I know her, she has
been here before your Honor."
"What do you say?" the judge asks the woman. She is silent.
"What do you work at?"
"Housework, your Honor."
"Always housework; it is surprising how many houseworkers come before
me." She smiles a sickly smile.
"Take her record. Next case," says the judge. Outside it is a cold
sleeting night in early March.
"Witnesses in case of Nellie Farrel," calls the clerk.
Nellie Farrel stands before the desk beside a policeman; she is tall
with fair waving hair. She must have been pretty once; even now there
is a delicate line of throat and chin. But her eyes are hard and on
her cheeks there are traces of paint that has been hastily rubbed off.
She looks thirty; she is probably not more than twenty.
A callow youth, who seems preternaturally keen, swears that on
Thirteenth Street between Fifth Avenue and University Place the woman
stopped and spoke to him; and he tells his story as though it were
learned by rote.
"Do you know the officer who made the arrest?" the judge asks him.
"I do." A suspicion arises that there may be an interest between the
witness and the policeman.
A dark-haired, smooth-faced woman who is standing by the prisoner
says: "Your Honor, she's my sister.
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