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not want to kiss her, but he did not show it. She did kiss him, though, and added: "Oh, I do hope
things come out all right."
"You needn't worry about that, I think, Lillian," he replied, buoyantly. "I'll be all right."
He ran down the steps and walked out on Girard Avenue to his former car line, where he
bearded a car. He was thinking of Aileen and how keenly she was feeling for him, and what a
mockery his married life now was, and whether he would face a sensible jury, and so on and so
forth. If he didn't--if he didn't--this day was crucial!
He stepped off the car at Third and Market and hurried to his office. Steger was already there.
"Well, Harper," observed Cowperwood, courageously, "today's the day."
The Court of Quarter Sessions, Part I, where this trial was to take place, was held in famous
Independence Hall, at Sixth and Chestnut Streets, which was at this time, as it had been for all
of a century before, the center of local executive and judicial life. It was a low two-story building
of red brick, with a white wooden central tower of old Dutch and English derivation,
compounded of the square, the circle, and the octagon. The total structure consisted of a
central portion and two T-shaped wings lying to the right and left, whose small, oval-topped old-
fashioned windows and doors were set with those many-paned sashes so much admired by
those who love what is known as Colonial architecture. Here, and in an addition known as State
House Row (since torn down), which extended from the rear of the building toward Walnut
Street, were located the offices of the mayor, the chief of police, the city treasurer, the
chambers of council, and all the other important and executive offices of the city, together with
the four branches of Quarter Sessions, which sat to hear the growing docket of criminal cases.
The mammoth city hall which was subsequently completed at Broad and Market Streets was
then building.
An attempt had been made to improve the reasonably large courtrooms by putting in them
raised platforms of dark walnut surmounted by large, dark walnut desks, behind which the
judges sat; but the attempt was not very successful. The desks, jury-boxes, and railings
generally were made too large, and so the general effect was one of disproportion. A cream-
colored wall had been thought the appropriate thing to go with black walnut furniture, but time
and dust had made the combination dreary. There were no pictures or ornaments of any kind,
save the stalky, over-elaborated gas-brackets which stood on his honor's desk, and the single
swinging chandelier suspended from the center of the ceiling. Fat bailiffs and court officers,
concerned only in holding their workless jobs, did not add anything to the spirit of the scene.
Two of them in the particular court in which this trial was held contended hourly as to which
should hand the judge a glass of water. One preceded his honor like a fat, stuffy, dusty
majordomo to and from his dressing-room. His business was to call loudly, when the latter
entered, "His honor the Court, hats off. Everybody please rise," while a second bailiff, standing
at the left of his honor when he was seated, and between the jury-box and the witness-chair,
recited in an absolutely unintelligible way that beautiful and dignified statement of collective
society's obligation to the constituent units, which begins, "Hear ye! hear ye! hear ye!" and ends,
"All those of you having just cause for complaint draw near and ye shall be heard." However,
you would have thought it was of no import here. Custom and indifference had allowed it to sink
to a mumble. A third bailiff guarded the door of the jury-room; and in addition to these there
were present a court clerk--small, pale, candle-waxy, with colorless milk-and-water eyes, and
thin, pork-fat-colored hair and beard, who looked for all the world like an Americanized and
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