Senator’s Son Smirks at the Plaintiff — Judge Judy SHUTS Him Down INSTANTLY

The senator’s voice settled over the courtroom like a heavy storm cloud.

“I have spent thirty years in public service,” Senator Robert Hayes said slowly, each word measured with exhausting precision. “And during those thirty years, I have watched powerful men destroy themselves because they confused influence with immunity. I warned my son about that confusion many times.”

The room went perfectly still.

Julian’s confident posture faltered for the first time since the hearing began. The smirk disappeared completely, replaced by visible uncertainty.

“Dad—”

“Be quiet,” the senator said without raising his voice.

That was the moment everything changed.

Not because a politician had entered the room. I had seen senators, governors, celebrities, and wealthy donors appear in courtrooms before. Power itself is not unusual. What mattered was this: Senator Hayes was not there to rescue his son.

He was there because he was ashamed of him.

And shame, when it is genuine, carries a weight that even money cannot lift.

Julian blinked hard, clearly struggling to understand what was happening. People like him grow up believing that family influence functions like an invisible shield. They assume their parents’ status exists to erase consequences before they become real. The possibility that the shield might be withdrawn never occurs to them.

The senator finally turned toward his son.

I will never forget Julian’s face in that instant.

He looked like a man standing on solid ground who suddenly realizes the floor beneath him is gone.

“You embarrassed this family,” Senator Hayes said quietly. “But more importantly, you endangered innocent people.”

“Dad, it was an accident—”

“No,” the senator interrupted sharply. “An accident is sliding on black ice. An accident is failing to see a stop sign in heavy rain. Driving through a barricade because you were impatient is arrogance.”

Arthur Vance shifted uncomfortably beside the defense table. His carefully constructed strategy was collapsing in real time.

And Senator Hayes was not finished.

“I reviewed the footage before arriving here,” he continued. “I heard what you said to Mr. Thorne.”

Julian swallowed visibly.

The senator’s eyes hardened.

“Do you know what disgusted me most?” he asked.

Julian said nothing.

“It wasn’t the property damage. It wasn’t the reckless driving. It was the fact that you looked at a hardworking man old enough to be your grandfather and treated him like he was beneath you.”

The silence in the courtroom became almost unbearable.

Elias Thorne sat motionless at the plaintiff’s table, his weathered hands folded together so tightly his knuckles had gone pale.

People like Elias fascinate me.

Not because they are dramatic.

Because they are durable.

America is full of people like him—people who wake before dawn, work through pain, pay their taxes, mind their business, and ask for almost nothing from the world except the opportunity to continue living honestly. They are the quiet framework holding entire communities together.

And far too often, the powerful mistake quietness for weakness.

Senator Hayes looked at me again.

“Your honor,” he said, “my son believed our family name would protect him from accountability. That failure belongs partly to me.”

Julian stared at his father in open disbelief.

Arthur Vance quickly stood.

“Senator, perhaps we should discuss this privately before making further statements—”

“No,” the senator said flatly.

One word.

Absolute.

The attorney sat down immediately.

I leaned back slightly in my chair and studied the room.

You learn something after enough years on the bench: moments of genuine truth are extremely rare. Most courtrooms operate through rehearsed narratives. Plaintiffs exaggerate. Defendants minimize. Attorneys reshape reality into strategic language. Everyone performs.

But occasionally—very occasionally—the performance collapses.

And something honest walks into the room.

This was one of those moments.

Senator Hayes drew a slow breath.

“When Julian was twelve,” he said, “I brought him with me to a veterans fundraiser in South Providence. A man there—a retired marine—shook his hand and told him something I hoped he would remember forever.”

The senator paused.

“He said, ‘Your last name may open doors for you, son. But your character is what determines whether people are glad you walked through them.’”

Julian looked downward.

“I see now,” the senator continued, “that somewhere along the way, my son began believing the doors themselves were enough.”

The gallery was utterly silent.

Even the usual restless shifting of spectators had stopped.

People were listening because authenticity commands attention in ways performance never can.

I looked toward Julian.

For the first time since the hearing began, he no longer appeared arrogant.

He appeared frightened.

And fear, unlike arrogance, is often the beginning of understanding.

“Mr. Hayes,” I said calmly, “would you like to respond before this court proceeds?”

Julian hesitated.

