But I
would see that the truth was brought out in court next morning and
a warrant sworn out against the owner. With showering tears and
rib-shaking sobs the coachman promised to tell the judge the whole
story. I went through him, and locking him up with assurances of
my deepest sympathy and full assistance, stilted on toward the
little village of shacks scattered out of sight among the hills,
and valleys across the border.
Coachman, witnesses, and arresting officer, to say nothing of
horse, carriage, and sores were on hand when court opened next
morning. As I expected, the judge failed to ask the poor fellow a
single question that would bring out the complicity of his
employer; did not in fact discover there was an employer. I asked
to be sworn, and gave the true version of the case. The judge
listened earnestly. When I had ended, he recalled the coachman.
The latter expressed his astonishment that I should have made any
such statements. He denied them in toto. His employer had nothing
whatever to do with the case. The fault was entirely his, and no
one else was in the remotest degree connected with the matter.
"Five dollars!" snapped the judge.
The coachman paid, hitched up the rat of a horse, and wabbled away
into Panama.
Police business, taking me down into "the Grove" that night, I
found the driver, clean-shaven and better dressed, waiting for
fares before the principal house of that section.
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