The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him Part 9

"Give me that lantern," said Peter, speaking low, but his voice ringing very clear.

The lantern was pa.s.sed to him, and taking it, he walked along the line of cows. He saw several with sores more or less developed. One or two he saw in the advanced stages of the disease, where the tail had begun to rot away. The other men followed him on his tour of inspection, and whispered together nervously. It did not take Peter long to examine all he wanted to see. Handing back the lantern at the door, he said: "Give me your names."

The men looked nonplussed, and s.h.i.+fted their weights uneasily from leg to leg.

"You," said Peter, looking at the man who had interfered with him.

"Wot do yer want with it?" he was asked.

"That's my business. What's your name?"

"John Tingley."

"Where do you live?"

"310 West 61st Street."

Peter obtained and wrote down the names and addresses of the trio. He then went to the "office" of the company, which was now opened.

"Is this an incorporated company?" he asked of the man tilted back in a chair.

"No," said the man, adding two chair legs to terra firma, and looking at Peter suspiciously.

"Who owns it?" Peter queried.

"I'm the boss."

"That isn't what I asked."

"That's what I answered."

"And your name is?"

"James Coldman."

"Do you intend to answer my question?"

"Not till I know your business."

"I'm here to find out against whom to get warrants for a criminal prosecution."

"For what?"

"The warrant will say."

The man squirmed in his chair. "Will you give me till to-morrow?"

"No. The warrant is to be issued to-day. Decide at once, whether you or your princ.i.p.al, shall be the man to whom it shall be served."

"I guess you'd better make it against me," said the man.

"Very well," said Peter. "Of course you know your employer will be run down, and as I'm not after the rest of you, you will only get him a few days safety at the price of a term in prison."

"Well, I've got to risk it," said the man.

Peter turned and walked away. He went down town to the Blacketts.

"I want you to carry the matter to the courts," he told the father.

"These men deserve punishment, and if you'll let me go on with it, it shan't cost you anything; and by bringing a civil suit as well, you'll probably get some money out of it."

Blackett gave his a.s.sent. So too did Patrick Milligan, and "Moike"

Dooley. They had won fame already by the deaths and wakes, but a "coort case" promised to give them prestige far beyond what even these distinctions conferred. So the three walked away proudly with Peter, and warrants were sworn to and issued against the "boss" as princ.i.p.al, and the driver and the three others as witnesses, made returnable on the following morning. On many a doorstep of the district, that night, nothing else was talked of, and the trio were the most envied men in the neighborhood. Even Mrs. Blackett and Ellen Milligan forgot their grief, and held a joint _soiree_ on their front stoop.

"Shure, it's mighty hard for Mrs. Dooley, that she's away!" said one.

"She'll be feeling bad when she knows what she's missed."

The next morning, Peter, the two doctors, the Blacketts, the Milligans, Dooley, the milk quintet, and as many inhabitants of the "district" as could crush their way in, were in court by nine o'clock. The plaintiffs and their friends were rather disappointed at the quietness of the proceedings. The examinations were purely formal except in one instance, when Peter asked for the "name or names of the owner or owners" of the National Milk Company. Here the defendant's attorney, a shrewd criminal lawyer, interfered, and there was a sharp pa.s.sage at arms, in which an attempt was made to anger Peter. But he kept his head, and in the end carried his point. The owner turned out to be the proprietor of the brewery, as Peter had surmised, who thus utilized the mash from his vats in feeding cattle. But on Peter's asking for an additional warrant against him, the defendant's lawyer succeeded in proving, if the statement of the overseer proved it, that the brewer was quite ignorant that the milk sold in the "district" was what had been unsalable the day before to better customers, and that the skimming and doctoring of it was unknown to him. So an attempt to punish the rich man as a criminal was futile. He could afford to pay for straw men.

"Arrah!" said Dooley to Peter as they pa.s.sed out of the court, "Oi think ye moight have given them a bit av yer moind."

"Wait till the trial," said Peter. "We mustn't use up our powder on the skirmish line."

So the word was pa.s.sed through the district that "theer'd be fun at the rale trial," and it was awaited with intense interest by five thousand people.

CHAPTER XIV.

NEW YORK JUSTICE.

Peter saw the District Attorney the next morning for a few moments, and handed over to him certain memoranda of details that had not appeared in the committing court's record.

"It shall go before the grand jury day after to-morrow," that official told him, without much apparent interest in the matter.

"How soon can it be tried, if they find a true bill? asked Peter.

"Can't say," replied the official.

"I merely wished to know," said Peter, "because three of the witnesses are away, and I want to have them back in time."

"Probably a couple of weeks," yawned the man, and Peter, taking the hint, departed.

The rest of the morning was spent in drawing up the papers in three civil suits against the rich brewer. Peter filed them as soon as completed, and took the necessary steps for their prompt service.

These produced an almost immediate result, in the shape of a call the next morning from the same lawyer who had defended the milkmen in the preliminary examination. Peter, as he returned from his midday meal, met the lawyer on the stairs.