The judge informed the jury that they could not find the man guilty of bigamy and curtly ordered them back to their room for further deliberation.  They took another ballot before going out to supper at a nearby restaurant, guarded by six bailiffs, who warned them not to discuss the case while outside the jury room.  The second ballot, by the way, was eight for conviction, four for acquittal.  Juror No. 5 had come over to the minority.  He said there was something in the theory of Juror No. 9.

There was a very positive disagreement concerning the meal they were about to partake of.  The foreman spoke of it as dinner and was openly sneered at by eleven gentlemen who had never called it anything but supper.  The little clockmaker, having been overruled by the judge, was in a nasty temper.  He accused the foreman of being a republican.  He said no democrat ever called it dinner.  It wasn’t democratic.

Upon their return to the jury room after a meal on which there was complete agreement and which brought out considerable talk about the penuriousness of the County of New York, they settled down to a prolonged and profound discussion of their differences.  It soon developed that all but two of the jurors had been favorably inclined toward the defendant up to the time the State introduced the unexpected wives.  They had regarded him as a poor unfortunate, driven to crime by adversity, and after a fashion the victim of an arrogant and soulless police system, aided and abetted by the District Attorney’s minions, a contemptible robber in the person of a dealer in women’s hats, and a bejeweled snob who insulted their intelligence by trying to convince them that her confidence had been misplaced.  But the two wives settled it.  Smilk was a rascal.  He ought to be hung.

“But,” argued No. 9, “how the devil do we know that them women are his wives.  Their evidence ain’t supported, is it?”

“Didn’t they have certificates?” demanded another hotly.

“Sure.  But that don’t prove that he was the man, does it?”

“And didn’t the prisoner jump up and yell:  ’My God, it’s all off!  You’ve got me cold!  You’ve got me dead to rights,’” cried another.

“Oh, there’s no use arguin’ with you guys,” roared No. 9, disgustedly.

Later on they returned to the court room to have certain parts of Mr. Yollop’s testimony read to them.  After this a ballot was taken, and the only man for acquittal was the clock-maker.  At twenty minutes to eleven he succumbed, not to argument or persuasion or reason but to a chill February draft that blew in through the open window above his head.  He couldn’t get away from it.  The others wouldn’t let him.  They got him up in a corner and he couldn’t break through.  He told them he was getting pneumonia, that the draft would be the death of him, that he’d take back what he said about the smoke almost suffocating him,—­still they surrounded him, and argued with him, and called him things he didn’t feel physically able to call them, and at last he voted guilty.