The Appellate Autocrats as their adjudication of the law, would reverse the case and send it back for a new trial. There were a dozen witnesses for the plaintiff, but the defendant himself was his only witness except for one immate rial expert. Mr. Stikatem depended upon (1) his client's forcible possession, (2) his fraudulent tax deed, and (3) other technicalities to be supplied by chance errors at the trial. The court atmosphere was surcharged with the transparency of the whole pro ceeding. Everybody — the parties, the law yers, the witnesses, the judge, the jury, the court officials, the hangers-on and spectators — the very portraits of hon ored deceased judges and lawyers hang ing on the walls of the court room — clearly realized that abstract justice lay with Simon Ordinary. There were three independent legal reasons in favor of plaintiff's title, any one of which should give him the right to recover. But the human soul of the presiding judge was perplexed. He had been on the bench but a few years. He saw those autocrats in the distance. He could not see, for the moment, that the plaintiff's simple possession for many years was a title superior to a void tax deed — he could not see it because he did not think it possible the autocrats would deign to so see it. Neither did the judge think the auto crats would stand for tacking plaintiff's possession with his grantor's, and thus making a good twenty years' adverse possession title under the statute. The third alternative was also trouble some. Simon's deed was not quite straight; i.e., the lines (of the metesand-bounds description of the definitely numbered partial lot and block) were not exactly with the cardinal points of
187
the compass as described in the deed. The plot and lot lines were shifted slightly to the east of due north There was a chance for doing technical con crete injustice where the meaning and abstract justice were clear to everybody. However, in a lucid moment of forgetfulness of the autocrats, the judge finally declared the deed all-sufficient. Thereupon Simon Ordinary won his case with both court and jury. Shrewd old lawyer Stikatem expected this result. In due course he appealed according to his original programme He knew his client could easily stand the expense and delay. In fact he showed no mercy as to his own fees, because he knew that Captain Somebody was entitled to no consideration in this regard. And as to justice — why that was the very thing that Mr. Stikatem was employed to avoid! On the other hand, expense was a most important item to Simon Ordi nary. He had been under the impression that a simple stance in court would end the controversy. It was possible that he could be broken both financially and in spirit at the protracted prospect before him in his thirst for concrete justice. To some extent fortune continued to at least flirt with the plaintiff. Despite the long trial and drawn-out crossexamination, Lawyer Stikatem was un able to convince the appellate court that there was any reversible technical error in the general testimony. Things looked shaky for the appellant. Still, the resourcefulness of the appellate auto crats in finding technical error on their own account without having it specifi cally pointed out to them, had yet to be reckoned with. Moreover, the legal point as to the sufficiency of the description in Simon's deed, on which the trial court actually
