"This is infamous," said Sal, in a tone of well-bred anger to a lady who was standing by her side. "We are all of us, so it seems, practically accused of theft." And she moved toward the front door.
"You will excuse me, lady," said the officer on guard, "but you will please stop in the car until this party has said her say out."
Sal flushed indignantly, and drew herself up with magnificent haughtiness. Then she pulled out her cardcase.
"If you don't know me, my good man," she remarked, quietly, "I suppose you have heard of my husband?" And she passed him a pasteboard.
The detective simply wilted as he glanced at the card.
"I beg your pardon, madam," he said. "No offense meant; line of duty, you know, madam." And, mumbling more apologies, he helped her off the car and made way for her through the crowd that had gathered.
Later I learned that Sal had "sized up" the detective as unknown to her. She had the audacity to make it appear—on her cards—that she was the wife of a certain member of the judiciary who was the owner of an international reputation.
It should be added that the cards stood her in good stead on several occasions. But when the shining light of the bench began to get polite notes from department stores in which he was requested to be good enough to ask his wife to be somewhat more discreet in her methods of "obtaining expensive goods, inasmuch as some of our assistants to whom Mrs. —— is not known, may cause her inconvenience," he began to investigate. These communications meant that she had been caught shoplifting and had only squeezed out of the scrapes by her grande dame manner and her visiting cards.
In the meantime I had been sitting with Sal's swag "fiddled," or concealed, in my newspaper and expecting a squeal from the "touched" one every instant.