“He’ll never succeed,” said the other explosively.  “Frank Heney’s not that kind.  He’ll fight on till he drops....  But I hate to see those boughten lawyers ragging him in court.”

Langdon, more phlegmatic of temperament, stood the gaff with less apparent friction.  Hiram Johnson gave aid now and then which was always of value.  There was a dauntless quality about the man, a rugged double-fisted force which made him feared by his opponents.

Frank Stanley looked in at the second Ruef trial.  He found it a kaleidoscope of dramatic and tragic events.  Heney, who had been the target for a volley of insinuations from Ruef’s attorneys, was nervous and distraught.  Several times he had been goaded into altercation; had struck back with a bitterness that showed his mounting anger.  Stanley noted that he was “on edge,” and rather looked for “fireworks,” as the reporters called these verbal duels of the Prosecution trials.  But he was astonished to see Heney turn upon an unoffending juryman in sudden fury.  The man had a fat, good-natured Teuton face with small eyes and a heavy manner.  His name was Morris Haas.  He had asked to be excused but the judge had not granted his plea.

Now he seemed to cower in exaggerated fright before the Prosecutor’s pointed finger.  A little hush ensued.  A tense dramatic pause.  Then Heney branded Haas before the court-room as a former convict.

The man broke down utterly.  Many years before he had served a short term in prison.  After his release he had married, raised a family, “lived a respectable life,” as he pleaded in hysterical extenuation.  He kept a grocery store.

Haas stumbled from the court-room and Frank followed him.  He could not help but feel a certain pity for the poor wretch, wailing brokenly that he was “ruined.”  He could never face his friends again.  His customers would leave him.  Frank learned the details of his ancient crime; he also ascertained that Haas had lived rightly since.  The incident rankled.  He wrote a guarded story of the affair.  But he did not mention one episode of Haas’ exposure.  As the man staggered out Frank had heard another whisper sympathetically, “I would kill the man who did that to me.”

Justice often has its cruel, relentless aspects.  Haas, with his weak, heavy face, stayed in Stanley’s memory.  An ordinary man might have tried again and won.  But Haas was drunken with self-pity and the melancholy of his race.  He would brood and suffer.  Frank felt sorry for the man, and, somehow, vaguely apprehensive.

Ruef’s trial ended in a disagreement of the jury.  It was a serious blow.  Most of the San Francisco papers heaped abuse upon the Prosecution, its attorneys and its judges.

Matters dragged along until the 13th of November.  Gallagher was on the witness stand.  He testified with the listlessness of many repetitions to the sordid facts of San Francisco’s betrayal by venal public servants.  It was all more or less perfunctory.  Everyone had heard the tale from one to half a dozen times.