Bertram cannot believe his senses.
“Good gracious! That is Hopper!” he says to the satirical policeman at his side. “What are they doing to him? Why is he arrested?”
Policeman replies politely, but with slightly veiled contempt: “Seem to be running him in, sir. Is he a protegy of yours?”
Bertram goes up to the prisoner: “Why, Hopper, is that you? What has he done? Why do you collar him like that?”
The constables, who are dragging Hopper between them, reply with curt contempt: “Disorderly; drunk and disorderly, that’s what he is, sir, and incitin’ to crime.”
“Drunk?” repeats Bertram. “Hopper? Impossible! He has touched nothing but lemonade and mineral water for three years!”
“Is that so, sir? Well, there’s an excuse for him, then, poor devil!”
The prisoner whines and weeps, “Is that you, Mr. Bertram? You’ll speak for a pore honest man—for a pore honest man—not a drop hev Hopper took—not a—not a—not a drop. Hark’ee, Mister—Hopper was a-tellin’ folks—good tidings—proputty’s pison—proputty’s thievin’—proputty’s root o’ all evil—said so yerself, mister. Hopper used yer werry words. And Hopper’s run in, and ye stand there—yah! Blackgud.”
“I am ashamed of you, Hopper,” says Bertram, sternly. “But,” he adds to the constables, “if you arrest this man for having taken stimulants, I cannot oppose the measure, he may deserve arrest; but if you consider him guilty because he has merely striven to disseminate the doctrines which I myself hold, I ought in common justice to accompany him and be locked up as well.”
The first policeman, who has a satiric vein, smiles rather cynically: “Well, sir, I don’t say as you shouldn’t, but we can’t run you in, sir; you aren’t disorderly.”