o
without my morning bath, and to stand fully dressed, but with the
consciousness of being untubbed and unscrubbed, facing the world!

There was such a horrible lot of the world to face, too, in that awful
police-court, where the windows were steaming and opaque, and the walls
clammy as those of an uncared-for country vestry!

The place seemed crowded with all sorts and conditions of men and women,
lumped together, so to speak, in Fate's lucky-bag. And it was only after
I'd given two or three resentful glances about that stuffy cave of a
place that I recognised among all the strangers the faces of the people
who'd come to back up Miss Million and me.

First and foremost, of course, there sat, as close to us as she could
manage to get herself placed, the sumptuous, peg-top-shaped, white-clad
figure of London's Love, Miss Vi Vassity, with her metallic hair.

She kissed her plump hand to us with effusion, waving encouragingly to
us with her big gold mesh bag and all its glittering, clashing
attachments: the cigarette case, the lip-salve tube, the gold pencil,
the memorandum tablets, the Darin powder-box, the card-case, the
Swastika, the lucky pig, the touchwood, the gold-tipped coral charm, the
threepenny bit, and all the other odd things that rattled and jingled
together like a pedlar's cart, making an unearthly stir in court.

From where I stood I could see two men sketching the owner of all this
clatter!

Close beside her sat Mr. Hiram P. Jessop, very boyish, very grave; his
well-cut Dana-Gibson mouth seeming to be permanently set into the
exclamation, "Preppassterous!" and his serious eyes fastened on his
trembling little cousin in the dock.

The Honourable James Burke sat behind them. All the policemen and
officials, I noticed, were being as pleasant and deferential to that
young scamp as if he were at least a judge, instead of a person who
ought by rights to be locked up in the interests of the public!

To the right of him sat the author of all our troubles, Mr. Julius
Rattenheimer.

I suppose all German Jews aren't odious! I suppose all German Jews
aren't thick-nosed and oily skinned, with eyes like two blackberries
sunk very deep in a pan of dough! I suppose they don't all run to
"bulges" inside their waistcoats and over their collars, and above and
below their flashing rings? I suppose they don't all talk with their
hands?

No, I suppose it isn't fair to judge the whole race by one specimen.

He beca