Ignoring him, the sergeant opened the blotter.
“Name?”
“Peter Stansbury——”
“Never heard about a little rule of ladies first, I reckon,” interrupted the officer. “If the ship was sinking you’d make the first boat, I bet. Answer up, mother.”
For the first time the poke-bonneted head of the less aggressive prisoner lifted sufficiently to show the face within.
“Well, I’ll be——”
He was—struck dumb, if that was what he had been about to say. Next minute, however, he must have remembered that sergeants are supposed to be superior to shock. At any rate, he began the routine questions.
The red, soft-curved lips of youth answered readily from the shadow of the antiquated headgear. Even “How old are you?” had no terrors for one who had voted at the last election. Her “more than twenty-one” suggested the folly of pressing the point.
“Are you armed?” asked the officer in charge when the skeleton biography was completed.
Jane’s startled glance at Pape told him at least that now she understood the commandeering of her automatic—that some penalty was imposed for the bearing of weapons without permit. With a word and wag of chin she replied in the negative.