“Stop that, will you?” the policeman said savagely, seizing her by the arm.
“Go on, it’s a dirty shame,” cried Daisy. “Why don’t you take the fellow as knocked her down?”
Michael by this time had forced his way through the crowd, rage beating upon his brain like a great scarlet hammer.
“You infernal ass,” he shouted to the constable. “Haven’t you got the sense to see that this woman was attacked first? Where is the blackguard who did it?” he demanded of the stupid, the gross, the vilely curious press of onlookers. No one came forward to support him, and Hungarian Dave had slipped away.
“Move on, will you?” the policeman repeated.
“Damn you,” cried Michael. “Will you let go of that woman’s arm?”
The constable with a bovine density of purpose proceeded apparently to arrest the wretched Dolly, and Michael maddened by his idiocy felt that the only thing to do was to hit him as hard as he could. This he did. The constable immediately blew his whistle. Other masses of inane bulk loomed up, and Michael was barely able to control himself sufficiently not to resist all the way to Vine Street, as two of them marched him along, and four more followed with Daisy and Dolly. A spumy trail of nocturnal loiterers clung to their wake.
Next morning Michael appeared before the magistrate. He listened to the charge against him and nearly laughed aloud in court, because the whole business so much resembled the trial in Alice in Wonderland. It was not that the magistrate was quite so illogical as the King of Hearts; but he was so obviously biassed in favor of the veracity of a London policeman, that the inconsequence of the nightmare which had begun last night was unalterably preserved. Michael, aware of the circumstances which had led up to what was being made to appear as wantonly riotous behavior in Leicester Square, could not fail to be exasperated by the inability of the magistrate to understand his own straightforward story. He began to sympathize with the lawless population. The law could only seem to them an unintelligent machine for crushing their freedom. If the conduct of this case were a specimen of administration, it was obvious that arrest must be synonymous with condemnation. The magistrate in the first place seemed dreadfully overcome by the sorrow of beholding a young man in Michael’s position on the police-court.
“I cannot help wondering when I see a young man who has had every opportunity ...” the magistrate went on in a voice that worked on the stale air of the court like a rusty file.
“I’m not a defaulting bank clerk,” Michael interrupted. “Is it impossible for you to understand——”