I watched him carefully.

The young often mistake confidence for strength. But real strength is the ability to stand exposed after your excuses have been stripped away.

Julian was encountering that feeling for perhaps the first time in his life.

“I…” He cleared his throat. “I didn’t think anybody got hurt.”

Elias finally spoke.

“You almost killed me.”

Not loudly.

Not angrily.

That was what made it devastating.

The words landed in the room with the weight of simple truth.

Julian looked at him fully for the first time all afternoon.

And something changed in his expression.

Not enough to call it redemption.

But enough to recognize the beginning of shame.

He saw Elias now.

Not as a problem.

Not as an inconvenience.

As a person.

That distinction matters more than most people realize.

Because cruelty almost always begins with abstraction. The moment you stop seeing someone as fully human, you become capable of treating them terribly.

Julian opened his mouth again, but the words came slower this time.

“I didn’t…” He paused. “I didn’t think.”

“That,” I said firmly, “has become abundantly clear.”

A few quiet murmurs spread through the gallery.

I let the silence settle again before continuing.

“Mr. Hayes, do you know what concerns me most about this case?”

He shook his head.

“It is not your wealth. Wealth itself is morally neutral. It can build hospitals or destroy lives depending on the character of the person holding it.”

I folded my hands.

“What concerns me is that you have reached adulthood without developing the ability to imagine consequences for other people.”

He looked down again.

“When you drove through that barricade, you were not merely impatient. You were announcing to everyone around you that your schedule mattered more than their safety.”

Julian’s jaw tightened.

I continued.

“And when you threw money onto the street, you revealed something even uglier. You revealed that you believed financial compensation erased human dignity.”

The prosecutor remained silent.

He did not need to speak anymore.

The defendant had convicted himself long before the hearing began.

I turned toward Elias Thorne.

“Mr. Thorne,” I said gently, “I understand your business was closed for nearly three weeks following the incident?”

“Yes, your honor.”

“And the financial losses submitted to the court total approximately twenty-eight thousand dollars?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I nodded slowly.

For many wealthy people, twenty-eight thousand dollars is an inconvenience.

For a small business owner, it can represent years of fragile stability.

That is another truth the privileged often fail to understand: ordinary people do not live with financial shock absorbers. One disaster can destabilize an entire life.

I looked back at Julian.

“Do you currently work, Mr. Hayes?”

The question surprised him.

“I—what?”

“Do you have employment?”

“No. I’m in graduate school.”

“Who pays your rent?”

“My family.”

“Who pays for your vehicle?”

A pause.

“My family.”

“And your tuition?”

Another pause.

“My family.”

I nodded once.

“Then let me explain something important to you.”

The courtroom was silent enough to hear breathing.

“You are not self-made. You are subsidized.”

Julian flinched.

A few people in the gallery exchanged glances.

I continued carefully.

“There is nothing shameful about receiving help from one’s family. Most parents want to help their children succeed. But it becomes shameful when assistance evolves into entitlement.”

Senator Hayes closed his eyes briefly.

Not dramatically.

Just the exhausted expression of a father recognizing an uncomfortable truth.

“Your honor,” Arthur Vance said cautiously, “if I may, my client is prepared to offer substantial financial restitution immediately—”

“Of course he is,” I interrupted.

Vance stopped talking.

“Because until this moment,” I said, “he believed money was the only language that mattered.”

I turned toward Julian again.

“But this court is not merely concerned with property damage. It is concerned with conduct.”

He shifted uncomfortably.

“And your conduct,” I said, “has been appalling.”

No one moved.

No one whispered.

The room held stillness the way churches sometimes do.

I have always believed that courtrooms resemble churches more than people realize. Both are places where human beings arrive carrying guilt, fear, pride, regret, and hope. Both depend entirely on whether truth is allowed to exist inside them.

I leaned slightly forward.

“Mr. Hayes, I am going to ask you a question. And I want you to answer honestly, not strategically.”

He nodded slowly.

“When you threw that money onto the ground…” I paused. “Did you believe Mr. Thorne was your equal?”

Julian froze.

It was the hardest question he had heard all day.

Not because it was legally complicated.

Because it was morally unavoidable.

His attorney immediately stood.

“Your honor, I strongly object to the philosophical framing—”

“Sit down, Mr. Vance.”

He sat.

