judge asked the jury for their verdict and it was an eternity before the forewoman arose.

She was beginning to look rather disheveled. Beaming at Chandler—surely the woman was rather odd, it couldn't be just his imagination—she fumbled in her pocketbook for the slip of paper with the verdict. But she wore an expression of suppressed laughter.

"I knew I had it," she cried triumphantly and waved the slip above her head. "Now, let's see." She held it before her eyes and squinted. "Oh, yes. Judge, we the jury, and so forth and so on—"

She paused to wink at Judge Ellithorp. An uncertain worried murmur welled up in the auditorium. "All that junk, Judge," she explained, "anyway, we unanimously—but unanimously, love!—find this son of a bitch innocent. Why," she giggled, "we think he ought to get a medal, you know? I tell you what you do, love, you go right over and give him a big wet kiss and say you're sorry." She kept on talking, but no one heard. The murmur became a mass scream.

"Stop, stop her!" bawled the judge, dropping his glasses. "Bailiff!"

The scream became a word, in many voices chorused: Possessed! And beyond doubt the woman was. The men around her hurled themselves away, as from leprosy among them, and then washed back like a lynch mob. She was giggling as they fell on her. "Got a cigarette? No cigarettes in this lousy bag—oh." She screamed as they touched her, went limp and screamed again.

It was a different note this time, pure hysteria: "I couldn't stop. Oh, God."

Chandler caught his lawyer by the arm and jerked him away from staring at the scene. All of a sudden he was alive again. "You, damn it. Listen! The jury acquitted me, right?"

The lawyer was startled. "Don't be ridiculous. It's a clear case of—"

"Be a lawyer, man! You live on technicalities, don't you? Make this one work for me!"

The attorney gave him a queer, thoughtful look, hesitated, shrugged and got to his feet. He had to shout to be heard. "Your honor! I take it my client is free to go."

He made almost as much of a stir as the sobbing woman, but he outshouted the storm. "The jury's verdict is on record. Granted there was an apparent case of possession. Nevertheless—"

Judge Ellithorp yelled back: "No 

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