It has often been said that women suffer from their defect of garrulity; something happened which proved that, in the other sex, consequences ensue. For, as they were impressing upon me the great good luck which had come my way, there came a sharp knock at the door. They tried to stop me, but I had opened it before either could get at my wrist. My friend the sergeant stood there.
"Seeing a light," he remarked cheerfully, "I thought I'd call to tell you that the something I heard about you wasn't really about you at all, but about a party with a different name altogether. Hullo, Albert!" he said to one of the men.
"Evening, sergeant." Respectfully. "Coldish for the time of the year."
"You know these two gentlemen, I expect," I remarked.
"Ought to," answered the sergeant. "What's in your bag, Albert? Anything special?"
"It isn't our bag, sergeant. It belongs to this lady here. It's her property."
The other man, apparently, dissented from this procedure, for taking the bag in both hands, he swirled it around, just missing me, and hitting the sergeant. The two rushed out. I snatched a police whistle from a hook, and blew it. The sergeant, recovering in a few moments from the blow that had dazed him, hurried through the doorway, and with a speed amazing in a man of his proportions, ran after a tram-car that was turning opposite the Church; the green bag, hauled up the stairs, was on the point of disappearing from sight.
There is no use in pretending that I came out well from the incident, or that my respect for my own business-like capacity did not suffer. The professor had to give evidence, and his two sisters remarked audibly, at the Police Court hearing, "We can never trust Basil again." In the corridor I found him endeavouring to persuade them that a crime had undoubtedly been committed, and whether it took place at St. John's Park or at London Street was a point of small moment. The Treasury notes found on the prisoners were, after the sentence at the Old Bailey, returned to me. One of the men, not represented by counsel, cross-examined me in a cheeky way, and a newspaper headed the account of this with the title "Dignity and Impudence." The Judge made some remarks intended to be humorous, and dutifully smiled at by the jury, in which he recommended Miss Weston to obtain the aid of a husband who would help her in looking after the establishment.
There was reason to feel indebted to my friends in the trying period of waiting for the case to come on. William Richards took a day's holiday, and, looking quite smart in his new railway uniform, became my faithful attendant; Millwood paced up and down the large hall with us; Edward hastened to the court in his dinner hour and took me out and gave me a meal. Glancing back, it seems ridiculous that a self-possessed woman like myself, with no excuse for nervousness on the grounds of youth, should have felt so much terrified at being called upon to act a small part in a court of law; I suppose the experience is always trying to folk who lead quiet lives, and suddenly find themselves in the limelight. At any rate, I am speaking the truth when I say that I had no desire to go through a similar ordeal again, and I determined to use every care in avoiding another collision with the law. And this, perhaps, was the result the law, by use of pomp and elaboration, and of imposing and terrifying methods, intended to effect.