“We shall be satisfied if you do your best,” said the judge, with the glimmer of a smile, which spread to a laugh among the spectators, unrebuked by the constables, since the judge had invited it.
In this atmosphere of sympathy the girl found her tongue, and with a confiding twist, of her pretty head began again: “Well, now, I'll tell you just how it was. I'd just got my book out of the Public Library, and I was going down Neponset Street on my way home, hurrying along, because I see it was beginning to be pretty late, and the first thing I know somebody pulled my hat down over my eyes, and tore the brim half off, so I don't suppose I can ever wear it again, it's such a lookin' thing; any rate it ain't the one I've got on, though it's some like it; and then the next thing, somebody grabbed away the satchel I'd got on my arm; and as soon as I could get my eyes clear again, I see two fellows chasin' up the street, and I told the officer somebody'd got my book; and I knew it was one of those fellows runnin' away, and I said, 'There they go now,' and the officer caught the hind one, and I guess the other one got away; and the officer told me to follow along to the station-house, and when we got there they took my name, and where I roomed, and my age——”
“Do you recognise this young man as one of the persons who robbed you?” interrupted the judge, nodding his head toward Lemuel, who now lifted his head and looked his accuser fearlessly in her pretty eyes.
“Why, no!” she promptly replied. “The first thing I knew, he'd pulled my hat over my eyes.”
“But you recognise him as one of those you saw running away?”
“Oh yes, he's one of them,” said the girl.
“What made you think he had robbed you?”
“Why, because my satchel was gone!” returned the girl, with logic that apparently amused the gentlemen of the bar.
“But why did you think he had taken it?”
“Because I see him running away.”