PAULINE
Sergeant, I has to ax for your protection because suspicions is cast on me an' I'm innercent. The gentleman from the city did come to me. An' I did get my child outa the room o' Mrs. John what I had it in board with …
SCHIERKE
[With a searching look.] Yes? Maybe it was the door across the way where the restaurant keeper's widow Knobbe lives. Nobody knows what you're up to with that child nor who sent you an' bribed you. You ain't got a good conscience! You took the child an' slipped up here with it while its rightful mother, the widow Knobbe, what it's been stolen from, is huntin' all over the stairs an' halls for it an' while a detective is standin' acrost the way.
PAULINE
I don't care about no detective. I'm …
HASSENREUTER
You are refuted, my good girl. Can't you comprehend that? First you say that Mrs. John has no child. Next you say—kindly attend to me—that you had taken your child, which has been passing for Mrs. John's, out of the latter's room. However; all of us here happen to know Mrs. John's child and the one you have here is another. Is that clear to you? Hence your assertion cannot, in any circumstances, be a correct one!—And now, Schierke, you would do me a favour if you would conduct these ladies out so that I can continue giving my lesson.
SCHIERKE
All right, but if I does that we'll get into that Knobbe crowd. Because her child has been stolen.