long enough to prepare your defense.”