“Now then,” he whispered truculently. “Pull yerself together. His washup is a-speaking to you.”
The boy was able to observe that the man with grey hair and impressive manners was wagging a short and fat forefinger in his direction. He also appeared to be speaking with a kind of stern deliberation, but the boy failed to appreciate a word that he said.
This homily, however, proceeded for some time; and in the course of it all present were much impressed. The man with grey hair and impressive manners concluded his discourse somewhat in this fashion: “Owing to the humane clemency which has been exhibited by Lady Pomeroy, a clemency, I may say, which is so familiar among all grades of society as to stand in need of no advertisement from this court”—(“Hear, hear,” in a suppressed but perfectly audible whisper from a voice at the back)—“there is no undue desire to press this charge. William Jordan, as this seems to be the first occasion on which you have appeared before this court, and as I am informed that no record of a previous conviction stands against your name, you will at the express desire of Lady Pomeroy”—(“Hear, hear,” from the voice at the back)—“be dealt with under the First Offenders Act. After entering into recognizances to come up for judgment if called upon, you will be discharged. It is deemed advisable, however, that you should have an interview with the police court missionary. In conclusion I hail this opportunity of tendering the most sincere thanks of the public to Lady Pomeroy”—(“Hear, hear,” from the back)—“for the public-spirited manner in which she has come forward to discharge a duty which must have been peculiarly distasteful to her.”
While the row of gaily dressed women rose wreathed in smiles, and formed a cordon round the man with grey hair and impressive manners, in order to shake hands with him, the boy was led into an adjoining room. In the next instant he was shuddering convulsively in the arms of his father.
A sad-looking man with cadaverous cheeks and sunken black eyes came up to them. With an odd kind of compunction he laid his hand on the boy’s sleeve.
“What is he doing here?” he said.
The boy’s father enfolded the questioner in his secret and beautiful smile.
“You ask a question which admits of no answer,” he said.
At the sound of the voice of the boy’s father, the man with the cadaverous cheeks recoiled a step. His sallow face flushed a little. With the naïveté of a child he peered into the eyes of the boy’s father.
“I think, sir,” he said, with a curiously humble gesture, “I think you are perfectly right.”