CHAPTER VII

There was a strange procession in the streets early in the morning. Its line of march lay through the principal business quarters of the city, and everywhere its advent was greeted with wild hurrahs. In fact it did much of its own cheering. The enthusiasm for itself which pervaded its ranks was of a gratifying fervor. It was kindly esteemed, too, by others. Very seldom do the solid business men of a city look upon a procession of strikers--for these were strikers--with the benign indulgence accorded this noisy crew. And very seldom do respectable citizens of any town appear in such dingy boots as those which covered the feet of some genteel people.

For this was a procession of striking boot-blacks and newsboys, and for a time the sun had a corner on "shining."

Banners fluttered to the breeze; quaint standards were held aloft. One bore this strange device, "BLOOD OR PIE," and elicited a peal of laughter whenever it came around a corner.

As far as the interests of their trades were concerned the strikers might have forgotten their grand display within a week, for they were soon underbidding each other, and the price of a "shine" had fallen to the old familiar nickel before the sun was fairly through his job that day.

But they long remembered, perhaps for years, the electric thrill that quivered through the ranks of the procession when a well-known police officer signaled to the vanguard to halt. The boys brought up suddenly, surprised and perhaps a little frightened.

The officer strode up and tapped Ned on the shoulder. Though neither bootblack nor newsboy, Ned was a friend of the strikers. He was a public character among his fellows, and the ruling spirit of this demonstration, which had been long in preparation. He had stood at the head of the column without a qualm, for he had felt in clearing his conscience last night as if he had cleared off all old scores.

Nobody so astonished now as Ned!

"What fur?" he gasped. The officer lifted the warrant slightly out of his breast pocket, and pointing his big thumb toward it replied succinctly,--

"Housebreaking, larceny, and arson."

"My eye!" exclaimed a little newsboy, concentrating an amazed stare upon the diminutive alleged housebreaker, thief, and incendiary.

Ned's heart sank,--all his forebodings realized,--all his scheming in vain! He had much ado to keep from bursting into tears. Yet he was helplessly wondering how they had come to suspect him of knowing aught of the burning of the theatre or the theft of the money and diamonds, when he had so persistently kept his own counsel.

The officer would tell nothing as he hurried the boy along. The gaping procession followed, still mechanically bearing aloft the banners which Ned's own ingenuity had devised and constructed.

"Ye'll find out soon enough," was all his laconic captor would say.

Ned found out only when the warrant was read and Peter Bateman was testifying before the magistrate.

The fat boy's cheeks were flabby and white. A cold perspiration glistened in his hair, which stood up straight and stubbly above his forehead. His eyes seemed very close together indeed. He was greatly frightened and agitated, and the magistrate, who had a keener discrimination of the merits of a good dinner than of the various phases of human nature, encouraged him, and spoke kindly to him whenever he faltered. He seemed very reluctant to give his testimony, and the justice accounted this aversion to accuse his friend a fine trait of character, and regarded Pete yet more favorably.

Pete cast but one glance at Ned. He withdrew his eyes hastily and kept them fixed appealingly on the justice's face. He told his story glibly enough when once fairly at it, for he had spent the interval since he was last before the magistrate in reciting it again and again to himself, that he might not let it vary with the sworn statement which he had previously made.

"I ain't goin' ter git busted now fur perjury--sure pop," he said to himself.

Even in its midst he was wondering how he could tell it at all with the consciousness of Ned's fiery eyes fixed upon him. It would be too much to say that he had no remorse. He did wish that Ned could know that he had not intended to bring affairs to this pass,--that he had only lied, as boys often lie, for petty spite, and had never imagined the far-reaching consequences that had ensued. If Pete had been a receptive subject for a moral lesson he might now have learned what a terrible engine for evil even a diminutive lie can be. But he was only asking himself how could he be expected to foresee such a coincidence as the probable pillage of the theatre, supplemented by the burning of the building.

