At last, worn out with their efforts, they finally induced the
old Teuton to compromise with them on a verdict of
manslaughter. Wearily they straggled in, the old native of
Schleswig-Holstein bringing up the rear, bursting with
exultation and with victory in his eye.
"Gentlemen of the jury, have you agreed upon a verdict?"
inquired the clerk.
"We have," replied the foreman.
"How say you, do you find the defendant guilty or not guilty?"
"Guilty--of manslaughter," returned the foreman feebly.
The district attorney was aghast at such a miscarriage of
justice, and the judge showed plainly by his demeanor his
opinion of such a verdict. But the old inhabitant of
Schleswig-Holstein cared for this not a whit. The old mother
in Schleswig-Holstein might still clasp her son in her arms
before she died! The defendant was arraigned at the bar.
Then for the first time, and to the surprise and disgust of
No. 11, he admitted in answer to the questions of the clerk
that his parents were both dead and that he was born in
Hamburg, a town for whose inhabitants the old juryman had,
like others of his compatriots, a constitutional antipathy.
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