Tutt and Mr. Tutt Part 29

"The moral of which all is," retorted the other, "that the law ought to be very careful about locking up people."

"At any rate those who have violated laws upon which there can be a legitimate difference of opinion," agreed Mr. Tutt.

"That's where we come in," said Tutt. "We make the difference--even if there never was any before."

Mr. Tutt chuckled.

"We perform a dual service to society," he declared. "We prevent the law from making mistakes and so keep it from falling into disrepute, and we show up its weak points and thus enable it to be improved."

"And incidentally we keep many a future statesman and prophet from going to prison," said Tutt. "The name of the last one was Solomon Rabinovitch--and he was charged with stealing a second-hand razor from a colored person described in the papers as one Morris Cohen."

How long this specious philosophic discussion would have continued is problematical had it not been interrupted by the entry of a young gentleman dressed with a somewhat ostentatious elegance, whose wizened face bore an expression at once of vast good nature and of a deep and subtle wisdom.

It was clear that he held an intimate relations.h.i.+p to Tutt & Tutt from the familiar way in which he returned their cordial, if casual, salutations.

"Well, here we are again," remarked Mr. Doon pleasantly, seating himself upon the corner of Mr. Tutt's desk and spinning his bowler hat upon the forefinger of his left hand. "The hospitals are empty. The Tombs is as dry as a bone. Everybody's good and every day'll be Sunday by and by."

"How about that man who stole a razor?" asked Tutt.

"Discharged on the ground that the fact that he had a full beard created a reasonable doubt," replied Doon. "Honestly there's nothing doing in my line--unless you want a tramp case."

"A tramp case!" exclaimed Tutt & Tutt.

"I suppose you'd call it that," he answered blandly. "I don't think he was a burglar. Anyhow he's in the Tombs now, shouting for a lawyer. I listened to him and made a note of the case."

Mr. Tutt pushed over the box of stogies and leaned back attentively.

"You know the Hepplewhite house up on Fifth Avenue--that great stone one with the driveway?"

The Tutts nodded.

"Well, it appears that the prisoner--our prospective client--was snooping round looking for something to eat and found that the butler had left the front door slightly ajar. Filled with a natural curiosity to observe how the other half lived, he thrust his way cautiously in and found himself in the main hall--hung with tapestry and lined with stands of armor. No one was to be seen. Can't you imagine him standing there in his rags--the Weary w.i.l.l.y of the comic supplements--gazing about him at the _objets d'art_, the old masters, the onyx tables, the statuary--wondering where the pantry was and whether the housekeeper would be more likely to feed him or kick him out?"

"Weren't any of the domestics about?" inquired Tutt.

"Not one. They were all taking an afternoon off, except the third a.s.sistant second man who was reading 'The Pilgrim's Progress' in the servants' hall. To resume, our friend was not only very hungry, but very tired. He had walked all the way from Yonkers, and he needed everything from a Turkish bath to a manicuring. He had not been shaved for weeks.

His feet sank almost out of sight in the thick nap of the carpets. It was quiet, warm, peaceful in there. A sense of relaxation stole over him. He hated to go away, he says, and he meditated no wrong. But he wanted to see what it was like upstairs.

"So up he went. It was like the palace of 'The Sleeping Beauty.'

Everywhere his eyes were soothed by the sight of hothouse plants, marble floors, priceless rugs, luxurious divans--"

"Stop!" cried Tutt. "You are making me sleepy!"

"Well, that's what it did to him. He wandered along the upper hall, peeking into the different rooms, until finally he came to a beautiful chamber finished entirely in pink silk. It had a pink rug--of silk; the furniture was upholstered in pink silk, the walls were lined with pink silk and in the middle of the room was a great big bed with a pink silk coverlid and a canopy of the same. It seemed to him that that bed must have been predestined for him. Without a thought for the morrow he jumped into it, pulled the coverlid over his head and went fast asleep.

"Meanwhile, at tea time Mrs. De Lancy Witherspoon arrived for the week-end. Bibby, the butler, followed by Stocking, the second man, bearing the hand luggage, escorted the guest to the Bouguereau Room, as the pink-silk chamber is called."

Mr. Bonnie Doon, carried away by his own powers of description, waved his hand dramatically at the old leather couch against the side wall, in which Weary w.i.l.l.y was supposed to be reclining.

