I put in most of the night trying to think up a talk for the judge next morning. After bringing my breakfast the constable went after him, and about nine o’clock they appeared, a few town loungers following them. They didn’t even take me out of the cell for my “trial.”
The judge asked my name, read the law from a code he brought along, listened patiently to my talk, and solemnly sentenced me to ten days in the jail. I asked him to take my ten-dollar bill and let me go, but he refused it.
“Sorry, young man. Can’t do it. Company’s orders, ten days.”
One of the loungers threw me a Salt Lake newspaper, another gave me a sack of tobacco, cigarette papers, and matches. When they had gone I opened the paper and found the story of my escape from the courtroom. The reporter treated it humorously, and made fun of everybody connected with my trial. I didn’t know what he saw about it that was so funny till I got to the end of it, where he said the jury came in with their verdict of “not guilty” before I was out of the block.