Julian stared at the tabletop.

The silence stretched.

And then, very quietly, he said:

“No.”

There it was.

The truth.

Raw.

Ugly.

Necessary.

Elias closed his eyes briefly.

Senator Hayes looked like a man absorbing a physical blow.

But I felt something unexpected in that moment.

Relief.

Because denial is almost impossible to teach.

Honesty—even painful honesty—is something you can build from.

I nodded once.

“Thank you for finally telling the truth.”

Julian looked up, confused.

“You think honesty earns points?” I asked. “It does not. It merely marks the beginning of accountability.”

I removed my glasses slowly.

“Inherited privilege is not a crime, Mr. Hayes. But failing to develop humility despite that privilege is a profound moral failure.”

The room remained absolutely silent.

“You had every advantage available in this country. Education. Opportunity. Financial security. Connections. Safety nets. And instead of becoming grateful, you became careless.”

Julian’s face reddened.

“Do you know what men like Mr. Thorne understand that people like you often do not?”

He said nothing.

“They understand the value of things because they have had to earn every inch of stability themselves.”

I gestured lightly toward Elias.

“That produce stand was not just inventory. It was years of mornings. Years of labor. Years of sore backs and missed vacations and careful budgeting and waking up before sunrise.”

Elias stared quietly ahead.

“And you destroyed it because waiting five minutes felt intolerable to you.”

Julian’s shoulders had begun to sink now.

Not performatively.

Genuinely.

The senator finally spoke again.

“Your honor,” he said quietly, “if I may request something.”

I nodded cautiously.

“I would ask the court not to shield my son from the consequences of his behavior.”

That statement visibly stunned the gallery.

Even Arthur Vance looked horrified.

But Senator Hayes continued.

“I spent too many years compensating for immaturity instead of correcting it.”

He looked toward Julian.

“That ends today.”

Julian looked stricken.

And suddenly I understood something important.

This was not the first disaster.

It was simply the first one that became public.

I folded my hands together again.

“Very well,” I said.

Then I delivered the ruling.

“Mr. Hayes, this court finds your conduct reckless, dangerous, and profoundly disrespectful to the dignity of another citizen.”

Julian swallowed hard.

“You will pay full restitution for all damages, including lost business income, replacement equipment, and legal costs.”

He nodded faintly.

“You will also complete six hundred hours of community service.”

His eyes widened.

“Specifically,” I continued, “those hours will be performed exclusively through city food assistance and senior outreach programs.”

Now he looked truly alarmed.

Good.

Because discomfort is often educational.

“You will spend the next year working directly with the kinds of people you have spent your life overlooking.”

Arthur Vance immediately rose again.

“Your honor, six hundred hours is highly unusual for a case of—”

“For a case of what?” I interrupted sharply. “Extreme arrogance? Public humiliation of a working citizen? Reckless endangerment with video evidence?”

Vance sat down again.

I looked directly at Julian.

“And one more thing.”

He met my eyes cautiously.

“You will apologize to Mr. Thorne. Right now. Not because your attorney advises it. Not because your father is watching. Because if you leave this courtroom without learning how to acknowledge another person’s humanity, then nothing that happens here today will matter.”

The room became utterly silent again.

Julian turned slowly toward Elias.

For several seconds, he could not speak.

Then finally:

“Mr. Thorne…” His voice cracked slightly. “I was cruel to you.”

Elias watched him carefully.

“I thought throwing money at the problem made me powerful.” Julian swallowed. “But it just made me small.”

No one moved.

No one breathed loudly.

“I’m sorry,” Julian said quietly. “For all of it.”

Elias studied him for a long moment.

And then the old man gave the slightest nod.

Not forgiveness.

Not yet.

But acknowledgment.

Sometimes that is the first step.

I struck the gavel lightly.

“Court is adjourned.”

People slowly began rising from the gallery benches, murmuring softly to one another.

But Senator Hayes remained still near the railing.

As Julian gathered his belongings, looking suddenly much younger and far less invincible, his father finally placed a hand on his shoulder.

Not proudly.

Not affectionately.

Steadily.

Like a man preparing to rebuild something damaged before it collapses completely.

And as they walked out together, I found myself thinking something I have learned many times after years on the bench:

The law can punish behavior.

But only truth can humble a human being.

