By Gregory Clark, November 10, 1923.
The prisoner had a ruffled look: perspired: had lost control of his eyes, which shifted helplessly; trying to hide; trying not to see; trying not to comprehend.
“Not guilty, he says,” roared the policeman on guard at the prisoner’s side: it was nothing to the policeman; a policeman twenty-one years. It was everything to the damp young man in the dock.
He compressed his lips; squeezed his pale fingers into knots; tried to concentrate his wild gaze on the iron rail a foot from his nose; but couldn’t.
“Evidence?” said the magistrate absently. He was thinking of this and that.
“This lady,” said a policeman with a jovial face, but with a scornful voice, “informed me the prisoner had been following her on the street – singing under his breath –
“Singing,” repeated the magistrate.
“So I arrested him.”
“What did the accused say when arrested?”
“He denied the charge and tried to break away.”
“Ah! Did he use violence?”
“He broke a bag of eggs he was carrying.”
“That’ll do,” said the magistrate. To the lady he said:
“Did this prisoner follow you on the street?”
“M’hm!” said the lady who was just out of her youth, and had rarely if ever been pretty. “He walked along behind me all the way from Bathurst to Spadina, and kept humming –
“Singing?”
– “Singing all the time – right behind me!”
“Did you molest this lady on the street?” demanded the magistrate.
“No – no! I saw no lady – I was going home there was no lady – I was hurrying along – “
“Were you singing?”
The prisoner clamped the iron rail with both hands.
“Yes,” he said, hoarsely.
“What were you singing?”
The prisoner rolled his eyes, licked his lips, made a fearful effort to smile: turned whiter than death.
“Home Sweet Home,” he replied.
Seven persons in the court sniggered. The other sixty-three hadn’t heard: were paying no attention.
“Home Sweet Home,” repeated the magistrate.
The other sixty-three in the court began to pay attention.
“Yes, sir. That was it.”
“Was that it?” asked the magistrate.
“M’hm,” replied the lady,
“Why were you singing? Had you been drinking?” asked his Worship.
“No-no! It was five o’clock – and after – I was going home – you see – I had the eggs and the ribbon and the white wool-“
The policeman on guard looked sharply at the prisoner and drew one pace further away.
“Is he quite right?” asked the magistrate, sotto voce, of the policeman at the witness box.
“I doubt It,” scornfully replied the jovial policeman.
“What’s the matter with you?” demanded the magistrate.
The prisoner bowed his head and his mouth trembled.
“I saw no lady – nobody – I was going home,” chanted the prisoner: “and the policeman took my arm – I broke the eggs. Yes, I was singing: I remembered that. But what about my wife -“
You should have thought of that first, my man,” put in the magistrate.
“-she is only a girl,” went on the prisoner, head down, chanting, “she’s little and afraid and she’s – she’s – she’s not very well – she’s making little clothes – and I was not to forget the Beehive1 four-play – white wool – now I’ve been out all night – maybe I’ve lost my job – and she’s been sitting at the front window – maybe – maybe – “
A great light of comprehension lit up the magistrate’s face.
“Discharged!” he cried.
The lady looked indignant, What should she tell her friends now, for goodness sakes?
The policeman on guard had been a policeman twenty-one years; he opened the gate of the dock and automatically roared “Order!” to fill in the time.
The prisoner, without a hat, feeling in his pockets for the wool and the ribbon, ran out the door of the courtroom exclaiming –
“Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!
Editor’s Notes: I’m not sure what the point of the story was, don’t sing or hum suspiciously?
- Beehive wool is a brand, that still exists. ↩︎
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