“Thank you,” he said, and lighted a cigarette.  “Which case shall be taken up first?”

“The poison case, I think,” the secretary answered, with feigned indifference.

“Very well; so let it be the poison case,” said the justice, considering that that case could be disposed of by four o’clock and make it possible for him to keep the appointment.  “Has Matvei Nikitich arrived?”

“Not yet.”

“Is Breae here?”

“Yes,” answered the secretary.

“Then tell him that we shall try the poisoning case.”

Breae was an assistant prosecuting attorney and was assigned to this term of the court.

The secretary met Breae in the corridor.  With uplifted shoulders, his robe unbuttoned, and portfolio under his arm, he almost ran, his heels clattering on the floor, and his disengaged hand outstretched in the direction in which he was going.

“Michael Petrovich desires to know if you are ready,” said the secretary.

“Certainly; I am always ready,” said the assistant prosecutor; “which is the first case?”

“The poisoning case.”

“Very well,” said the assistant prosecutor, but he did not consider it well at all—­he had not slept all night.  A send-off had been given to a departing friend, and he drank and played till two in the morning, so that he was entirely unfamiliar with this case, and now hastened to glance over the indictment.  The secretary had purposely suggested the case, knowing that the prosecutor had not read it.  The secretary was a man of liberal, even radical, ideas.  Breae was conservative, and the secretary disliked him, and envied his position.

“And what about the Skoptzy?"[A]

“I have already said that I cannot prosecute them in the absence of witnesses,” said the assistant prosecutor, “and I will so declare to the court.”

“But you don’t need——­”

“I cannot,” said the assistant prosecutor, and waving his hand, ran to his office.

He was postponing the case against the Skoptzy, although the absent witness was an entirely unnecessary one.  The real reason of the postponement was that the prosecutor feared that their trial before an intelligent jury might end in their acquittal.  By an understanding with the presiding justice their case was to be transferred to the session of the District Court, where the preponderance of peasants on the jury would insure their conviction.

The commotion in the corridor increased.  The greatest crowd was before the Civil Court, where the case of which the portly gentleman was telling the jurymen was being tried.  During a recess the same old lady from whom the ingenious attorney managed to win her property in favor of his shrewd client, came out of the court-room.  That he was not entitled to the property was known to the judges as well as to the claimant and his attorney, but the mode of their procedure was such that it was impossible to dismiss their claim.  The old lady was stout, in smart attire, and with large flowers on her hat.  As she passed into the corridor she stopped, and turning to her lawyer, kept repeating: