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Post, Melville Davisson, 1871?-1930

"The Sleuth of St. James's Square"

There are always some
half-mad people.
She went on.
"But Clinton says the public is as just as Daniel. If he has an
accident in the ordinary course of affairs the public will hold
him for it. But if anything should happen that he could not
help, the public will not hold him responsible."
I realized the force of that. What reasonable human care could
prevent he must answer for, but the outrage of a criminal would
not be taken in the public mind against him. On the contrary,
the sympathy of the public would flow in. When the people feel
that a man is making every effort for their welfare, the criminal
act of an outsider brings them over wholly to his support.
Profound interest carried Marion off her feet.
"I was in a panic the other day, and Clinton said, `Don't let
rotten luck get your goat. I'm done if an engineer runs by a
block, but nothing else can put it over on me'!"
She laughed with me at the direct, virile idiom of young America
in action.
An event interrupted the discourse. The motor took a sharp curve
and a young man running across the road suddenly flung himself
face down in the grass beyond the curb.


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