And sometimes—if they are fortunate—that humility arrives before it is too late.

The last thing Julian Hayes expected was silence.

Not courtroom silence. He already understood that kind now—the heavy, suffocating silence that follows a verdict and settles into a person’s bones like cold rain. No, this was a different kind entirely.

It was the silence of 3:45 a.m.

The silence of empty city streets.

The silence of a world that existed long before politicians woke up for breakfast interviews and long after luxury restaurants closed their doors.

For the first three weekends of his sentence, Julian arrived at the municipal farmers market exactly five minutes early, every single time. Not because he had become disciplined overnight, but because terror is an effective alarm clock.

He parked three blocks away because he no longer had a license.

That detail alone had transformed his life in ways no public humiliation ever could. Before the sentencing, transportation had been invisible to him, the way oxygen is invisible to people who have never struggled to breathe. Cars appeared. Drivers appeared. Convenience appeared. Now he waited for buses in freezing dawn wind beside exhausted nurses, janitors, and warehouse workers whose entire existence operated on schedules Julian had never once considered.

The first morning, he arrived carrying expensive leather gloves he had purchased online after searching “manual labor hand protection.”

By 6:10 a.m., one of the vendors—a broad-shouldered woman named Denise who sold homemade jams and baked bread—looked at the gloves and laughed so hard she nearly spilled coffee down her apron.

“You planning to perform surgery on the vegetables?” she asked.

A few nearby vendors chuckled.

Julian flushed crimson.

“Take those things off,” Denise said. “You can’t grip anything in ’em.”

Julian obeyed silently.

By noon, his palms had blistered open.

That was the morning Elias Thorne spoke to him for the first time outside the courtroom.

“You’re lifting wrong,” Elias said quietly.

Julian turned, surprised.

Elias stood beside a truck bed filled with wooden produce crates. The older man wore a faded green jacket and a knit cap pulled low over his gray hair. His limp was more visible in the cold weather, but he still moved with the efficient precision of someone accustomed to hard work.

Julian swallowed awkwardly. “I’m fine.”

“No,” Elias replied calmly. “You’re not.”

There was no cruelty in it. Just fact.

“You’re using your back instead of your legs. Keep doing that and by next Saturday you won’t be able to stand upright.”

Julian stared at him uncertainly.

This was the man whose livelihood he had destroyed.

The man he had publicly humiliated.

The man he had called “old fool.”

And yet Elias was teaching him how not to injure himself.

Julian looked away first.

“Why are you helping me?” he muttered.

Elias adjusted one of the crates before answering.

“Because pain doesn’t improve when you spread it around.”

That sentence followed Julian for days afterward.

It sat beside him on the bus ride home.

It echoed in his apartment after midnight.

It interrupted him while he stared at his reflection in expensive mirrors that suddenly looked ridiculous hanging inside rooms he no longer understood how to inhabit.

Because for the first time in his life, Julian was encountering people who possessed something entirely unfamiliar to him.

Dignity without status.

The market vendors did not care who his father was.

They cared whether he showed up on time.

Whether he worked.

Whether he complained.

Whether he earned his space.

And slowly, painfully, Julian realized he had no idea how to do that.

Three months into his sentence, something happened that never appeared in the official compliance reports sent to the court.

A little girl wandered away from her mother near the south entrance of the market.

She couldn’t have been older than four.

One moment she was holding a balloon beside a flower stand, and the next she was gone into the moving maze of shoppers, carts, tables, and morning traffic.

Her mother panicked instantly.

Anyone who has ever heard a parent scream a child’s name in genuine terror knows there is no sound quite like it.

The market froze.

Vendors stepped out from behind stalls.

Customers turned sharply.

And before anyone else reacted, Julian ran.

Not because he was heroic.

Not because cameras were watching.

There were no cameras.

He ran because for the first time in his life, his instincts had finally moved faster than his ego.

He searched aisle after aisle until he found the little girl standing near a kettle corn stand, crying silently and clutching the ribbon of her balloon with both hands.

Julian crouched carefully several feet away.

“Hey,” he said softly. “You lost?”

The little girl nodded.

“What’s your mom’s name?”

“Rachel.”

“Okay,” Julian said gently. “We’ll find Rachel.”

He held out his hand, hesitated, then lowered it.

“You wanna walk together or you wanna stay right here?”

