On hearing this the crowd began to diminish rapidly; but the man with the red moustache set a good example by giving his name loudly and promptly as “Oscar B. Mecutchen, tobacconist, d’reckly opposite the City Hall.”  So three or four other men allowed Mrs. Tarbell to set them down as observers of the disaster.  The gentleman in spectacles was named Stethson, another man, a tall, fat-cheeked countryman, Vickers, and a dried up little party, in a Grand-Army-of-the-Republic suit, Parthenheimer.  Mrs. Tarbell had the names down pat, and scrutinized each prospective witness carefully, as if warning him that it would be no use for him to give a fictitious name in the hope of evading his duties, as she would now be able to pick him out of a regiment.

“I am very much obliged to you,” she said, in a stately manner.  “Now, you all agree that the accident was the result of the negligence of the driver of the car?”

“Why, yes, certainly,” they all agreed at once.

“Leastways—­” said Mecutchen.

“That is—­” said Parthenheimer.

“How was it, anyway?” asked Stethson.

“Thought you saw it,” cried the others, turning on him instantly.

“So I did,” said Stethson; “but I thought I’d like to hear what you gentlemen’s impression was.”

“Well,” said Mecutchen and Vickers, the tall man, together, tipping back their hats with a simultaneous and precisely similar movement on the part of each,—­nothing is more indicative of the careful independence of the average American than the way in which he always keeps his head covered in the presence of his lawyer,—­“Well,” said Vickers and Mecutchen.

Mr. Mecutchen bowed to Mr. Vickers, and Mr. Vickers bowed to Mr. Mecutchen, with a sort of grotesque self-effacement.  Mr. Vickers waved his hand, and Mr. Mecutchen proceeded.

“Why,” said he, “the lady stopped the car in the middle of the block,—­just like a woman,—­got on the platform, car started with a jerk, and she fell off.”

Vickers and Parthenheimer nodded assent, but Stethson said that his view of it was that the car started off again while she was trying to get on.

“That makes it stronger,” said Mecutchen.

“Well, of course,” said Stethson, settling his spectacles farther back on his nose; and Vickers murmured that you couldn’t have it too strong, as he knew from the point of view (as he said) of cows.  “It’s wonderful what you can get for cows,” he added pensively.

“Ag’in’ a railroad company,” said the grizzled old Parthenheimer, “the stronger the better, because some cases, no matter how aggerawated they are, you only git a specific sum and no damages.  But a railroad case, which is a damage case right through, the worse they are the more you git.  I had a little niece to be killed by a freight-train, and they took off that pore little girl’s head, and her right arm, and her left leg, all three, like it was done by a mowing-machine,—­so clean cut, you know.  Well, sir, they got a werdick for six thousand dollars, my brother and his wife did; and their lawyer stood to it that the mangling brought in three thousand; and I think he was right about it, too.”