Then she thought of the policeman. No harm to ask him. It was always all right to ask a policeman anything. The crowd had thinned a bit, most of the onlookers feeling like Amy that the fire wasn’t much. A report was buzzed around that the fire was out.
“What is it, sister?” asked the policeman, when Joan tugged at his sleeve. He was a nice Irish policeman, and he talked to her out of one side of his mouth, while he waved his billy club, and shouted orders at the crowd out of the other side of his mouth.
“Officer,” Joan felt very small as she looked up at him, for her head reached only to his middle button, “is that building owned by Mr. Hutton?”
“It is that,” he answered.
“And did people live in the second floor?” she raised her voice and stood on tiptoe.
“They did that. But what did you want to know for?”
“I have to get all the details,” Joan informed him, earnestly. “I’m covering the story for the Journal.”
“Is that right?” smiled the officer. “Well, I thought you was just a kid, but you never can tell these days with short hair and shingled skirts. You must be new at the job, though.”
Why, he thought she was grown up! It was because of the tan sweater costume. Perhaps it would be just as well not to undeceive him just yet. “I am rather new,” she admitted. That was true enough. “Can’t you help me get details?”
“I don’t know the folk’s names, myself, but why don’t you ask Joe Kinney there—he’s a brand-new fireman. It’s his first fire, too. So he’ll probably talk. Most of the older firemen get like us police fellows—steer clear of reporters.”