be on the side of law
and order. Something in his oblong face and lank, scanty hair parted
precisely in the middle, something in that high collar supporting his
lean gills, not subservient exactly, but as it were suggesting that he
was in league against all this low-class of fellow, made the policeman
say to him:

"What's your business, daddy?"

"Oh!" the old butler answered. "This poor woman. I'm a witness to her
battery."

The policeman cast his not unkindly look over the figure of the
seamstress. "You stand here," he said; "I'll pass you in directly."

And soon by his offices the two were passed into the port of refuge.

They sat down side by side on the edge of a long, hard, wooden bench;
Creed fixing his eyes, whose colour had run into a brownish rim round
their centres, on the magistrate, as in old days sun-worshippers would
sit blinking devoutly at the sun; and Mrs. Hughs fixing her eyes on her
lap, while tears of agony trickled down her face. On her unwounded arm
the baby slept. In front of them, and unregarded, filed one by one
those shadows who had drunk the day before too deeply of the waters
of forgetfulness. To-day, instead, they were to drink the water of
remembrance, poured out for them with no uncertain hand. And somewhere
very far away, it may have been that Justice sat with her ironic smile
watching men judge their shadows. She had watched them so long about
that business. With her elementary idea that hares and tortoises should
not be made to start from the same mark she had a little given up
expecting to be asked to come and lend a hand; they had gone so far
beyond her. Perhaps she knew, too, that men no longer punished, but now
only reformed, their erring brothers, and this made her heart as light
as the hearts of those who had been in the prisons where they were no
longer punished.

The old butler, however, was not thinking of her; he had thoughts of a
simpler order in his mind. He was reflecting that he had once valeted
the nephew of the late Lord Justice Hawthorn, and in the midst of this
low-class business the reminiscence brought him refreshment. Over and
over to himself he conned these words: "I interpylated in between them,
and I says, 'You ought to be ashamed of yourself; call yourself an
Englishman, I says, attackin' of old men and women with cold steel, I
says!'" And suddenly he saw that Hughs was in the dock.

The dark man stood with his hands pressed to his sides, as though
at a