Others were
squabbling over the right and title to certain chairs which possessed
the extraordinary advantage of being a foot or two nearer the coroner
than the other chairs. This is a grave cause of dispute among the
reporters, and has been known to give rise to a great many hard words,
and threats of subsequent chastisements, which are always indefinitely
postponed.
The coroner nodded, and said "good morning" to the comers, and assumed a
temporary official dignity, by taking down his right leg from the arm of
the chair over which it gracefully depended. He also fortified himself,
by thrusting a sizable chew into a corner of his mouth, as if he were
carefully loading a pistol.
But neither the coroner, nor the jury, nor the reporters, nor the few
private citizens who had obtained entrance by special dispensation, and
sat gaping about the room, attracted the attention of the prisoner.
Before him was one in whose presence all other persons faded into
nothingness--the fair disturber of his peaceful life--the arbitress of
his fate--Patty Minford.
CHAPTER VII.
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