even a gold toothpick and the pigeon-tailed coat and the plug hat until by nightfall you couldn’t even a got a glass of water in the Holston Hotel for ever porter and waiter hanging around his door to wait on him and he could a owned ever other Negro in Jefferson too by tomorrow if he had had anything he could a done with them, saying “Gentlemen. Gentlemen. Gentlemen.” And the mayor coming in where they was all setting around the table, to stand there laughing at them for a while and then saying,
“You’ll have to excuse me. Even the mayor of just Jefferson, Mississippi, has got to do a little work now and then.” And Lawyer Stevens setting there calm and white in the face and looking exactly like he done that night when he told his brother-in-law: “Can you suh-jest a better way for me to learn how to fight than the one I just tried?”
And Flem Snopes hadn’t got back yet and in fact they couldn’t even locate him, like he had evidently went on a camping trip in the woods where there wasn’t no telephone; and the big boss one, the one with the white vest and the gold toothpick, says: “Im sure Mr de Spain would resign. Why dont we jest let him resign and forget all this here unhappiness?” and Lawyer Stevens says, “He’s a good mayor. We dont want him to resign,” and the white vest says, “Then what do you want? You will have to prove our client’s representative stole any brass and all you have is the word of them two nigras because Mr Snopes hisself has went out of town.”
“That water tank aint went out of town,” Lawyer says. “We can drain that water tank.”
So what they called was a special meeting of the board of aldermen. What they got was like one of them mass carcasses to vote between two beauty queens, the courthouse bell beginning to ring about eight oclock like it actively was some kind of a night session of court, and the folks coming up the streets and gathering in the Square, laughing and making jokes back and forth, until they decided right quick that the mayor’s office wouldn’t hold even the start of it, so they moved into the courtroom upstairs like it was Court.
Because this was just January; that Christmas Ball wasn’t barely three weeks old yet. Even when they chose sides it was still jest fun, because most of them had jest come to watch and listen anyhow, even after somebody beat the Judg19;s mallet on the table until they quit laughing and joking and hushed and one of the aldermen said, “I dont know how much it will cost to drain that tank, but I for one will be damned—”
“I do,” Lawyer Stevens says. “I already asked. It will cost three hundred and eighty dollars to rig a auxiliary tank long enough to drain and then fill the other one up again and then dismantle the auxiliary and get shut of it. It wont cost nothing to send somebody down inside of it to look because I’ll do that myself.”
“All right,” the alderman says. “Then I will still be damned—”
“All right,” Lawyer says. “Then I will pay for it myself,” and the old bonding feller, the white-vest one, saying “Gentlemen. Gentlemen. Gentlemen.” And the young one, the first one, standing up now and hollering:
“Dont you see, Mr Stevens? Dont you see, Mr Stevens? If you find brass in the tank, there wont be no crime because the brass already belongs to the city?”
“I already thought of that too,” Lawyer says. “The brass still belongs to the city even if we dont drain the tank. Only, where is it at?” and the little bonding feller saying:
“Wait! Wait! That aint what I meant. I mean if the brass aint missing there aint no crime because it wasn’t never stole.”
“Tom Tom Bird and Tomey’s Turl Beauchamp says it was because they stole it,” Lawyer says. Now they was two aldermen talking at once, saying:
“Hold up here; hold up here,” until finally the loudest one, Henry Best, won:
“Then who are you charging, Gavin? Are them nigras under Manfred’s bond too?”
“But there aint no crime! We know the brass is in that tank because that’s where the nigras said they put it.” The little bonding feller was hollering and all this time the big one, the white-vest one, still saying “Gentlemen. Gentlemen. Gentlemen,” like a big bass drum a far piece off that never nobody paid any attention to nohow; until Henry Best hollered,
“Wait, god damn it,” so loud that they did hush and Henry said: “Them nigras confessed they stole that brass, but there aint no evidence of theft until we drain that tank. So right now, they didn’t steal no brass. And if we drain that damn tank and find brass in it, they did steal brass and are guilty of theft. Only, as soon as we find brass in that tank, they never stole any brass because the brass is not just once more in the possession of the city: it aint never been out of it. God damn it, Gavin, is that what you are trying to tell us? Then what the hell do you want? What in hell do you want?”
And Lawyer Stevens setting there calm and still, with his face still white and still as paper. And maybe he hadn’t learned how to fight yet neither. But he still hadn’t heard about no rule against trying. “That’s right,” he says. “If there is brass in that tank—valuable property of the city unlawfully constrained into that tank by the connivance ad condonance of a employee of the city, a crime has been committed. If we find brass in that tank—valuable property belonging to the city unlawfully constrained into that tank with the connivance or condonance of a employee of the city, even if it is recovered, a attempt at a crime has been condoned by a employee of the city. But that tank
Because that was all they got then, which wasn’t nothing to be settled jest off-hand by a passel of amateurs like a alderman board. It was something for a professional, a sho-enough active judge, whether they aimed to or not, they had done got themselves now to where they would have to have a court. Though I didn’t know Judge Dukinfield was in the crowd until Henry Best stood up and looked out at us and hollered: “Judge Dukinfield, is Judge Dukinfield still here?” and Judge Dukinfield stood up in the back and says,
“Yes, Henry?”
“I reckon we’ll have to have help, Judge,” Henry says. “I reckon you heard as much of this as we done, and we all hope you made more sense out of it than we done—”
“Yes; all right,” Judge Dukinfield says. “We will hold the hearing here in chambers tomorrow morning at nine. I dont believe either plaintiff or defendant will need more counsel than are represented tonight but they are welcome to bring juniors if they like—or should we say seconds?”
Then we all got up to leave, still laughing and talking and joking back and forth, still not taking no sides but jest mainly enjoying it, jest being in principle on whichever other side from them two foreign bonding fellers for the simple reason that they was foreigners, not even paying no attention to Lawyer’s twin sister standing there by him now until you could almost hear her telling Henry Best: “Now you’re satisfied; maybe you can let him alone now;”
