find interesting personalities and new types. You may go over any day
and watch some poor victim's case being tried. If one is doing time
one self, it is a very good way to obtain inside information, though
it is a bit like being at your own hanging..... not exactly, of
course, but enough to make the anticipation peculiarly gruesome. Each
searching question of the judge seems to draw the noose around the
plaintiff's neck tighter and tighter; you will hold your breath: a
word, and the six months' exile and more are all in vain..... Not
until the final decision, "Judgment for the plaintiff," is pronounced
do you heave a sigh of relief.

[Illustration: ONE OF THE COURT ROOMS IN FAMOUS RENO COURT HOUSE]

Each day the divorce mill grinds the steady grist, and it is there
that one has a splendid opportunity of studying personality and
character. The wife who is nagged and abused; the one who is obliged
to support herself and her children; the one who has outgrown her
charms; the luxurious beauty who has spent her husband's fortune and
is preparing to spend another in the same way; the wife who has made a
mistake and found the right man at the wrong time; the wife whose
husband another woman has taken; the wife of a drunkard or a gambler.
The husband who is nagged; the husband whose wife is a spendthrift;
the husband whose wife wins prizes at bridge and neglects her home;
the husband whose wife has deserted him when he needed her most....

Naturally the stories you hear from the "aspirants" are always
plausible; and so they go by, the endless passing show.

Next we will go to dinner; we will dine at the Hotel Golden tonight;
they have just opened their new restaurant, and the food is excellent;