“You have, have you!” cried the officer in quick rejoinder, but with no loss of temper. “Look at me, you filthy hobo,” he added, drawing himself to his full, imposing height. “I’m a police officer. I’ve held my job for eleven years, and got my promotions. I’m earning eighty dollars a month, do you see? Now go down there where you belong,” and he pointed imperiously to the far end of the corridor.
My turn came next.
“Here’s another whiskers,” announced the officer in explanation to his charges; “same kind, only younger and newer to the business.” And then to me, “Where are you from?” he said.
I replied with some inanity in mock German. “Oh, he’s a Dutchman. We get a few of them. But they’re mostly older men, and kind of moody, and they tramp alone a good bit. Can’t you talk English?”
I said something in very bad French.
“Oh, I guess he’s a Frenchy. That’s very uncommon——”
I interrupted his information with a line from Virgil, spoken with an inflection of inquiry.
“He may be a Dago, or a—ah——” he hesitated.
I broke in with a sentence in Greek.
“Or a Russian,” concluded the officer.