Short stories: Courtroom humor

The traffic court district attorney dismissed another offender from interview and looked out at all the guilty people filling the courtroom and sitting in the finest and most expensive oak seats that they’d probably ever use. He read from his docket and called the next name on the list: “Frog!? Walter Danby Frog!”

“I beg your pardon,” a man with a ridiculous mustache and a cigar in his hand stood up, “that’s Freuaxg!” He stepped toward the DA and halted before the podeum. “Fr-oh-jhuh, Walter Danby Freauxg. You’ve gotta get it in your throat. Freauxg.”

“Mr. Freauxg?”

“Yeah, that’s it. Maybe you will get it in the throat.”

“I beg your pardon?” The DA gripped his neck, wide-eyed.

“What’s that you’ve said?”

“I beg your pardon.”

“Once more, please.”

“I beg your pardon, are you, um… Walter Danby… Freauxg?”

“Yes, that’s it. That’s what you said! If not it was certainly something like that. Now what can I do for you? I received this letter from you in the mail,” he held up a shredded envelope that had been taped back together, and turned it over in his hand. “It’s all the mail I’ve gotten in some while and it says that I need to come here. I hope it’s not bad news. I hate bad news and I love mail, if it were bad news it might entirely destroy the excitement I gained from receiving a letter in the mail… and it was an invitation, at that!”

The district attorney was taken aback by Mr. Frog’s outburst. He realized that he hadn’t gotten the file folder for the case, he didn’t know why he’d called the man. “One second, please.”

He turned and sifted through a stack of folders as a small man in a split-up-the-middle trench coat, with a top hat capping a bright red afro, walked past and noticed a thermos and a sandwich that were set behind the DA’s podium. He sat on the floor and proceeded to have a little picnic. The DA turned back to Mr. Frog and held up a manila folder.

“Here it is. Now… wait a second.” He looked hard at the file’s subject tab, “you say your name is pronounced Freauxg? It’s spelled F-R-O-G here.”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Well, how can it be pronounced Freauxg, if it’s spelled Frog?”

“Well, it was a French Frog.” Mr. Frog turned left and said to nobody in particular, “well, somebody had to say it, and it may as well have been me who did. It was my name, after all.”

The district attorney looked to where Mr. Frog was speaking and noticed the top hatted man eating his lunch. “Hey, you, what are you doing there?!?