“It would take all of five days, Frank,” Steger said, “but Jaspers isn’t a bad sort.  He’d be reasonable.  Of course if we’re lucky you won’t have to visit him.  You will have to go with this bailiff now, though.  Then if things come out right we’ll go home.  Say, I’d like to win this case,” he said.  “I’d like to give them the laugh and see you do it.  I consider you’ve been pretty badly treated, and I think I made that perfectly clear.  I can reverse this verdict on a dozen grounds if they happen to decide against you.”

He and Cowperwood and the latter’s father now stalked off with the sheriff’s subordinate—­a small man by the name of “Eddie” Zanders, who had approached to take charge.  They entered a small room called the pen at the back of the court, where all those on trial whose liberty had been forfeited by the jury’s leaving the room had to wait pending its return.  It was a dreary, high-ceiled, four-square place, with a window looking out into Chestnut Street, and a second door leading off into somewhere—­one had no idea where.  It was dingy, with a worn wooden floor, some heavy, plain, wooden benches lining the four sides, no pictures or ornaments of any kind.  A single two-arm gas-pipe descended from the center of the ceiling.  It was permeated by a peculiarly stale and pungent odor, obviously redolent of all the flotsam and jetsam of life—­criminal and innocent—­that had stood or sat in here from time to time, waiting patiently to learn what a deliberating fate held in store.

Cowperwood was, of course, disgusted; but he was too self-reliant and capable to show it.  All his life he had been immaculate, almost fastidious in his care of himself.  Here he was coming, perforce, in contact with a form of life which jarred upon him greatly.  Steger, who was beside him, made some comforting, explanatory, apologetic remarks.

“Not as nice as it might be,” he said, “but you won’t mind waiting a little while.  The jury won’t be long, I fancy.”

“That may not help me,” he replied, walking to the window.  Afterward he added:  “What must be, must be.”

His father winced.  Suppose Frank was on the verge of a long prison term, which meant an atmosphere like this?  Heavens!  For a moment, he trembled, then for the first time in years he made a silent prayer.

Chapter XLIV

Meanwhile the great argument had been begun in the jury-room, and all the points that had been meditatively speculated upon in the jury-box were now being openly discussed.

It is amazingly interesting to see how a jury will waver and speculate in a case like this—­how curious and uncertain is the process by which it makes up its so-called mind.  So-called truth is a nebulous thing at best; facts are capable of such curious inversion and interpretation, honest and otherwise.  The jury had a strongly complicated problem before it, and it went over it and over it.