At first the visitor can hardly understand what is going on. A
pale-faced man is in the witness chair, on his left a bedraggled
little woman is standing before and below the judge, her eyes just
level with the top of the desk. Clerks are coming with papers to be
signed: "commitments," "adjournments," "bail bonds"; others are trying
to engage his attention. In the meanwhile the case proceeds.
"I inform you," says the judge to the woman, "of your legal rights,
you may retain counsel if you desire to do so and your case will be
adjourned so that you may advise with him and secure witnesses, or you
may now proceed to trial. Which will you do?"
She murmurs something. She is pale-faced with sullen eyes, drooping
mouth, an over-hanging lip. A sad red feather droops in her hat.
"Proceed," says the judge; and to the policeman who is called as a
witness, "You swear to tell the truth, the whole truth mm-mm-mm--you
are a plain-clothes man attached to the 16th Precinct detailed by the
central office, what about this woman?"
"At the corner of Fifteenth Street and Irving Place," says the
witness, "between the hours of 10:05 and 10:15 this evening I watched
this woman stop and speak to three different men.
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