"You saw him?" the detective questioned.
"Yes—I must have seen him—I saw him, of course!"
"I don't believe you could have seen me, ma'am," I said with a grin, "for you had just turned your back on me."
"How did you know that?" she asked triumphantly.
"I know it because when I first began to look at you, you didn't like it, and so you turned your back on me to show it."
"You know too much, young man," the manager remarked. "You'll prosecute him?" he added, turning to the old man.
"Prosecute? Why, yes, of course," he stammered; "though, if he hasn't the purse—"
"Come on, m'boy," the detective said to me. "You and I'll take a stroll down the street and find a good night's lodging for you."
That was before the day of patrol wagons. So the detective locked his right arm securely in my left, and in this intimate fashion we walked through the streets to the police station.