Mr. Appleboy leaves the building once more, and again takes the subway to Police Headquarters.
"Back again?" inquires the property clerk pleasantly.
"I have a certificate from the district attorney, approved by the judge giving you permission to return the teapot to me," says Appleboy, shoving the paper through the wicket.
The clerk takes it.
"This isn't a court order," says he. "Still, if the woman has skipped her bail and the judgment has been satisfied, I guess we can take a chance and let you have your teapot, provided of course you are properly identified. You see, so far as we know, you may have picked this certificate up on the street. The thing for you to do is to get hold of the officer who made the arrest, and who knows all about the case, and have him identify you."
"How shall I do that?" asks Appleboy, very much irritated. "I don't know where he is; I can't go chasing all over the City of New York after police officers; I'm sick of this whole business; you know perfectly well I am Silas Appleboy, else I shouldn't have this paper, and I shouldn't be around here trying to get that teapot."
"Don't be too sure about that," replies the property clerk. "We have had three women here at the same time claiming the same pair of diamond earrings, and each woman looked absolutely respectable. One of them came in a carriage with a footman. We found out afterwards that the earrings didn't belong to any one of them, but to an entirely different person."
Appleboy loses all patience. Just as he is about to place his hands upon the teapot, presto, it vanishes. Two Italians and a Chinaman, escorted by an officer, now elbow past Appleboy, who disconsolately gives them place. He is "up against it" again; there is no help for it; rules are rules and the law is the law. How now to find Patrick, the officer! He begins to wish he had been nicer to Patrick;—if he had been a little more liberal in the way of cigars at the time the teapot was stolen, things might have been very much easier for him now. He utters an imprecation under his breath against all policemen and police red tape. Grinding his teeth, he goes to the nearest telephone booth and asks to be connected with the precinct to which Patrick is attached. The operator refers him to 3100 Spring, namely, Headquarters,—but there he is informed that private citizens may not be connected with police stations. He hangs up the receiver with something almost like an oath, Poor Vestryman Appleboy! Let us not be too hard upon him.
It is now half-past eleven o'clock. He takes the car uptown and returns to the station house, but the sergeant informs him that Patrick is down in the Criminal Courts building as a witness in a burglary case. This is the last straw. Frenzied, he rushes from the station house, takes another car and sits tensely until once more he is at the Criminal Courts building. Fortunately he has had the forethought to inquire of the sergeant to which of the four parts of the General Sessions Patrick has been subpœnaed, and he now finds that it is the same court-room at the door of which presides his friend of the day before. The doorkeeper greets him genially, and in response to Appleboy's inquiries replies, shure, that he knows Pat McGinnis;—that Pat has been there all the morning, but has just shtepped out over to Tom Foley's saloon. Although Appleboy has not been inside the portals of such a place since he was nineteen years old, he frantically inquires its direction, and, fearful lest he lose the object of his search, dashes across the street to the corner bar-room.
The little old gentleman with the shining silk hat sticks his head timidly through the door and observes Patrick at the end of the bar crooking his elbow in the customary manner. He draws an inspiration from the sight; with a bland smile he steps up to the bar himself, slaps the officer familiarly on the back and, pulling off his gloves, remarks, "Well, Pat, old boy, how do you feel? Have another on me!"