| 193 | 194 | 195 | 196 | 197 |
| 1 | 101 | 201 | 302 | 402 |
|
The judge jested in a ponderous judicial way about the thing, but did not
move him. The matter was becoming grave. The judge lost a little of his
patience, and said the joke had gone far enough. Jim Sturgis said he
knew of no joke in the matter--his clients could not be punished for
indulging in what some people chose to consider a game of chance until it
was proven that it was a game of chance. Judge and counsel said that
would be an easy matter, and forthwith called Deacons Job, Peters, Burke,
and Johnson, and Dominies Wirt and Miggles, to testify; and they
unanimously and with strong feeling put down the legal quibble of Sturgis
by pronouncing that old sledge was a game of chance.
"
"
What do you call it now?" said the judge.
I call it a game of science!" retorted Sturgis; "and I'll prove it,
too!"
They saw his little game.
He brought in a cloud of witnesses, and produced an overwhelming mass of
testimony, to show that old sledge was not a game of chance but a game of
science.
Instead of being the simplest case in the world, it had somehow turned
out to be an excessively knotty one. The judge scratched his head over
it awhile, and said there was no way of coming to a determination,
195
Page
Quick Jump
|