Still, the realization of all the evil he had wrought came upon him with such crushing force at the end of his story that he burst into tears and convulsive sobs and presented quite an edifying spectacle of sympathizing and grieving friendship.

"Well,--well," said the acute magistrate soothingly, "you have done the best you could,--you are a good boy."

"He's a liar!" Ned flamed out suddenly. "A liar! A liar!"

The next moment Ned saw that this outburst of wrath had done him harm. It seemed that only a turbulent and vicious character would thus meet reluctant accusation with vociferous abuse. The justice coldly and sternly ordered him to be silent. The spectators looked askance at him. Earlier they had not been without sympathy and a hopeful expectation that the boy could show his innocence. At the outset, when informed by the magistrate of his right to counsel at every stage of the proceedings, Ned's prompt refusal to send for a lawyer won him favor, as it indicated an evident belief that his innocence could be easily established without aid. His vehement negative raised a laugh, however, at the expense of the profession, for it was Ned's conviction that lawyers are a pragmatical, exacting tribe, and far more likely to complicate matters than to simplify them.

There was a stir of uncertainty and curiosity when the magistrate asked the little defendant if he wished to make any statement concerning the circumstances in the case and in contradiction of the testimony given against him, informing him at the same time that he could waive making such a statement at present, and that such waiver could not be used against him either now or afterward at his trial. It seemed in evident expectation of an immediate discharge that Ned declined to avail himself of this opportunity to postpone the issue and prepare for it.

In fact he believed he could dissipate the unfortunate impressions which he had created by telling a plain, straightforward story about the scheme to see the play, and what was said by Pete in his fantastic threats while at the window.

"I can tell you all about it in three minutes 'thout no lawyer," he declared, and forthwith plunged tumultuously into the narration.

At this moment a little judicious kindness might have elicited all that the boy had seen and heard. The justice, however, did not encourage him as he had encouraged Pete. He seemed inimical and severe, and when Ned hesitated in small matters glanced at him sharply. He evidently regarded Ned as a case of precocious hoodlum. Once more the frightened boy thought his safety lay in silence. He was only suspected as yet, he argued within himself. Nothing could be proved against him except that he got into the building at the window. He knew that in several of the States boys no older than he was had been convicted of felonies and sentenced to the penitentiary. Therefore he feared that his own extreme youth would be regarded as a very slight palliation of the crime of which he stood accused, and that he might be locking the doors of the State prison upon himself for a long term if he should tell all and his story be disbelieved or misinterpreted.

Instead of the firm, coherent detail of the facts exactly as they had happened, with which he had been proceeding, he began, as these thoughts surged through his mind, to stumble,--to repeat his words, to fall on long, reflective pauses; and finally he ceased abruptly in the middle of a sentence.

The magistrate had occasionally looked up impatiently; he elevated his eyebrows, pursed his lips inquiringly, and now laid down his pen outright.

"Is that all?" he said.

"Naw, sir," Ned admitted, in grievous agitation.

Perhaps his youth and his hard straits and the terrible future which seemed impending over him touched the justice. He gave a little line. He felt that he hardly exceeded the intention of the restrictions of his office in prompting the defendant, helping him out, in view of his youth, inexperience, and friendlessness,--giving him a chance to tell his story and establish, if it might, his innocence.

"Do you want to tell how you saw the play?"

"Yes, sir," said Ned, plucking up heart of grace.

"And how you got out?"

"Got out of the window wher' I got in."

"Do you want to tell why you did not go out at the back door?"

"Didn't know wher' 't wuz," replied Ned.

All these facts were being incorporated in the written statement of Ned's own account of himself, which when finished would be read to him, and which he might sign or not, as he would, but the magistrate would annex the reason for no signature in case he should refuse. It was beginning to take a definite value, and the two returned to this unique method of getting at the facts with renewing spirit. Alas for the next question!

"Do you want to tell why you did not follow the employees to the back door?"

Ned did not answer. His face fell.

The justice looked surprised and disappointed. He returned to the effort.

"You were afraid of being seen by some of them? Was that the reason you did not follow them?"

