They had not long to wait. Suddenly he jerked his head forward three times, viciously butting the paper, simultaneously emitting a burring sound not unlike that of an angry bull when he tears up the sod with his horns. The curtain fell to show him calm again but with a puzzled expression on his countenance.
“Teacher,” he said, “what does _h-a-b-e-a-s_ spell?”
“Hab-by-ace,” replied the pedagogue promptly. He threw out his chest and fixed his thumbs in their favorite resting-place, the arm-holes of his waistcoat. His attitude was that of a man who was full to the neck with general information and only needed uncorking.
“Habbyace,” said the Loafer. “Habbyace--habbyace--that’s a new un on me.”
“Doubtless it is,” the other retorted, “if you have never studied Latin. It means _have_.”
“Have--have,” muttered the Loafer, more puzzled than ever. “Then what’s _c-o-r-p-u-s_ spell?”
“Corpuse,” replied the pedagogue, “being the Latin for body.”
“Then I’m stumped.” The Loafer crumpled up his paper in one hand and shook the other at the assembled company. “Them ceety lawyers certainly beat the band.”
“What’s all the trouble now?” inquired the Tinsmith.
The Loafer unfolded the sheet again and smoothed it out on his knees. Then he leaned over it and eyed it intently.
“I was jest readin’ a piece about a man called Jawhn O’Brien,” he said slowly. “He was ’rested fer killin’ his wife an’ two young uns. It sais the evydence is dead agin him an’ he is sure to hang. He has hired J. Montgomery Cole to defend him. The first thing the lawyer does is to go inter court an’ ast fer a habbyace corpuse. Mighty souls! The idee! How’s that to defend a man--jest to ast fer his dead body.”
The Patriarch shook his head solemnly. “Terrible--terrible,” he said. “Sech men ought never git diplomys.”
“Yit, Gran’pap,” suggested the Tinsmith, “don’t ye think after all it’s best they is some sech lawyers? Why, ef it wasn’t fer the dumb lawyers they’d never be no murderers brought to jestice.”
“True--true,” said the old man. “Now it used to be that ’hen a man committed murder he was tried, an’ ef the evydence was agin him, he was hung. Nowadays a felly commits murder an’ a year is spent hevin’ him indickted. After he’s indickted a year is ockypied with these habbyace corpuse proceedin’s. They settles who gits the body in caset he’s hung an’ then they finds what they calls a ‘flaw in the indicktment.’ They indickts him agin. Next comes the question of a ‘change in vendue.’ It takes a year to argy that pint an’ after it the trial begins. Ef he’s found innercent it means he’s ben livin’ th’ee years doin’ nawthin’ at the county’s expense. Ef he’s found guilty his lawyer takes what they calls an ‘exception,’ meanin’ he objects to him bein’ hung. It takes a year to----”