They came to an office, where their party, his mother, himself, the two forceful women, and two floorwalkers, were shut in with an elderly man who sat behind a desk. It was still the first of the forceful women who took the lead.
"Mr. Corning, we've caught this woman shop-lifting."
"I haven't been," the boy heard his mother deny. "Honest to God, I haven't been."
"We've been watching her for some time past," the forceful woman continued, "but we never managed before to get her with the goods."
The elderly man was gray, pale-eyed, and mild-mannered. He listened while the story was given him in detail.
"I'm afraid we must give you in charge," he said, gently, when the facts were in.
"No, don't do that, don't do that," she implored, tearfully. "I've got my little boy. He can't do without me."
"He hasn't done very well with you, has he?" the elderly man reasoned. "A woman who's taught a boy of that age to steal...."
He was interrupted by the coming in of a policeman, summoned by telephone. At sight of him the unhappy woman gave a loud inarticulate gasp of terror. All that for seven years she had dreaded seemed now about to come true. The boy felt terror too, but the knowledge that his mother needed him nerved him to be a man.
"Don't you be afraid, mudda. If they put you in jail I'll go to jail too. I won't let them take me away from you."