Destry Rides Again Read Online Free PDF Page A

gents,” said Destry. “I’ll tell you. That one on the far left in the front row, that’s Jimmy Clifton—that
     little narrer shouldered feller with the flower in his buttonhole, as though he was walkin’ out on Sunday with his best girl.
     Free? He’s tied up worse than a slave and the thing that he’s tied to is the women, I tell you! He can’t walk out without
     feelin’ their eyes after him, and the reason that he hates me—look at it in his eyes!—is because a girl that he wanted once
     turned him down to dance with me. If I lie, Jimmy, you tell the judge!
    “Next to him, there’s Hank Cleeves. By the look of his face, you’d never think that he’d ever been a boy, but he was. To be
     on top of the heap is his game and his main idea, and he’s a slave to that. He’s a serf. He’s no free man, I tell you! This
     here Cleeves, I once socked him on the nose, and sat him down flat and quick. He said ‘enough’ that day, and that’s why he
     says guilty this day.
    “There’s Bud Williams, too, him with the thick neck and the little head, that come down here aimin’ to become the champion
     wrestler of the whole world. But you can’t fight and you can’t wrestle with the strength of your hands, because it’s the strength
     of your heart that tells in the long run! And after him and me had it out on the gravel at the edge of the road, and his face
     was rubbed raw in the stones, he started hatin’ me, and he never stopped from that day to this. Serf? There never was a worse
     serf than him! He envies the mules on the road, because of their muscle. He’d turn himself into a steam engine, for the sake
     of havin’ so many hoss power!
    “Next to him, I want you to look at Sam Warren, with his long neck, and his long fingers that are square at their tips. Look
     at him, will you? He could take any gun apart in the dark, and jump the pieces together again without no light. He loved to
     figger that he had every man’s life inside the curl of his forefinger. He felt free and grand so long as he thought that was
     true. But when him and me had a little tangle, and he was sliced through the leg with the first shot, he sure was fed up quick
     and lay down to think things over. Your honor, he’s a serf to the gun that he packs, and that’s draggin’ down under his left
     armpit, right this minute!”
    Sam Warren raised his narrow length from his chair, in such an attitude that it looked for a moment as though he would hurl
     himself out of the jury box and at the throat of the other. And the prisoner said calmly: “If it ain’t so, call me a liar.
     You set that gun up and worship it. You never get it well out of your mind. You dream about it all night, and when you look
     at your best friend, you pick out the button on his coat that you’ll shoot at!”
    “Mr. Destry,” said the judge, in his quiet way, “you’ve insulted enough of this jury, I think. Have you finished?”
    “I’ll finish quick,” said Destry. “Only, I wanta finish up first with these twelve peers of mine, as you call ’em. I want
     you to look at Jerry Wendell, whose God is his tailor, and Clyde Orrin, the handshaker, and Lefty Turnbull that’s always hated
     my heart since I broke his record from Wham to the Crystal Mountains, and there’s Phil Barker, too! How many times did Phil
     raise hell with his practical jokes, until along comes a letter askin’ him to call on a girl after dark, and he found the
     dogs waitin’ for himinstead of her? He ain’t forgot that I wrote that letter to him, and he’d hang me up by the neck today, if his vote would
     do it! There’s the Ogdens, too, that took money for my scalp and cornered me to get it; they lost their blood and their money,
     that day, and they want to see me holler now. Then there’s Bud Truckman and Bull Hewitt. I dunno why they want to stick me,
     but maybe I’ve give them a dirty look, some time.”
    He turned back to the judge.
    “Twelve peers?” said