Читать книгу The Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald онлайн

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Brought into the dock between two towering Celts in executive blue he seemed like the representative of a long-extinct race, a very fagged-out and shriveled elf who had been caught poaching on a buttercup in Central Park.

“What’s your name?”

“Stuart.”

“Stuart what?”

“Charles David Stuart.”

The clerk recorded it without comment in the book of little crimes and great mistakes.

“Age?”

“Thirty.”

“Occupation?”

“Night cashier.”

The clerk paused and looked at the judge. The judge yawned.

“Wha’s charge?” he asked.

“The charge is”—the clerk looked down at the notation in his hand—“the charge is that he pushed a lady in the face.”

“Pleads guilty?”

“Yes.”

The preliminaries were now disposed of. Charles David Stuart, looking very harmless and uneasy, was on trial for assault and battery.

The evidence disclosed, rather to the judge’s surprise, that the lady whose face had been pushed was not the defendant’s wife.

On the contrary the victim was an absolute stranger—the prisoner had never seen her before in his life. His reasons for the assault had been two: first, that she talked during a theatrical performance; and, second, that she kept joggling the back of his chair with her knees. When this had gone on for some time he had turned around and without any warning pushed her severely in the face.