By Advice of Counsel by Arthur Cheney Train
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be Mr. Joseph Simpkins, Mr. Hogan's runner. Weren't there to be any
cakes and ale in New York simply because a highbrow happened to be mayor? Were human kindness, good nature and generosity all dead? Would he have taken a ten-dollar bill--or even a hundred-dollar one--from Simpkins when he was going to be a witness in one of Hogan's cases? Not on your life! He wasn't no crook, he wasn't! He didn't have to be. He was just a cog in an immense wheel of crookedness. When the wheel came down on his cog he automatically did his part. I perceive that the police are engaging too much of our attention. But it is necessary to explain why Delany was so ready to arrest Tony Mathusek, and why as he dragged him into the station house he beckoned to Mr. Joey Simpkins, who was loitering outside in front of the deputy sheriff's office, and whispered behind his hand, "All right. I've got one for you!" Then the machine began to work as automatically as a cash register. Tony was arraigned at the bar, and, having given his age as sixteen years and five days, charged with the "malicious destruction of property, to wit, a plate-glass window of one Karl Froelich, of the value of one hundred and fifty dollars." Mr. Joey Simpkins had shouldered his way through the smelly push and taken his stand beside the bewildered and half-fainting boy. "It's all right, kid. Leave it to me," he said, encircling him with a protecting arm. Then to the clerk: "Pleads not guilty." The magistrate glanced over the complaint, in which Delany, to save Froelich trouble, had sworn that he had seen Tony throw the brick. Hadn't the butcher said he'd seen him? Besides, that let the Dutchman |
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