The girl studied him cautiously.

Then she grabbed the sleeve of his work jacket.

When he brought her back to her mother, the woman collapsed to her knees crying and wrapped the child in both arms.

And then she looked up at Julian.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

Two words.

Simple.

Ordinary.

But Julian realized something shocking in that moment.

Nobody had ever thanked him before for who he actually was.

People thanked his family.

His father.

His money.

His connections.

His donations.

But never him.

Not like this.

Not with tears in their eyes because he had done something decent when no one required it.

That realization unsettled him more than Judge Judy’s sentencing ever had.

By the fifth month, the market had stopped treating Julian like a temporary inconvenience.

Now they treated him like a worker.

Which was simultaneously harder and far more meaningful.

Denise yelled at him when he stacked crates incorrectly.

A seafood vendor named Carl mocked his soft hands.

Teenagers loading melons laughed when Julian slipped on wet pavement carrying pumpkins.

And slowly—very slowly—he began laughing too.

Not defensive laughter.

Not arrogant laughter.

Real laughter.

The kind rooted in humility instead of superiority.

One freezing November morning, Elias handed Julian a paper cup of coffee before sunrise.

Julian accepted it carefully.

“Thanks.”

Elias nodded toward the awakening market.

“You know what the funny thing is?”

“What?”

“You still think your punishment started in that courtroom.”

Julian frowned slightly.

Elias sipped his coffee.

“But it didn’t.”

Julian waited.

“The punishment started long before that. It started the day you became the kind of man who could throw money at another human being and not see anything wrong with it.”

The words landed with terrifying precision.

Because Julian understood instantly that Elias was right.

The courtroom had not created his problem.

It had exposed it.

And exposure feels brutal when a person has spent years hiding inside entitlement.

Julian looked across the parking lot where vendors unloaded strawberries under portable floodlights.

“How do you forgive somebody for that?” he asked quietly.

Elias shrugged.

“Sometimes you don’t.”

Julian absorbed that silently.

“But,” Elias continued, “sometimes you decide a person shouldn’t stay the worst thing they ever did.”

That sentence stayed with Julian too.

Meanwhile, outside the market, the scandal surrounding the Hayes family continued spreading through the state like wildfire.

News outlets devoured the story.

“Senator Publicly Abandons Son in Courtroom.”

“Privilege Meets Accountability.”

“Judge Delivers Stunning Sentence.”

Pundits debated whether Senator Hayes had acted heroically or cruelly.

Political opponents called it theatrical damage control.

Supporters praised his integrity.

But inside the Hayes family, the consequences were uglier than any newspaper understood.

Julian’s mother stopped answering his calls for nearly six weeks.

His younger sister texted him once:

Dad says you need to figure out who you are without us.

At first, Julian hated his father for that.

Then he hated himself for deserving it.

And eventually, much later, he understood something difficult:

Senator Hayes had finally done the one thing powerful parents almost never do.

He allowed consequences to complete their work.

That kind of love looks merciless from the outside.

But sometimes mercy without accountability becomes destruction wearing a friendly face.

Seven months after sentencing, Judge Judy received a handwritten letter delivered directly to chambers.

Not from Julian.

From Denise.

The note was brief.

Your Honor,

Thought you should know the kid finally learned how to stack peaches without bruising half of them.

Still terrible at folding tarps.

But he works hard now.

— Denise Walker

Judge Judy laughed aloud reading it.

Then she placed the note carefully inside Julian Hayes’s file.

Because after decades on the bench, she understood something the public rarely did:

Transformation is almost never dramatic.

It doesn’t arrive with orchestral music or cinematic speeches.

It arrives quietly.

In repeated effort.

In humility.

In blisters.

In showing up at 4:00 a.m. when nobody would blame you for disappearing.

Near the end of Julian’s sentence, a winter storm slammed into the city overnight.

Most people stayed home.

But markets do not pause for weather.

At 3:30 a.m., freezing rain hammered the empty streets while vendors fought icy winds setting up tents and heaters.

One older vendor slipped unloading crates from a truck and struck the pavement hard.

Before anyone else reached him, Julian was already there.

He lifted the man carefully.

Called emergency services.

Stayed beside him in the ambulance until the vendor’s daughter arrived at the hospital.

