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The courtroom was crowded. It was very humiliating to Cowperwood to have to file in this way
along the side aisle with these others, followed by Stener, well dressed but sickly looking and
disconsolate.
The negro, Charles Ackerman, was the first on the list.
"How is it this man comes before me?" asked Payderson, peevishly, when he noted the value of
the property Ackerman was supposed to have stolen.
"Your honor," the assistant district attorney explained, promptly, "this man was before a lower
court and refused, because he was drunk, or something, to plead guilty. The lower court,
because the complainant would not forego the charge, was compelled to bind him over to this
court for trial. Since then he has changed his mind and has admitted his guilt to the district
attorney. He would not be brought before you except we have no alternative. He has to be
brought here now in order to clear the calendar."
Judge Payderson stared quizzically at the negro, who, obviously not very much disturbed by this
examination, was leaning comfortably on the gate or bar before which the average criminal
stood erect and terrified. He had been before police-court magistrates before on one charge
and another--drunkenness, disorderly conduct, and the like--but his whole attitude was one of
shambling, lackadaisical, amusing innocence.
"Well, Ackerman," inquired his honor, severely, "did you or did you not steal this piece of lead
pipe as charged here--four dollars and eighty cents' worth?"
"Yassah, I did," he began. "I tell you how it was, jedge. I was a-comin' along past dat lumber-
yard one Saturday afternoon, and I hadn't been wuckin', an' I saw dat piece o' pipe thoo de
fence, lyin' inside, and I jes' reached thoo with a piece o' boad I found dey and pulled it over to
me an' tuck it. An' aftahwahd dis Mistah Watchman man"--he waved his hand oratorically
toward the witness-chair, where, in case the judge might wish to ask him some questions, the
complainant had taken his stand--"come around tuh where I live an' accused me of done takin'
it."
"But you did take it, didn't you?"
"Yassah, I done tuck it."
"What did you do with it?"
"I traded it foh twenty-five cents."
"You mean you sold it," corrected his honor.
"Yassah, I done sold it."
"Well, don't you know it's wrong to do anything like that? Didn't you know when you reached
through that fence and pulled that pipe over to you that you were stealing? Didn't you?"
"Yassah, I knowed it was wrong," replied Ackerman, sheepishly. "I didn' think 'twuz stealin' like
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