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Well," said the Police Chief, "I am tired of making an ass of myself; Mr. Mason says this cattle drover has committed no crime except a petty assault, and if he is right, I want to know it. That man beats the very devil. Every time I have sent up a case against his protest the judges have pitched me out on my neck, and the thing has got to be cursedly monotonous."

The District Attorney smiled grimly, and turned around in his chair. "Have you given me all the details?" he said.

"Yes," answered the official, "just exactly as they occurred."

The District Attorney arose, thrust his hands into his pockets, and looked down at the great man-hunter; there was a queer set to his mouth, and the merest shadow of a twinkle in his eyes.

"Well, my friend," he said, "you are pitched out on your neck again."

The official drew a deep breath, and his face fell. "Then it is not robbery?" he said.

"No," answered the attorney.

"Well," mused the Police Chief, "this law business is too high for me. I have spent my life dealing with crimes, and I thought I knew one when I saw it; but I give it up, I don't know the first principles. Why, here is a fellow who voluntarily goes into a gambling house, plays and loses, then draws a revolver and forcibly takes away the money which, by the rules of the play, belongs to the house; robs the dealer by threatening to kill him; steals the bank's money, and fights his way out. It cannot matter that the man robbed was a lawbreaker himself, or that the crime occurred in a gambling house. It is the law of New York that has been violated; the place and parties are of no importance. Here is certainly the force and the putting in fear that constitute the vital element of robbery; and yet you say it is not robbery. You have me lost all right."

"My dear sir," put in the District Attorney, "the vital element of robbery is not the force and terror but is what is called in the books the animus furandi, meaning the intention to steal. The presence of this felonious intent determines whether or not the wrong is a crime. If it be not present there can be no robbery, no matter how great the force, violence, or putting in fear, or how graven serious, or irreparable the resulting injury.

"It is true indeed that the force and terror are elements, but the vital one is the intent. If force and violence one takes his own property from the possession of another, it is no robbery; nor is it robbery for one to take the property of another by violence under the belief that it is his own, or that he has some right to it, or by mistake or misunderstanding, although vast loss be caused thereby and great wrong and hurt result."

"I have no hope of ever understanding it," said the Police Chief; "I am only a common man with a short life time."

"Why, sir," continued the attorney, "it is as plain as sunlight. Robbery is compounded of larceny and force. It is larceny from the person by violence, but in order to constitute it the property must be taken from the peaceable possession of the party and it must be taken animo furandi. Neither of these happened in the case you state, because the faro dealer, by means of an unlawful game, could not secure any color of right or title to the money which he should win by it. Therefore the money taken was not his property, and could not have been taken from his peaceable possession.

"In the second place, this vital element of robbery, the animus furandi, is totally wanting, for the reason that the player, in forcibly seizing the money which he had lost, was actuated by no intention to steal, but, on the contrary, was simply taking possession of his own property, property to which he had a full legal right and title."

"But," put in the officer, "there was the other ten thousand which the old man won, they got away with that; if the game was unlawful they had no right to that."

"True," said the lawyer. "The old man had no title to the ten thousand which he had won, but he did not steal it; the dealer gave it to him of his own free will, and the old man had it in his possession by the full voluntary consent of the dealer some time before the resort to violence. There was clearly no crime in this."

"Damn it all!" said the Police Chief, wearily, "is there no way to get at him, can't we railroad him before a jury?"

The District Attorney looked at the baffled officer and grinned ominously. "My friend," he said, "there is no power in Venice can alter a decree established. The courts have time and again passed upon cases exactly similar to this, and have held that there was no crime, except, perhaps, a petty misdemeanor. We could not weather a proceeding on habeas corpus ten minutes; we could never get to a jury. When the judge came to examine the decisions on this question we would go out, as you expressed it, on our necks."

"Well," muttered the Police Chief, as he pulled on his coat, "it is just as Randolph Mason said, out he goes."

The attorney laughed and turned to his desk. The officer crossed to the door, jerked it open, then stopped and faced round. "Mr. District Attorney," he said, "won't there be hell to pay when the crooks learn the law?" Then he stalked through and banged the door after him.

The District Attorney looked out of the window and across the street at the dirty row of ugly buildings. "Humph!" he said, "there is something in that last remark of the Chief."