"One last word, and we shall be glad to have its significance noted: J.Louden, Esq., has been retained for the defence! The murderer, before being apprehended by the authorities, WENT STRAIGHTFROM THE SCENE OF HIS CRIME TO PLACE HIS RETAINERIN HIS ATTORNEY'S POCKET! HOW LONG IS THIS TOLAST?"The Tocsin was quoted on street corners that morning, in shop and store and office, wherever people talked of the Cory murder; and that was everywhere, for the people of Canaan and of the country roundabout talked of nothing else.Women chattered of it in parlor and kitchen; men gathered in small groups on the street and shook their heads ominously over it; farmers, meeting on the road, halted their teams and loudly damned the little man in the Canaan jail; milkmen lingered on back porches over their cans to agree with cooks that it was an awful thing, and that if ever any man deserved hanging, that there Fear deserved it --his lawyer along with him! Tipsy men hammered bars with fists and beer-glasses, inquiring if there was no rope to be had in the town; and Joe Louden, returning to his office from the little restaurant where he sometimes ate his breakfast, heard hisses following him along Main Street.Aclerk, a fat-shouldered, blue-aproned, pimple-cheeked youth, stood in the open doors of a grocery, and as he passed, stared him in the face and said "Yah!" with supreme disgust.
Joe stopped."Why?" he asked, mildly.
The clerk put two fingers in his mouth and whistled shrilly in derision."You'd ort to be run out o' town!" he exclaimed.
"I believe," said Joe, "that we have never met before.""Go on, you shyster!"Joe looked at him gravely."My dear sir," he returned, "you speak to me with the familiarity of an old friend."The clerk did not recover so far as to be capable of repartee until Joe had entered his own stairway.