moment, to speak; and, as his self-control was evidently strained to the
breaking point, Thorndyke, with a man's natural instinct, wished him a
hasty good-bye, and passing his hand through my arm, turned away.

"I wish it had been possible to save the poor fellow from this delay,
and especially from the degradation of being locked up in a jail," he
exclaimed regretfully as we walked down the street.

"There is surely no degradation in being merely accused of a crime," I
answered, without much conviction, however. "It may happen to the best
of us; and he is still an innocent man in the eyes of the law."

"That, my dear Jervis, you know, as well as I do, to be mere casuistry,"
he rejoined. "The law professes to regard the unconvicted man as
innocent; but how does it treat him? You heard how the magistrate
addressed our friend; outside the court he would have called him _Mr_.
Hornby. You know what will happen to Reuben at Holloway. He will be
ordered about by warders, will have a number label fastened on to his
coat, he will be locked in a cell with a spy-hole in the door, through
which any passing stranger may watch him; his food will be handed to him
in a tin pan with a tin knife and spoon; and he will be periodically
called out of his cell and driven round the exercise yard with a mob
composed, for the most part, of the sweepings of the London slums. If he
is acquitted, he will be turned loose without a suggestion of
compensation or apology for these indignities or the losses he may have
sustained through his detention."

"Still I suppose these evils are unavoidable," I said.

"That may or may not be," he retorted. "My point is that the presumption