He had
been tried on the second count by another assistant, who was one of our
great criminal lawyers, and the jury had disagreed. There was a debate
as to whether it was worth while to try him for a third time, and I
proposed that I should take the case, since I had been working on it
and thought there was still a chance of convicting him. They let me
have my way, and though the evidence in the third charge was the same
as before--except as to the person defrauded--the jury, by good luck,
found against him. It was the turning point in my struggle. It gave
me confidence in myself; and it taught me never to give up.
And now I began to come upon "the Cat" again.
I knew a lad named Smith, whom I considered a victim of malpractice at
the hands of a Denver surgeon whose brother was at the head of one of
the great smelter companies of Colorado. The boy had suffered a
fracture of the thigh-bone, and the surgeon--because of a hasty and
ill-considered diagnosis, I believed--had treated him for a bruised
hip. The surgeon, when I told him that the boy was entitled to
damages, called me a blackmailer--and that was enough. I forced the
case to trial.
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