Only a few days before, the judge himself had lost a valuable horse, stolen from a vacant lot adjacent to his house, which circumstance tended in no wise toward the restoration of equanimity or general amiability of the magistrate on the morning mentioned. The prisoner was a hard-featured, wicked-eyed man, whose appearance to the dimmed vision and cloudy brain of the judge now seemed absolutely hideous. Unfortunately, the two ideas of his stolen horse and the horse-thief here present came together, and went bobbincr and circling; throucrh his brain, until ioininsr in weird embrace, the pitching of the pair over some precipice into stygian shades awoke the judge with a start, and lighted for a moment his eye with dire intelligence.
"Pedro Castro, stand up! I believe you are the damned scoundrel who stole my horse. The sentence of the court is that before the sun shall set you shall be hanged by the neck until you are dead, de-ad, d-e-a-d."
" But, your honor," says the district attorney, **the man has not been tried."
" Sit down, sir! This court knows its business, and wants none of your interference. Mr Sheriff, see the judgment executed immediately; this court stands adjourned."
All present were astounded, but all knew too well the temper of the judge to trifle with him in his present humor; so the condemned was removed to prison while the judge went home and tucked himself in bed, with a bottle of his favorite fluid within reach, and soon was snoring soundly.
The officers of the court were in a dilemma. As a matter of course, the immediate execution of the prisonor was not to be thought of, but how to meet the anger of the judge when he should have learned that his order had been disobeyed ? After much discussion it was finally agreed that the clerk should enter judgment in the records, and the sheriff make return that he had executed the prisoner.
