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Inside all was as sordid as I expected it to be and we sat for hours on a bench waiting for someone to take notice of us. I tried to exchange some bit of polities with my client but he couldn't, or didn't, speak enough English even for that, and I had to give up. People came and went, and loud, coarse voices filtered out from behind ground-glass doors. Finally a man came up to us, evidently with a proposal of some sort of a settlement out of court. "I believe he has a right to be heard and to defend himself against the charges brought against him," I said stiffly, and the man disappeared instantly, which I considered proper and encouraging. At last we were admitted to a court room where we sat on our thin bench while the judge wrangled with a boy who appeared to have stolen a bicycle. Suddenly the judge gesticulated angrily, handed some papers to an attendant and banged on the desk. The boy vanished; another case was produced