"Can't you see 'em?" he declaimed. "The haughty Bibby with nose in air, preceding the great dame of fas.h.i.+on, enters the pink room and comes to attention, 'This way, madam!' he declaims, and Mrs. Witherspoon sweeps across the threshold." Bonnie Doon, picking up an imaginary skirt, waddled round Mr. Tutt and approached the couch. Suddenly he started back.

"Oh, la, la!" he half shrieked, dancing about. "There is a man in the bed!"

Both Tutts stared hard at the couch as if fully expecting to see the form of Weary w.i.l.l.y thereon. Bonnie Doon had a way of making things appear very vivid.

"And sure enough," he concluded, "there underneath the coverlid in the middle of the bed was a huddled heap with a stubby beard projecting like Excalibur from a pink silk lake!"

"Excuse me," interrupted Tutt. "But may I ask what this is all about?"

"Why, your new case, to be sure," grinned Bonnie, who, had he been employed by any other firm, might have run the risk of being regarded as an ambulance chaser. "To make a long and tragic story short, they sent for the watchman, whistled for a policeman, telephoned for the hurry-up wagon, and haled the sleeper away to prison--where he is now, waiting to be tried."

"Tried!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mr. Tutt. "What for?"

"For crime, to be sure," answered Mr. Doon.

"What crime?"

"I don't know. They'll find one, of course."

Mr. Tutt swiftly lowered his legs from the desk and brought his fist down upon it with a bang.

"Outrageous! What was I just telling you, Tutt!" he cried, a flush coming into his wrinkled face. "This poor man is a victim of the overzealousness which the officers of the law exhibit in protecting the privileges and property of the rich. If John De Puyster Hepplewhite fell asleep in somebody's vestibule the policeman on post would send him home in a cab; but if a hungry tramp does the same thing he runs him in. If John De Puyster Hepplewhite should be arrested for some crime they would let him out on bail; while the tramp is imprisoned for weeks awaiting trial, though under the law he is presumed to be innocent. Is he presumed to be innocent? Not much! He is presumed to be guilty, otherwise he would not be there. But what is he presumed to be guilty of? That's what I want to know! Just because this poor man--hungry, thirsty and weary--happened to select a bed belonging to John De Puyster Hepplewhite to lie on he is thrown into prison, indicted by a grand jury, and tried for felony! Ye G.o.ds! 'Sweet land of liberty!'"

"Well, he hasn't been tried yet," replied Bonnie Doon. "If you feel that way about it why don't you defend him?"

"I will!" shouted Mr. Tutt, springing to his feet. "I'll defend him and acquit him!"

He seized his tall hat, placed it upon his head and strode rapidly through the door.

"He will too!" remarked Bonnie, winking at Tutt.

"He thinks that tramp is either a statesman or a prophet!" mused Tutt, his mind reverting to his partner's earlier remarks.

"He won't think so after he's seen him," replied Mr. Doon.

It sometimes happens that those who seek to establish great principles and redress social evils involve others in an involuntary martyrdom far from their desires. Mr. Tutt would have gone to the electric chair rather than see the Hepplewhite Tramp, as he was popularly called by the newspapers convicted of a crime, but the very fact that he had become his legal champion interjected a new element into the situation, particularly as...o...b..ien, Mr. Tutt's arch enemy in the district attorney's office, had been placed in charge of the case.

It would have been one thing to let Hans Schmidt--that was the tramp's name--go, if after remaining in the Tombs until he had been forgotten by the press he could have been un.o.btrusively hustled over the Bridge of Sighs to freedom. Then there would have been no comeback. But with Ephraim Tutt breathing fire and slaughter, accusing the police and district attorney of being trucklers to the rich and great, and oppressors of the poor--law breakers, in fact--O'Brien found himself in the position of one having an elephant by the tail and unable to let go.

In fact, it looked as if the case of the Hepplewhite Tramp might become a political issue. That there was something of a comic side to it made it all the worse.

"Holy cats, boys!" snorted District Attorney Peckham to the circle of disgruntled police officers and a.s.sistants gathered about him on the occasion described by the reporters as his making a personal investigation of the case, "Why in the name of common sense didn't you simply boot the fellow into the street?"

"I wish we had, counselor!" a.s.sented the captain of the Hepplewhite precinct mournfully. "But we thought he was a burglar. I guess he was, at that--and it was Mr. Hepplewhite's house."

"I've heard that until I'm sick of it!" retorted Peckham.

"One thing is sure--if we turn him out now Tutt will sue us all for false arrest and put the whole administration on the b.u.m," snarled O'Brien.