Hamilton Burger put aside the file he had been reading. Looking over at his capable assistant, he said,

"You have done a good job on this one. Now let me see the charges against Perry Mason which I instructed you to draw up."

Suddenly looking uncomfortable, the young lawyer handed him the piece of paper he had asked for.

Hamilton Burger received it with a smile. He liked Perry well enough personally – the two men had even gone on hunting and fishing trips together – and he respected him as a thorough, brilliant lawyer. But Perry had a frustrating habit of walking a legal tightrope in court and pushing the boundaries of proper cross-examination. As a result, the district attorney often felt that his opponent deserved to be taken down a notch. He had jumped at the opportunity, therefore, when Mr. Mason confessed, in court, to entering an apartment building and replacing all the doorbells with buzzers in order to confuse a witness. He had sworn then to file charges against the defense attorney for stealing a doorbell, and meant to be true to his word.

After several minutes of reading in silence, he looked up with a pleased expression.

"This will do nicely. The only thing which remains is to visit the landlord of that building and to have him sign an attestation that he never gave Mr. Mason permission to be in the building or to remove the doorbells. See if you can track him down."

"I have already looked into the matter, sir."

"Excellent! And?"

"I am afraid that approaching the landlord for his signature will complicated matters a great deal."

"Why do you say that? You know as well as I do that we cannot proceed without his cooperation!"

"Because," his assistant said, pulling out yet another legal document, "the apartment in question is owned by a Mr. Perry Mason."

Mr. Burger sprang to his feet.

"Do you mean to tell me that that man actually bought an apartment building just so he could replace the doorbells with buzzers?"

"It appears so, sir. I confirmed that he purchased it the day before he entered the building to make the substitutions."

"So that when I tried to press charges, he could claim that he was merely asserting his rights as a landlord and making improvements to his property," Hamilton Burger fumed. He grasped the now-useless draft of the charges and shredded it. "Very well, this time he wins. But next time, Mr. Perry Mason will not be so lucky!"

His assistant hid a smile. His boss had been saying that for years, and Mr. Mason's 'luck' had yet to run out.

THE END

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