"Your Honor," Braun interrupted, "some of my clients have been sent to prison for using that term. This court has held it to be insulting and abusive."
"It was a slip of my tongue, Yer Honor," Pick-Axe said with confusion.
"Clerk," the Judge instructed, "strike out that word, and you be more careful, Brennan."
"Yes, Yer Honor. I was saying a respectable woman came along looking for work--she wasn't really a woman, just a young girl. I didn't see her because I was in the hallway lighting my pipe, as I told Yer Honor, but I heard her holler and, rushing out, I seen this other woman a-laying into her, beating her up something awful--"
Mrs. Muscovitz tried to protest from the benches, but Longman, at a signal from Braun, hushed her.
"Well, Yer Honor, I runs up and tries to arrest the woman, and the other one--this Rayefsky girl--jumps on me with a blackjack and lays me out, Yer Honor. The first thing I knows I come to, with this gentleman a-helping me up. How long I laid there senseless, Yer Honor, I don't know. I came right over here and got the warrant, and Officer Sheehan and me, we got her at the strike headquarters, like he told Yer Honor."
"Do you wish to question the witness, Mr. Braun?"
"Brennan," he began, "did you see a blackjack in the defendant's hand?"
"No, sir! If I'd a knowed she had a blackjack would I have let her sneak up behind me? No. I'd have run her in before."
"What makes you think it was a blackjack?"
"The bump on my head." He leaned over the bench so the judge could examine it. "She couldn't have made that with her hand, Yer Honor."
"It certainly looks like a blackjack," the judge said.
"Are you sure, Brennan, it wasn't a piece of stone?"
"No. It wasn't no stone--I'd have seen her pick it up. It was a blackjack," he insisted doggedly.
"How do you know it wasn't a piece of gas-pipe?"
"What's the use of such questions?" the judge asked impatiently. "The crime would be no less serious if the blow had been struck with a piece of gas-pipe."
"Your Honor," Braun replied, "it is a serious question. Brennan does not know what hit him and I do. In two more questions I think I can convince the Court that he does not know. Brennan," he turned to the witness, "you say that you had gone into the hallway to light your pipe. When you rushed out to attack the picket, did you see this gentleman coming down the street? Professor Longman, will you please rise? Brennan, did you see this gentleman coming down the street with that cane in his hand?"