The butler understood that in police slang "putting a man through" meant arresting him and putting him through the Criminal Court into gaol. He made the same reply:
"Yes, sir."
"I'm glad to see you bear me no ill-will for it," said Inspector
Chippenfield. "You don't, do you?"
"No, sir."
"I never forget a face," pursued the officer, glancing up at the face of the man before him. "When I saw you yesterday I knew you again in a moment, and when I went back to the Yard I looked up your record."
The butler was doubtful whether any reply was called for, but after a pause, as an endorsement of the inspector's gift for remembering faces, he ventured on:
"Yes, sir."
"And how did you, an ex-convict, come to get into the service of one of
His Majesty's judges?"
"He took me in," replied the butler.
"You mean that you took him in," replied the inspector, with a pleasant laugh at his own witticism.