The Green Bag
120 refreshment
parlor would
usually be
made. It was at a county seat so honored,
and on an afternoon when the judicial labors were timed in minutes and the after refreshments and rest in hours,
time. You will find things all tore up in the house terribl and a klot of blud on the kitchen floor and it looks like there had been some fowl play— You better look after things there rite away, and go after Pete who was the last of
his honor found life to be “one grand
the three saw alive. They say he went west and let out something about medicin
sweet song,” until rudely disturbed by a base and surreptitious meddler—an
hat, maybe thats a place somewhere out west. Yours truly."
that the sheriff had in the company of
anonymous letter writer. The judge had just simultaneously
found the bottom of a stein and the con clusion of his story about a protracted lost-will case he had recently tried in
court. In the story there figured an account of his honor's persistent unslaked thirst
while listening to very long erudite legal arguments on the question of the admission of vital testimony — the dis
There was no signature nor indication of place or date.
As the sheriff laboriously deciphered the scrawl he became gradually more and more mentally alert and when he
had reached the end he was almost sober.
“That's a hell of a note," he re marked, blissfully unoonscious of any possible pun.
putatious lawyers being a distinguished
"Vets in it?" inquired his honor, who
senator from abroad, pro, and a militant major of home talent, con. l‘How did you finally decide the point,
had been gravely blinking the little blue
Judge?” asked the sheriff, as he too reached the bottom of his stein. "Vell," said the judge smilingly, "I tolt ‘em dat I guess ve better let de magher hav his vay, and den adjurned de case quick." After the laugh which came easily from the surrounding cronies to the
tune of the flowing steins, the deputy produced the anonymous note for the
sheriff. Apparently written with a labored and unaccustomed hand it read as follows: —
eyes imbedded in the fat cheeks and looking on during the perusal. "In what?" remarked the dazed officer,
and then realizing the purport of the enquiry, continued, “Oh, in the letter! Well, there's hell in it, and murder most
likely." Pending the reading, as there appeared no immediate prospect for more drinks,
the two upholders of the law had been left alone by the hangers-on. Without further elucidating, the sheriff proceeded to re-read the note, and as he grasped more and more of its dire con tents, he became as sober as a judge —
knows where Pete and his wife and Bill Sykes who was sweet on her is and
always ought to be. Then feeling the need of a division of responsibility, he explained the matter to the stolid judge who also became deeply interested, as it was among his multifarious duties to hold preliminary examinations in criminal cases. The two officials became more and
nobody had saw any of them for a long
more deeply absorbed as they discussed
“Sheriff of Hamilton county ——
“Deer Sur: If you will go to the Pete Slidems place a half-mile out from Florafountin, you will find the house empty and nobudy there. Nobudy
