The Case and Exceptions Stories of Counsel and Clients

Excerpt

OUTSIDE THE RECORD.

In General Sessions
Court Room, June 5, 1896.

Dorothy dear:

It is over. Warren’s fate is in the hands of the jury. I have done the little I could, but the strain has been almost too much for me.

Even now, my heart sinks at the thought that I may have left something undone or failed to see some trap of the District Attorney.

For more than two hours I have been sitting here fighting it all through again.

You have not known what this case means to me, and doubtless have often found me a dull companion and neglectful lover during the past months. But I will not cry “peccavi,” my Lady, unless you pronounce me guilty after reading what I write. See how confident I am—not of myself but of you!

The Court Room is quiet now, for it is ten o’clock at night. Only a few reporters and officials have lingered, and these yawn over the protracted business. Think of it! This is merely a matter of business to them—the life of this man. I cannot blame them, yet the thought of such indifference to what is so terribly vital to me, crushes with its awful significance.

Godfrey Warren is only a name to you, or at most only the name of one of my clients. You have not known that he is my oldest and dearest friend. How hard it has been to keep this from you! But it was his wish that you should not know it—and, if I do not send this letter, you never will.

Warren and I have been friends from boyhood. We attended the same school where we “raised the devil in couples” after a manner bad to record but good to remember. So inseparable were we that our families planned to send us to different Universities, thinking, I suppose, that our continued intimacy would be at the expense of a broader knowledge of mankind. But their purpose, whatever it was, came to nothing, for we flatly rejected any college education upon such terms.

As a result we entered Yale together and left there four years later with our boyish affection welded in a friendship such as comes into the lives of but few men.

Warren showed, even as a lad, those characteristics which have since marked him as a man apart. He was quick at his studies and slow in his friendships. But his judgment of men, though slow, was sure. A more accurate reader of character never lived. But of late years, whenever I remarked on this, he would laugh and say the credit did not belong to him but rather to Fantine, who told him all he knew.

This brings me to another striking trait in the man—his devotion to animals and their worship of him. Dogs were his for his whistle, and horses once touched by his hand would whinny a welcome if he only neared the stable door. When he held a moment’s silent conference with a cat, it behooved the owner to watch lest pussy followed the charmer, and the way birds looked at him was positively uncanny.

Good God! I am writing this as though he were dead, and my heart is beating louder than the great clock in this silent Court Room!

Warren is not a handsome man, honey. You must not picture any Prince Charming in his person. He has—he has red hair. There—one would think I was making a confession. How he would laugh at me! He always says I try to make him out an Adonis when he’s about as ugly an animal as ever walked upright. This is nonsense, of course. He is not handsome, but his features are strong, and when he smiles, his eyes light up the whole face and he is splendid.

But it is the mind of the man that has always fascinated me. His ideas are so clean—his breadth of view so comprehensive—his intellect so keen and his purpose so high.

If I could only have told the jury about the man himself!—But all this is “outside the record.” Do you understand, dear?

Never have I known a more sunny disposition or a more even temper in anyone....