The Sheriffs Bluff | Page 3

of those about him, he declared in a maudlin tone, that he "Warn't goin' to keep silence."
"I got 's much right to talk 's anyone, and I'ma goin' to talk 's much 's I please."
His friends tried to silence him, and the Sheriff made his way through the crowd and endeavored to induce him to leave the court-room. But it was to no purpose. Jim Turkle was much too "far gone" to know what he was doing, though he was in a delightfully good humor. He merely hugged the Sheriff and laughed drunkenly.
"Aleck, you jist go 'way f'om here. I ain't a-goin' to shet up. You shet up yourself. I 'm a-goin' to talk all I please. Now, you hear it."
Then as if to atone for his rudeness, he caught the Sheriff roughly by the arm and pulled him toward him:
"Aleck, how 's the case goin'? Is Mandy a goin' to win? Is that old rascal rulin' right!"
The Sheriff urged something in a low voice, but Turkle would not be silenced.
"Now you see thar," he broke out with a laugh to those about him, "did n't I tell you Aleck wa' n 't nothin' but a' ol' drunkard? What d' you s'pose the ol' rascal wants me to do? He wants me to go over there to the bar and git drunk like 'im, and I ain't goin' to do it. I never drink. I 've come here to see that my cousin Mandy's chil'ern gits their patrimony, and I ain' a goin' to 'sociate with these here drunken fellows like Aleck Thompson."
The Sheriff made a final effort. He spoke positively, but Turkle would not heed.
"Oh, 'Judge' be damned! You and I know that ol' fellow loves a dram jest 's well 's the best of 'em--jest 's well 's you do. Look at his face. You think he got that drinkin' well-water! Bet yer he 's got a bottle in 's pocket right now."
A titter ran through the crowd, but was suddenly stopped.
A quiet voice was heard from the other end of the court-room, and a deathly silence fell on the assemblage.
"Suspend for a moment, gentlemen, if you please. Mr. Sheriff, bring that person to the bar of the Court."
The crowd parted as if by magic, and the Sheriff led his drunken constituent to the bar, where his befuddled brain took in just enough of the situation to make him quiet enough. The Judge bent his sternest look on him until he quailed.
"Have you no more sense of propriety than to disturb a court of justice in the exercise of its high function?"
Turkle, however, was too drunk to understand this. He tried to steady himself against the bar.
"I ain't is-turbed no Court of function, and anybody 't says so, Jedge, iz a liar." He dragged his hand across his mouth and tried to look around upon the crowd with an air of drunken triumph, but he staggered and would have fallen had not the Sheriff caught and supported him.
The Judge's eyes had never left him.
"Mr. Sheriff, take this intoxicated creature and confine him in the county gaol until the expiration of the term. The very existence of a court of justice depends upon the observance of order. Order must be preserved and the dignity of the Court maintained."
There was a stir--half of horror--throughout the court-room. Put a man in that jail just for being tight!
Then the Sheriff on one side and his deputy on the other, led the culprit out, now sufficiently quiet and half whimpering. A considerable portion of the crowd followed him.
Outside, the prisoner was sober enough, and he begged hard to be let off and allowed to go home. His friends, too, joined in his petition and promised to guarantee that he would not come back again during the term of court. But the Sheriff was firm.
"No. The Judge told me to put you in jail and I 'm goin' to do it." He took two huge iron keys from his deputy and rattled them fiercely.
Turkle shrank back with horror.
"You ain't goin' to put me in thar, Aleck! Not in that hole! Not just for a little drop o' whiskey. It was your whiskey, too, Aleck. I was drinkin' yo' health, Aleck. You know I was."
"The Judge won't know anything about it. He 'll never think of it again," pleaded several of Turkle's friends. "You know he has ordered a drunken man put there before and never said any more about it--just told you to discharge him next day."
Turkle stiffened up with hope.
"Yes, Aleck." He leaned on the Sheriff's arm heavily. "He 's drunk himself--I don't mean that, I mean you 're drunk--oh, no--I mean I'm drunk. Everybody 's drunk."
"Yes, you 've gone and called me a drunkard before the Court. Now I 'm goin' to