The next morning at eleven o’clock Fred Starratt heard his name bawled through the corridors and he was led out to the room where prisoners were allowed to receive their lawyers or converse with relatives and friends through the barred and screened opening.

A man was exchanging tearful confidences with his wife and baby as he clung to the bars.  The woman was sending a brave smile across, but the wire mesh between gave her face the same unreality that a gauze drop in a play gives to the figures on the other side.  A strange man was ushered in.

“Mr. Starratt?” he inquired.

Fred inclined his head.

“My name is Watson—­from the firm of Kimball & Devine.  We’re attorneys for Mr. Hilmer.  He asked me to run in and see you this morning.  Just what did happen?”

Fred recited the events briefly.  When he had finished, the attorney said: 

“Everything depends on this man Brauer.  I’ll have to get in touch with him to-day.  Hilmer told me to use my own judgment about bail...  I guess it’s all right.”

A hot flush overspread Fred’s face, but it died quickly.  He could stand any insult now.  All night he had been brooding on that slap upon the cheek.  A clenched fist had an element of fairness in it, but the bare palm was always the mark of a petty tyrant.  It was thus that a woman struck ... or a piddling official ... or a mob bent on humiliation.  They smote Christ in the same way—­with their hands.  He remembered the phrase perfectly and the circumstance that had impressed it so indelibly on his mind.  His people had seen to it that he had attended Sabbath school, but he was well past ten before they had taken him to church.  And, out of the hazy impression of the first sermon he had fidgeted through, he remembered the picture of Christ which the good man in the pulpit had drawn, sitting in a mockery of purple, receiving the open-palmed blows of cowards.  In his extremity the story recurred with sharp insistence and all night he had been haunted by this thorn-crowned remembrance.

Hilmer’s messenger was waiting for him to speak.  He gave a shrug.

“It really doesn’t matter,” he said.

“Oh, come now, Mr. Starratt,” Watson broke in, reprovingly.  “That isn’t any way to talk.  You’ve got to keep your spirits up.  Things might be worse.  It’s lucky you’ve got a friend like Hilmer.  He’s a man that can do things for you, if anyone can.”

Fred smiled wanly.  “I don’t suppose you saw my wife, by any chance,” he ventured.

“No...  Fact is, she’s in bed...  Hilmer said the news completely bowled her over...  That’s another reason you’ve got to buck up—­for her sake, you know!”

It ended in Watson putting up the bail money and their departing in a yellow taxicab for an obscure hotel in Ellis Street.

“This is the best arrangement, under the circumstances,” Watson explained.  “You’ll want to be quiet and lie low.”