The plain-clothes man deposed that he knew nothing about the case except that he had served the warrant as directed by the court. He had found the defendant in the strike headquarters of the vest-makers.
The man who had helped Brennan get up was a clerk in a neighboring wholesale house. He had been sent out with a telegram, and in the rain-swept, deserted street he had seen no one but the prostrate detective, who was just regaining consciousness as he came up. He helped the stricken man to his feet, and that was all he knew.
Then Michael Brennan, alias Pick-Axe, took the stand. Ordinarily he made a fairly good appearance in court. He felt himself among friends, felt a reassuring kinship with the policemen, the clerks, and even with the judge. To be sure they all knew he was a perjurer, and very few of them would shake hands with him. But still he was a necessary part in the great machine for preserving social order, by which they all were paid. But this day he was not at his ease. In the first place his head ached horribly. In the second, he was so infuriated that he could scarcely control his tongue. And thirdly, he knew that he was in for a grilling from Braun. And he was more than usually afraid of this ordeal because he was not sure what had happened. He remembered kicking Mrs. Muscovitz, he had a vague conviction that Yetta had rushed at him—and then he remembered coming to and being helped to his feet.
"Yer Honor," he began, "I was in front of the Crown Vest Company this morning doing duty as usual. There wasn't nobody around except this here Rayefsky girl and a woman she's brought as a witness. Well, Yer Honor, I went into the hallway to light my pipe and just at that minute a scab comes along—"
"Your Honor," Braun interrupted, "some of my clients have been sent to prison for using that term. This court has held it to be insulting and abusive."
"It was a slip of my tongue, Yer Honor," Pick-Axe said with confusion.
"Clerk," the Judge instructed, "strike out that word, and you be more careful, Brennan."
"Yes, Yer Honor. I was saying a respectable woman came along looking for work—she wasn't really a woman, just a young girl. I didn't see her because I was in the hallway lighting my pipe, as I told Yer Honor, but I heard her holler and, rushing out, I seen this other woman a-laying into her, beating her up something awful—"
Mrs. Muscovitz tried to protest from the benches, but Longman, at a signal from Braun, hushed her.