DANNY'S OWN STORY BY DON MARQUIS TO MY ... - Pink Monkey

Harden was in the state legislature, and quite a
speaker, and knowed it. Will, the chairman, he
pounded down the applause, and then he says to
the doctor, pointing to Billy Harden:
"No man shall say of us that we did not give you
a fair trial and a square deal. I'm goin' to appoint
this gentleman as your counsel, and I'm goin' to
give you a reasonable time to talk with him in private
and prepare your case. He is the ablest
lawyer in southwest Georgia and the brightest son
of Watson County."
The doctor looks kind of lazy and Bill Harden,
and back agin at Will, the chairman, and smiles
out of the corner of his mouth. Then he says,
sort of taking in the rest of the crowd with his
remark, like them two standing there paying
each other compliments wasn't nothing but
a joke:
"I hope neither of you will take it too much to
heart if I'm not impressed by your sense of justice--or
your friend's ability."
"Then," said Will, "I take it that you intend to
act as your own counsel?"
"You may take it," says the doctor, rousing of
himself up, "you may take it--from me--that
I refuse to recognize you and your crowd as a court
of any kind; that I know nothing of the silly accusations
against me; that I find no reason at all why I
should take the trouble of making a defence before
an armed mob that can only mean one of two things."
"One of two things?" says Will.
"Yes," says the doctor, very quiet, but raising
his voice a little and looking him hard in the eyes.
"You and your gang can mean only one of two
things. Either a bad joke, or else--"
And he stopped a second, leaning forward in his
chair, with the look of half raising out of it, so as