are when the lawyers begin arguing about the testimony.  One side wants the witness to tell something and the other side does not.  The judge keeps still and lets the lawyers go on talking as though it were something important, perhaps he can not help it.  The lawyers or the judge can not have much to do.  The judge it is true is paid to listen, but the lawyers must be pretty hard up when they will go on talking in that way.  No juryman would stay here wasting his time during business hours, and afterwards there are the newspapers, supper, and taking the family to the movies, all of which is far more sensible.

“Say, it’s like a vaudeville show to see those two go on,” thinks the juryman.  “You couldn’t beat it if you put it in an act.  Georgie Cohan or Joe Weber could make their fortunes if they only hired the lawyers as actors or came into court for their material.”

Occasionally the judge calls the lawyers up to his desk and together they talk over something which the jury can not hear.  The jury look as though they did not care.  If they want to talk some more—­well, let them.  Perhaps they are planning some game, and the jury will wait until their turn comes.  In the jury-room they can show them what’s what; that is where they know their chance is coming.  Even if the judge is only trying to find out something about the case, that is a sensible thing to do.  Why don’t the lawyers come over and talk to the jury like that?  In a few minutes they could ask them some questions that would settle the whole matter.

The strange part is when a witness has said something and told how he or she feels about the whole case, which is exactly what the jury want to know, one of the lawyers jumps up and says he moves to strike that part all out and the judge strikes out.  The lawyer having scored a hit, then says: 

“I ask your Honor to instruct the jury to disregard the testimony just given.”

“Gentlemen,” says the judge, “the evidence just given has been ruled out by the court and is not relevant to the issue, and I must instruct you to disregard these words of the witness and in arriving at your verdict not to consider them.”

Of all the absurdities that happen in court, the jurymen think that is the worst.  Does the judge or the lawyer believe for a moment that because they say so the jury are going to forget what the witness said, especially when it was the very thing they wanted to find out?  They watch the stenographer and they notice he does not even take the trouble to cross it out of the notebook.

Occasionally a juryman becomes particularly interested and wants to question something.  Usually he is too self-conscious to run the risk of being snubbed, but sometimes he is bolder and ventures a question.