The opening of Tutt and Mr. Tutt plunges the reader into a murder case where the client, Serafino, freely admits his guilt and expresses no remorse. The junior partner, Tutt, is flustered, wiping his forehead with a silk handkerchief and declaring such cases drive him to drink. In contrast, the senior partner, Ephraim Tutt, remains entirely unruffled, leaning back in his swivel chair with his feet on a law book and offering a stogy. This initial scene establishes a recurring dynamic: the junior partner's agitation against the senior's calm, pedantic demeanor. The narrative voice shifts between brisk, colloquial dialogue and leisurely, erudite asides, as when Mr. Tutt begins to discourse on the history of animal trials, citing a 1457 case of a sow hanged for killing a child.

The Human Element and Narrative Pace

The story titled “The Human Element” opens with a La Rochefoucauld epigram about chance, and the narrative immediately enacts that theme. The junior partner’s speech is peppered with exclamations and colloquialisms—“murder gets my goat!”—while Mr. Tutt’s responses are measured, even whimsical. The pace alternates: tense, rapid-fire exchanges about the client’s confession give way to a leisurely, almost academic discussion of animal trials. This shift is not merely stylistic; it reflects the senior partner’s method of defusing crisis through digression. The reader is drawn into a world where legal procedure is a stage for character, not just plot. The junior partner’s distress is palpable, but Mr. Tutt’s calm suggests that the firm’s approach is to outlast, not outfight, the drama.

Voice and Diction as Characterization

Mr. Tutt’s speech is marked by a “slight pedantry of diction” that sets him apart from the “rushing age.” He quotes Oliver Goldsmith’s elegy on a dog and recounts the Sauvigny sow trial with evident relish. His partner, by contrast, uses phrases like “I’m all in!” and “please excuse me!” The contrast is not merely generational; it defines their roles. The senior partner’s erudition is a tool—he uses historical precedent to reframe a dog-bite case as a philosophical question about animal souls. The junior partner’s more modern, impatient voice grounds the dialogue in immediate practical concerns. This vocal interplay creates a rhythm that is both comic and revealing, showing how the firm’s identity is built on the tension between these two registers.

Recurring Details and Thematic Threads

Several details recur across the excerpts. The stogy—a cheap cigar—appears as a prop that signals Mr. Tutt’s relaxed authority; he offers one to his partner “with the toe of his congress boot.” The law book open to “Champerty and Maintenance” hints at the firm’s engagement with obscure legal doctrines. The junior partner’s silk handkerchief, “ornamented with the colors of the Allies,” places the story in a specific historical moment. Most striking is the extended discussion of animal trials, which serves as a microcosm of the book’s method: a seemingly absurd premise is treated with serious legal and philosophical inquiry. The question of whether animals have souls, and whether they should be held responsible, mirrors the human cases that follow, suggesting that the line between sanity and madness, guilt and innocence, is never clear-cut.

Readers should attend to the way Train uses legal cases as vehicles for character comedy and intellectual play. The excerpts suggest that the pleasure of the book lies less in courtroom suspense than in the digressions and the interplay between the two Tutts. The junior partner’s exasperation and the senior’s composure create a comic rhythm that rewards slow reading. The historical references—to medieval animal trials, to Goldsmith—are not mere decoration; they are integral to Mr. Tutt’s method of argument. Approach these stories as dialogues about justice, responsibility, and the quirks of human (and animal) nature.