the button that summoned the stenographer it seemed to him the simplest
thing in the world to satisfy any jury of what had taken place and the
summit of impudent audacity on the part of Mr. Tutt to have suggested
that Hassoun should be dealt with otherwise than a first-degree
murderer. And it should be added parenthetically that W.M.P., in spite
of his New England temperament, had a burning ambition to send somebody
to the electric chair.

In truth, on its face the story as related by Fajala Mokarzel and the
other friends of Sardi Babu the deceased pillow-sham vender was
simplicity itself. Besides Sardi Babu and Mokarzel there had been Nicola
Abbu, the confectioner; Menheem Shikrie, the ice-cream vendor; Habu
Kahoots, the showman; and David Elias, a pedler. All six of them, as
they claimed, had been sitting peacefully in Ghabryel & Assad's
restaurant, eating _kibbah arnabeiah_ and _mamoul_. Sardi had ordered
_sheesh kabab_. It was about nine o'clock in the evening, and they were
talking politics and drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes.

Suddenly Kasheed Hassoun, accompanied by a smaller and much darker man,
had entered and striding up to the table exclaimed in a threatening
manner: "Where is he who did say that he would spit upon the beard of my
bishop?"

Thereupon Sardi Babu had risen and answered: "Behold, I am he."

Immediately Kasheed Hassoun, and while his accomplice held them at bay
with a revolver, had leaned across the table and grabbing Sardi by the
throat had broken his neck. Then the smaller man had fired off his
pistol and both of them had run away. The simplest story ever told.
There was everything the law required to send any murderer to the chair,