"I address all of my letters to this office and he gets them."
"Country as can be," thought the clerk, his eye sweeping over her, "but devilish pretty. Lord, what eyes she's got." Then aloud, with a trifle more cordiality: "I'll ask Mr. Brokell if he knows where Sherrod lives. Just wait a minute, please." As he walked away there was one thought in his mind: "Sherrod is a lucky dog if he can get this woman to leave her happy home for him." In a few minutes he returned with the information that the address was not known in the office, but that he would be glad to assist her in the search. She thanked him and walked away. Somehow she did not like to meet the eye of this man. There was in it an expression she had never seen before, she who had looked only into the honest faces of countrymen.
The shock of the clerk's blunt announcement that Jud's address was not known to any one then in the office was stupefying. So stunned with surprise was she that her wits did not return until she found herself caught up by the rushing throng on the sidewalk. When she paused in the aimless progress through the crowd she was far from the newspaper office and paralyzed by the realization that she and the baby had nowhere to go. In sheer terror she stopped still and looked about with the manner of one who is aroused from a faint and finds a strange world looking on in sympathetic curiosity.
Busy men jostled her rudely, thoughtlessly; women arrayed as she had seen but one in her life, stared at her as she stood frightened and undecided in the middle of the sidewalk. There was no friendly face, no kindly hand in all that rushing crowd. Scarcely realizing what she did, she asked a man who leaned against the building nearby if he knew Dudley Sherrod. The man stared at her blankly for an instant, a sarcastic grin flashing across his hard face. The smile faded instantly, however, for, street loafer though he was, he saw the agony in her eyes, and knew that she had lost her way. With a politeness that surprised himself, he answered in the negative and then advised her to consult a directory.
She looked so helpless and unhappy that he volunteered to lead her to the nearest drug store. She followed him across the street, her baby on one arm, the big "telescope" bumping against her tired leg as she lugged it with the other hand. The city directory gave Dudley Sherrod's address as 1837 E—— street, but she remembered that he had left this place nearly a year before. Her friend, the lounger, advised her to appeal to the police, but she revolted against anything suggestive of the "criminal." To ask the police to look for her husband was to her shocking.
A clerk in the store was appealed to by the lounger, and that individual agreed with him that the police alone could find "the Man," if he was to be found at all. All this was adding new terror. Tears came to Justine's eyes and she did not try to dash them away. Pride was conquered by despair. The clerk, taking matters in his own hands, called in a passing policeman, and bluntly told her to state the situation to him.
"In the fir'rst place, ma'am, d'ye know the felly here?" asked the officer, regarding the lounger with an unfriendly eye. The latter winced a bit but did his best to put up a brave show of resentment.
"She never seen me till ten minutes ago, Maher, an' I ain't done or said nawthin' wrong to her. Leave it to th' girl herself if I ain't been dead square. Ain't I, ma'am?"
"He's been very kind, policeman," answered Justine, eagerly.
"Sure, sure, Maher, dat's right," said the lounger, triumphantly.