mly and heavily sarcastic.
"Yes. I am a lawyer by profession, and generally speaking I know what
your duties are. I merely made a show--a pretence, as it were--of
resisting you, in order to get away from that mob. It was--ahem--it was
a device on my part--in short, a trick."
"Is that so? Fixin' to try to beg off now, huh? Well, nothin' doin'!
Nothin' doin'! I don't know whether you're a fancy nut or a plain souse
or what-all, but whatever you are you're under arrest and you're goin'
with me."
"That's exactly what I desire to do," resumed the schemer. "I desire
most earnestly to go with you."
"You're havin' your wish, ain't you? Well, then, the both of us should
oughter be satisfied."
"I feel sure," continued the wheedling and designing Mr. Leary, "that as
soon as we reach the station house I can make satisfactory atonement to
you for my behaviour just now and can explain everything to your
superiors in charge there, and then----"
"Station house!" snorted Patrolman Switzer. "Why, say, you ain't headin'
for no station house. The crowd that's over there where you're headin'
for should be grateful to me for bringin' you in. You'll be a treat to
them, and it's few enough pleasures some of them gets----"
A new, a horrid doubt assailed Mr. Leary's sorely taxed being. He began
to have a dread premonition that all was not going well and his brain
whirled anew.
"But I prefer to be taken to the station house," he began.
"And who are you to be preferrin' anything at all?" countered Switzer.
"I'll phone back to the station where I am and what I've done; though
that part of it's no business of yours. I'll be doin' that after I've
arrainged you over to Jefferson Market."
"Jeff--Jefferson Market!"
"Sure, 'tis to Jefferson Market night court you're headin' this minute.
Where else? They're settin' late over there to-night; the magistrate is
expectin' some raids somewheres about daylight, I dope it. Anyhow,
they're open yet; I know that. So it'll be me and you for Jefferson
Market inside of five minutes; and I'm thinkin' you'll get quite a
reception."
Jefferson Market! Mr. Leary could picture the rows upon rows of gloating
eyes. He heard the incredulous shout that would mark his entrance, the
swell of unholy glee from the benches that would interrupt the
proceedings. He saw stretched upon the front pages of the early editions
of the afternoon yellows the glaring black-faced headlines:
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