“Shure, it’s mighty hard for Mrs. Dooley, that she’s away!” said one.  “She’ll be feeling bad when she knows what she’s missed.”

The next morning, Peter, the two doctors, the Blacketts, the Milligans, Dooley, the milk quintet, and as many inhabitants of the “district” as could crush their way in, were in court by nine o’clock.  The plaintiffs and their friends were rather disappointed at the quietness of the proceedings.  The examinations were purely formal except in one instance, when Peter asked for the “name or names of the owner or owners” of the National Milk Company.  Here the defendant’s attorney, a shrewd criminal lawyer, interfered, and there was a sharp passage at arms, in which an attempt was made to anger Peter.  But he kept his head, and in the end carried his point.  The owner turned out to be the proprietor of the brewery, as Peter had surmised, who thus utilized the mash from his vats in feeding cattle.  But on Peter’s asking for an additional warrant against him, the defendant’s lawyer succeeded in proving, if the statement of the overseer proved it, that the brewer was quite ignorant that the milk sold in the “district” was what had been unsalable the day before to better customers, and that the skimming and doctoring of it was unknown to him.  So an attempt to punish the rich man as a criminal was futile.  He could afford to pay for straw men.

“Arrah!” said Dooley to Peter as they passed out of the court, “Oi think ye moight have given them a bit av yer moind.”

“Wait till the trial,” said Peter.  “We mustn’t use up our powder on the skirmish line.”

So the word was passed through the district that “theer’d be fun at the rale trial,” and it was awaited with intense interest by five thousand people.

CHAPTER XIV.

NEW YORK JUSTICE.

Peter saw the District Attorney the next morning for a few moments, and handed over to him certain memoranda of details that had not appeared in the committing court’s record.

“It shall go before the grand jury day after to-morrow,” that official told him, without much apparent interest in the matter.

“How soon can it be tried, if they find a true bill? asked Peter.

“Can’t say,” replied the official.

“I merely wished to know,” said Peter, “because three of the witnesses are away, and I want to have them back in time.”

“Probably a couple of weeks,” yawned the man, and Peter, taking the hint, departed.

The rest of the morning was spent in drawing up the papers in three civil suits against the rich brewer.  Peter filed them as soon as completed, and took the necessary steps for their prompt service.

These produced an almost immediate result, in the shape of a call the next morning from the same lawyer who had defended the milkmen in the preliminary examination.  Peter, as he returned from his midday meal, met the lawyer on the stairs.