But the clerk had had no experience with chickens and in bashfully groping for the selected rooster allowed several other occupants of the crate to escape. Instantly the air was filled with fluttering, squawking fowls while fifty frenzied police officers and Chinamen attempted vainly to reduce them to captivity again. In the midst of the melee McGuire caught his rooster, and fearful lest it should escape him managed somehow to decapitate it. The body, however, had been flopping around spasmodically several seconds upon the floor before he realized that the oath had not been administered, and his voice suddenly rose above the pandemonium in an excited brogue.
Hold up your hands, you! You do solemnly swear that in the case of The People against Mock Hen you will tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you God!
But the interpreter was at that moment engaged in clasping to his bosom a struggling rooster and was totally unable to fulfill his functions. Meantime the jury, highly edified at this illustration of the administration of justice, gazed down upon the spectacle from the stairs.
But the interpreter was at that moment engaged in clasping to his bosom a struggling rooster and was totally unable to fulfill his functions. Meantime the jury, highly edified at this illustration of the administration of justice, gazed down upon the spectacle from the stairs.
This farce has gone far enough! declared Judge Bender disgustedly. We will return to the court room. Put those roosters back where they belong!
Once more the participants ascended to Part IX and Ah Fong took his seat in the witness chair. The interpreter's blouse was covered with pin-feathers and one of his thumbs was bleeding profusely.
Ask the witness if the oath that he has now taken will bind his conscience? directed the court.
Again the interpreter and Ah Fong held converse.
He says, translated that official calmly, that the chicken oath is all right in China, but that it is no good in United States, and that anyway the proper form of words was not used.
Good Lord! ejaculated O'Brien. Where am I?
Me tell truth, all light, suddenly announced Ah Fong in English. Go ahead! Shoot! And he smiled an inscrutable age-long Oriental smile.
The jury burst into laughter.
He's stringing you! the foreman kindly informed O'Brien, who cursed silently.
Go on, Mister District Attorney, examine the witness, directed the judge. I shall permit no further variations upon the established forms of procedure.
Then at last and not until then-on the morning of the twenty-first day-did Ah Fong tell his simple story and the jury for the first time learn what it was all about. But by then they had entirely ceased to care, being engrossed in watching Mr. Tutt at his daily amusement of torturing O'Brien into a state of helpless exasperation.
Ah Fong gave his testimony with a clarity of detail that left nothing to be desired, and he was corroborated in most respects by the Italian woman, who identified Mock Hen as the Chinaman with the iron bar. Their evidence was supplemented by that of Bull Neck Burke and Miss Malone, who also were positive that they had seen Mock running from the scene of the murder at exactly four-one o'clock.
Mr. Tutt hardly cross-examined Fong at all, but with Mr. Burke he pursued very different tactics, speedily rousing the wrestler to such a condition of fury that he was hardly articulate, for the old lawyer gently hinted that Mr. Burke was inventing the whole story for the purpose of assisting his friends in the On Gee Tong.
But I tell yer I don't know no Chinks! bellowed Burke, looking more like a bull than ever. This here Mock Hen run right by me. My goil saw him too. I looked at me ticker to get the time!
Ah! Then you expected to be a witness for the On Gee Tong!
Naw! I tell yer I was walkin' wit' me goil!
What is the lady's name?
Miss Malone.
What is her occupation?
She's a gay burlesquer.
A gay burlesquer?
Sure-champagne goil and gay burlesquer.
A champagne girl!
Dat's what I said.
You mean that she is upon the stage?
Sure-dat's it!
Oh! Mr. Tutt looked relieved.
What had you and Miss Malone been doing that afternoon?
I told yer-walkin'.
Mr. Tutt coughed slightly.
Is that all?
Say, watcha drivin' at?
Mr. Tutt elevated his bushy eyebrows.
How do you earn your living? he demanded, changing his method of attack.
Bull Neck allowed his head to sink still farther into the vast bulk of his immense torso, strangely resembling, in this position, the fabled anthropophagi whose heads are reputed thus to grow beneath their shoulders.
Then throwing out his jaw he announced proudly between set teeth: I'm a perfessor of physical sculture!
The jury sniggered. Mr. Tutt appeared politely puzzled.
A professor of what?
A perfessor of physical sculture! repeated Bull Neck with great satisfaction.
Oh! A professor of physical sculpture! exclaimed Mr. Tutt, light breaking over his wrinkled countenance. And what may that be?
Bull Neck looked round disgustedly at the jury as if to say: What ignorance!