“Ah!” said another woman, drawing a breath of relief, “here’s the police.”
The burly forms of two extremely dignified and curiously dressed street-persons, whom the boy’s knowledge of the practical sciences enabled him to identify as police constables, appeared through the ring of excited faces. After they had held some little intercourse with the bystanders, which to the boy was not intelligible, to his astonishment and great consternation one police constable seized him by the right arm, the other by the left. With much celerity they turned out all his pockets and exposed their content to view. Then they began to pull him about in a most curious and alarming manner. They twisted his body this way and that. They gripped him, and shook him, and punched him, and pressed him. They took off his boots and looked into his mouth. The only articles they found in his possession were a handkerchief, fourpence in coppers, and an elzevir volume of Sophocles printed at Düsseldorf in 1640.
“We can’t find no purse, ma’am,” said the more burly of the two police constables, speaking slowly and heavily, “but no doubt you’ll hidentify this?”
He offered the owner of the missing purse the volume of Sophocles.
“I shall identify nothing of the kind,” said the woman angrily. “I want my purse; I can’t live without it,” and then she said with a cold vehemence, “If my purse is not restored to me immediately it will be most serious for everybody. My husband is a member of the Government.”
At this announcement a profound sigh appeared to escape the ever-increasing circle of spectators. The excitement depicted in their faces deepened perceptibly.
“Might I ask for the name of your husband, madam?” said the tall man, with a very grave air.
“My husband,” said the woman in a tone which was quite fit to address a mass meeting, “is Lord Pomeroy, the President of the Board of Public Enlightenment.”
“Then your ladyship is the Countess of Pomeroy!” said the tall man in a voice of awe.
“I have that misfortune,” said the woman, in a tone still louder than any she had used before. As she spoke she looked round at all about her, and in the act of so doing her eyes seemed to bulge out of her head like those of a reptile.