POLICEMAN. No, sir, I don’t know. In the Force we find it impossible to keep up with current fiction.
BODIE. She was a girl with a broom. There must have been more in the story than that, but I forget the rest.
POLICEMAN. The point is, that’s not the name she calls herself by.
BODIE. Yes, indeed it is. I think she was called something else when she came, Miss Thing, or some such name; but she took to the name of Cinderella with avidity, and now she absolutely denies that she ever had any other.
POLICEMAN. Parentage?
BODIE (now interested in his tale). That’s another odd thing. I seem to remember vaguely her telling me that her parents when alive were very humble persons indeed. Touch of Scotch about her, I should say—perhaps from some distant ancestor; but Scotch words and phrases still stick to the Cockney child like bits of egg-shell to a chicken.
POLICEMAN (writing). Egg-shell to chicken.
BODIE. I find, however, that she has lately been telling the housekeeper quite a different story.
POLICEMAN (like a counsel). Proceed.
BODIE. According to this, her people were of considerable position—a Baron and Baroness, in fact.