The prisoner is silent, but tries to listen to the officer, and fixes upon the sergeant as solemn a look as his bleared eyes will permit. He is too drunk to give his name, and is sent to a cell, where he is soon in a drunken slumber.
Toward midnight, a poor woman, shabbily dressed, with a thin, well-worn shawl around her head enters, and approaches the desk.
“Can you tell me if anything has been heard of my husband yet?” she asks—the same question she has repeated every day for the past week.
“No, ma’am, nothing,” answers the sergeant, briefly; but his eyes as he glances at the poor sorrowful creature, have a pitying look in them.
“What is your husband’s business?”
“He was a stevedore, sir.”
“And you were married to him how long?”
“Eleven years and over, sir, we had four children, all dead now but the youngest. He was a good husband to me; but he took a drop too much now and then, and was cross and noisy. He left the house three weeks ago, and we have never seen him since.”
“Did he leave you any money?”
“He left us nothing, sir. The child and myself live on the charity of neighbors; but we can’t expect to live that way always.”