“I knowed it, too,” Ginny Babe Chew rumbled. “I’s got a hoodoo face.”
“I knowed it,” Hitch Diamond growled. “Goldie told me.”
“I think we had better go home,” Judge Henry Haddan said, with a funny twisted smile. “My head hurts!”
“I beg your pardon, your honor,” the district attorney said, rising painfully to his feet and leaning weakly against the table. “Excuse me--but haven’t you forgotten something?”
Judge Haddan’s aching head was not working clearly, and he did not catch Davazec’s meaning at all. He thought he understood, and so he announced:
“Hitch Diamond, you are a brave negro. Your heroic fight in this court-room will be long remembered.” Haddan broke off, tried to smile, and continued: “Your masterly presentation of your defense disproves, in this instance, the aphorism that a lawyer who pleads his own case has a fool for a client.”
“Dat’s right, boss!” Ginny Babe Chew whooped. “Little Hitchie shore is brave an’ smart, ef I do say it myse’f, whut hadn’t oughter. Nobody in dis country don’t know it but me and Hitch--but I is Hitch’s mammy! He is kin to me by bornation on de Flournoy plantation fawty years ago----”
“Aw, hush!” Judge Haddan exclaimed. “I am feeling very badly, and I am going home----”
“I beg your pardon, your honor!” the district attorney repeated in a courteous but insistent tone. “Have you not forgotten something?”
Judge Haddan rested both hands upon his aching head and thought. Then he forgot his aching head and laughed. He straightened up and spoke:
“The indictments against defendant are dismissed, and defendant discharged--the jury is excused, and court adjourned! Hitch Diamond, you are free!”
“Dar now, boss,” Hitch bellowed, grinning into his honor’s face. “I wus plum’ shore you an’ me could win dis case ef we jes’ sot our minds to do it. Bless Gawd!”
Author of “The Way of an Eagle,” “The Rocks of Valpré,” “The Keeper of the Door,” “Bars of Iron,” “The Hundredth Chance,” etc.
_12^o. Color Frontispiece. $1.50 net. By mail, $1.65_
Surely Miss Dell has never written anything more deserving of the title “best seller” than this absorbing story, which takes an elemental grip on the reader to an amazing degree.
The flirtation of a young girl, released for a brief time from the harsh restraint of an unlovely home, develops until it assumes overmastering proportions, and she is barely saved from herself by the steadfast loyalty, unspoken love, and great moral courage of the physically weak brother of her handsome, impulsive, and philandering lover. The scene is largely laid in Switzerland, and the ravishing beauty of that lovely land is painted with admirable skill.