Section 29

 The time came when the prosecution¹ closed its case, and Peter was summoned to the office of Andrews, to be coached in his part as a witness. He would be wanted in two or three days, the lawyers told him.

Now Peter had never intended to appear as a witness; he had been fooling the defense² all this time—“stringing them along,” as he phrased it, so as to keep in favor with them to the end. Meantime he had been figuring out how to justify³ his final refusal. Peter was eating his lunch when this plan occurred to him, and he was so much excited that he swallowed a piece of pie the wrong way, and had to jump up and run out of the lunch-room. It was his first stroke of genius; hitherto it was McGivney who had thought these things out, but now Peter was on the way to becoming his own boss! Why should he go on taking orders, when he had such brains of his own? He took the plan to McGivney, and McGivney called it a “peach,” and Peter was so proud he asked for a raise, and got it.

This plan had the double advantage that not merely would it save Peter’s prestige and reputation, among the Reds, it would ruin McCormick, who was one of the hardest workers for the defense, and one of the most dangerous Reds in American City, as well as being a personal enemy of Peter’s. McGivney pulled some of his secret wires, and the American City “Times,” in the course of its accounts of the case, mentioned a rumor⁴ that the defense proposed to put on the stand a man who claimed to have been tortured in the city jail, in an effort to make him give false testimony⁵ against Goober; the prosecution had investigated this man’s record and discovered that only recently he had seduced⁶ a young girl, and she had killed herself because of his refusal to marry her. Peter took this copy of the American City “Times” to the office of David Andrews, and insisted upon seeing the lawyer before he went to court; he laid the item on the desk, and declared that there was his finish as a witness in the Goober case. “It’s a cowardly, dirty lie!” he declared. “And the man responsible for circulating it is Pat McCormick.”

Such are the burdens that fall upon the shoulders of lawyers in hard-fought criminal trials! Poor Andrews did his best to patch things up; he pleaded with Peter—if the story was false, Peter ought to be glad of a chance to answer his slanderers. The defense would put witnesses on the stand to deny it. They would produce Sadie Todd to deny it.

“But Sadie told me she suspected me!”

“Yes,” said Andrews, “but she told me recently she wasn’t sure.”

“Much good that’ll do me!” retorted Peter. “They’ll ask me if anybody ever accused me, and who, and I’ll have to say McCormick, and if they put him on the stand, will he deny that he accused me?”

Peter flew into a rage against McCormick; a fine sort of radical⁸ he was, pretending to be devoted⁹ to the cause, and having no better sense than to repeat a cruel slander⁷ against a comrade! Here Peter had been working on this case for nearly six months, working for barely enough to keep body and soul together, and now they expected him to go on the and have a story like that brought out in the papers, and have the prosecution hiring witnesses to prove him a villain¹⁰. “No, sir!” said Peter. “I’m thru with this case right now. You put McCormick on the witness stand and let him save Goober’s life. You can’t use me, I’m out!” And shutting his ears to the lawyer’s pleading, he stormed out of the office, and over to the office of the Goober Defense Committee, where he repeated the same scene.

1 prosecution   

n.起诉，告发，检举，执行，经营

参考例句：

• The Smiths brought a prosecution against the organizers.史密斯家对组织者们提出起诉。
• He attempts to rebut the assertion made by the prosecution witness.他试图反驳原告方证人所作的断言。

2 defense   

n.防御，保卫；[pl.]防务工事；辩护，答辩

参考例句：

• The accused has the right to defense.被告人有权获得辩护。
• The war has impacted the area with military and defense workers.战争使那个地区挤满了军队和防御工程人员。

3 justify   

vt.证明…正当(或有理)，为…辩护

参考例句：

• He tried to justify his absence with lame excuses.他想用站不住脚的借口为自己的缺席辩解。
• Can you justify your rude behavior to me?你能向我证明你的粗野行为是有道理的吗？

4 rumor   

n.谣言，谣传，传说

参考例句：

• The rumor has been traced back to a bad man.那谣言经追查是个坏人造的。
• The rumor has taken air.谣言流传开了。

5 testimony   

n.证词；见证，证明

参考例句：

• The testimony given by him is dubious.他所作的证据是可疑的。
• He was called in to bear testimony to what the police officer said.他被传入为警官所说的话作证。

6 seduced   

诱奸( seduce的过去式和过去分词 )； 勾引； 诱使堕落； 使入迷

参考例句：

• The promise of huge profits seduced him into parting with his money. 高额利润的许诺诱使他把钱出了手。
• His doctrines have seduced many into error. 他的学说把许多人诱入歧途。

7 slander   

n./v.诽谤，污蔑

参考例句：

• The article is a slander on ordinary working people.那篇文章是对普通劳动大众的诋毁。
• He threatened to go public with the slander.他威胁要把丑闻宣扬出去。

8 radical   

n.激进份子，原子团，根号；adj.根本的，激进的，彻底的

参考例句：

• The patient got a radical cure in the hospital.病人在医院得到了根治。
• She is radical in her demands.她的要求十分偏激。

9 devoted   

adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的

参考例句：

• He devoted his life to the educational cause of the motherland.他为祖国的教育事业贡献了一生。
• We devoted a lengthy and full discussion to this topic.我们对这个题目进行了长时间的充分讨论。

10 villain   

n.反派演员，反面人物；恶棍；问题的起因

参考例句：

• He was cast as the villain in the play.他在戏里扮演反面角色。
• The man who played the villain acted very well.扮演恶棍的那个男演员演得很好。