Jens contemplated the boys with a puzzled frown; then he shook his head boozily and replied:
“No, yer Honor, I never saw them in all my life. They are not my style, yer Honor; don’t look as if they had moved in the best society.”
“Well, never mind that,” interrupted the Court; “but can’t you find out anything about them? why they did not license their bear? Who provides for them? Where do they live?”
Jens, in turning his back to the Court, gave Alf and Karen and the bear a fierce glance, as if to say that he would make them smart, if they dared in any way to compromise him. Then, to their surprise, he stooped down and talked with them earnestly for several minutes.
“Your Honor,” he resumed, rising and facing the judge; “these boys are, as you supposed, Dutch. They are utterly destitute, and have no money wherewith to buy a license for their bear. In other words, they are vagrants; and if I may be permitted to make a suggestion, I think the Reform School or the workhouse would be the right place for them. They are a hardened lot, I am afraid, judging by their talk——”
“You may spare your suggestions,” the judge interrupted curtly; “though they happen to fit in exactly with what I had determined to do with them. Their bear will have to be killed or sold, and they are hereby recommitted, and will be sent to the Island for thirty days.”
Mr. Skoug again stooped down and explained to the two culprits; but he had no sooner mentioned the word “kill” than Alf gave a shout, half of anger, half of dread, pulled his Norse tolle-knife[12] from its sheath, and with one swift motion slit the bear’s skin from the neck downward. The policeman rushed forward, the audience jumped up on the benches, the judge himself started at the flash of the knife, and was on the point of leaping over his desk. What was his amazement when, instead of a bear, he saw a little shivering boy in very scanty attire! A roar of laughter and a deafening salvo of applause burst forth from all parts of the room, and it was in vain that the judge hammered with all his might on his desk, and in thunderous tones demanded order. The Irish policeman, to whose taste for practical jokes the whole scene was due, laughed as if he were going to split his sides. He would not have ventured to confess that he had planned some such dramatic incident, although, as he admitted to himself, it had turned out even more startling than he had dared to hope.
When order was finally restored, the Court commanded that the prisoners be removed; but Truls, who now comprehended the situation, and was determined not to submit to further imposition, marched boldly up to the judge, and put Mr. Tenney’s card before him on the desk.
“This gentleman,” he said, confidently, “made me promise to send for him if I should ever need a friend. Now I need him, and if you would kindly send someone to fetch him, I should be much obliged.”