Later that afternoon, soaked to the bone and exhausted, Julian returned to finish cleaning the market.

Elias found him sweeping slush near the loading docks.

“You could’ve gone home,” Elias said.

Julian leaned on the broom.

“Nah,” he answered quietly. “Work wasn’t finished.”

Elias studied him for a long moment.

Then, for the first time since the incident, he smiled fully.

Not politely.

Not cautiously.

Proudly.

“You know,” Elias said, “you’re starting to sound like one of us.”

Julian looked down at the broom in his hands.

Months earlier, he would have considered that sentence insulting.

Now it felt like the highest compliment he had ever received.

The final review hearing arrived six months later.

The courtroom gallery was unexpectedly crowded.

Word had spread.

Some came expecting spectacle.

Others came curious whether transformation was actually possible for someone raised inside that level of privilege.

Julian entered quietly wearing a simple navy suit.

No designer watch.

No attorney beside him.

No smirk.

Judge Judy studied him carefully from the bench.

People often misunderstand judges.

They think judges enjoy punishment.

Most don’t.

What they actually want is evidence that the punishment meant something.

That suffering produced clarity instead of resentment.

Julian stood straighter now.

Not with arrogance.

With grounding.

There is a difference.

Judge Judy reviewed the compliance reports slowly.

“No violations,” she noted.

“No missed appearances.”

Julian nodded.

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“The market supervisor states you voluntarily completed an additional seventy-two service hours beyond your required sentence.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Why?”

Julian hesitated.

Then answered honestly.

“Because I owed more than the court ordered.”

The room became very still.

Judge Judy leaned back slightly.

“And do you believe your debt is now paid?”

Julian looked toward Elias Thorne, seated quietly in the front row.

Then back at the bench.

“No,” he said softly. “I think some debts become responsibilities instead.”

Judge Judy was silent several seconds.

In all her years on the bench, she had learned to recognize rehearsed remorse instantly.

This was not rehearsed.

This was earned.

Finally she spoke.

“Mr. Hayes, six months ago you entered this courtroom believing consequences were inconveniences reserved for ordinary people. You viewed working Americans as background scenery in a life financed by inherited power.”

Julian lowered his eyes.

Judge Judy continued.

“But punishment alone does not impress me. Transformation does.”

She closed the file.

“The purpose of this court was never to destroy you. It was to introduce you to reality.”

Julian swallowed hard.

“And according to every report before me, reality appears to have finally made an introduction.”

A few quiet laughs moved through the courtroom.

Even Julian smiled faintly.

Judge Judy’s expression softened just slightly.

“Mr. Thorne,” she said, turning toward Elias. “Do you wish to address the court before I close this matter?”

Elias stood slowly.

The entire room listened.

He looked at Julian for a long moment before speaking.

“The first day this boy showed up at the market,” Elias said, “I thought he was gonna quit before breakfast.”

A ripple of laughter passed through the gallery.

“But he didn’t.”

Elias clasped his weathered hands together.

“And I’ll tell you something else. Most people think character is something you’re born with. I don’t.”

He glanced briefly toward Judge Judy.

“I think character is something you build when life finally gives you no place left to hide.”

Julian’s eyes watered instantly.

He tried to hide it.

Failed.

Elias continued calmly.

“What he did to me was wrong. Deeply wrong. But the young man standing here today isn’t the same one who drove through my market.”

Then Elias looked directly at Julian.

“So don’t waste what this cost you to learn.”

The silence afterward felt sacred.

Judge Judy nodded slowly.

“Case closed.”

The gavel struck once.

Sharp.

Final.

But as people began filing out, something unexpected happened.

Julian remained standing.

Then he turned toward Elias.

And in front of the entire courtroom—the reporters, the clerks, the bailiffs, the spectators—Julian Hayes did something no one in that room ever expected from the senator’s son.

He apologized.

Not the polished legal apology of wealthy families.

Not the carefully engineered public relations version.

A real one.

“I was cruel to you,” Julian said, voice shaking. “And you still treated me like a human being when you had every reason not to.”

Elias said nothing.

Julian continued.

“You taught me more carrying boxes at 4 a.m. than I learned in twenty-four years of privilege.”

His voice cracked.

“And I will spend the rest of my life trying to become someone worthy of the grace you showed me.”

Elias stared at him several seconds.

Then he extended his hand.