Ned still was silent.

The justice was obviously ill at ease. He had ventured upon an innovation in a very important matter, which he felt was unjustifiable unless some valuable result were to accrue. There was something singular in the case, and he had his qualms in committing the boy to jail without a fair opportunity to show his innocence. For this he had already gone far. The fact would not be mended nor marred by going further.

"Did you leave any one in the theatre?" he queried.

"Yes, sir," faltered Ned.

"How many did you leave there?" demanded the magistrate briskly, seeing the possibility of shifting the crime from such narrow shoulders.

"Three men." (General sensation.)

"Give their names," said the magistrate, fingering his pen and feeling his hand upon the heart of the mystery.

"Dunno their names."

"But you could identify them?"

To his great displeasure Ned would not answer. The magistrate persisted. "Did you want to describe them? Was that your intention?"

Still Ned refused to speak.

The justice looked at him, baffled. There were few persons present, and most of them the miniature strikers. But he discerned in the countenances of the officers and a lawyer or two, besides those representing the prosecutors, an alert appreciation of his departure from the methods of his office and the letter of the law.

"Come, come, now,--what were they doing?"

Ned looked down at his convulsively working hands and said nothing,--knowing not what to say and what to leave unsaid.

"What o'clock was it when you left?" The magistrate essayed as he supposed an easy inquiry. He wished not to have it said that with an unprecedented course of questioning he had reduced the prisoner to silence when the law expressly provides what shall be asked of him, and that with his consent, by the examining magistrate. He could not conceive that the interrogation as to the hour when one quitted a theatre could prove an embarrassment. It failed, however, to reopen verbal communication. Ned heard again far away that tolling bell of the night strike the mystic note of one o'clock, the single weighty tone, impressive, awe-inspiring, with the recollection of the darkness and the strangeness of his awakening.

Once more he said nothing.

The justice at last desisted in irritation. He had not acquitted himself to his satisfaction, and he began to be more acutely ill at ease as he noted two or three newspaper reporters in the room, who had been attracted by the rumor of unusual circumstances in the examination which had already gotten wind. One of the reporters suddenly addressed the magistrate, and to Ned's surprise and his deep mortification he recognized a representative of the paper which he also served in his humble capacity.

"May it please your honor," said the reporter courteously, "I know the defendant very well, and can testify to his general good character."

The justice, thoroughly out of temper, replied testily, "To please me you would have to testify to a good deal more than that."

"I thought from your manner that you would be glad to be able to avoid committing so young a lad." The reporter sought to justify himself.

Now this comment upon the course which the justice had seen fit to take, since he himself did not altogether approve it, was the most unfortunate that could have been made in Ned's interest. That it was disapproved by the detective, the officers, and the lawyers of the parties who were grievous sufferers by the crime in which Ned had contrived to become entangled and who naturally, from the magnitude of the losses, were not disposed to leniency, was most obvious from their general facial expression, although no overt indication of dissatisfaction had been adventured.

"Fortunately _you_ are not here to _think_!" retorted the justice. His large head, with its fat jowl, was canted slightly backward as he spoke, his hands were lightly clasped across his capacious stomach, and he looked at the reporter from under the half-closed lids of small, narrow, unfriendly eyes.

The reporter was of a type of man calculated to be particularly unacceptable to the burly demagogue of a justice. The blond, handsome youngster was something of a fop. Indeed, he went by the sobriquet of "dude reporter" in the composing-room. He was nevertheless a very efficient newspaper man, he came of good people, he was essentially a gentleman, and he was of a specially kind and amiable disposition. He could no more have refrained from seeking to help Ned at this pinch than if the boy were drowning before his eyes. He had been silent at first, although he stared as if he thought he had the nightmare when the spectacle of the forlorn little printer's devil in custody broke upon his astonished gaze. He had, however, waited to interfere till the moment when the justice's decision seemed imminent, hoping that Ned had some ground of defense, some testimony to offer that would serve to extricate him. Now he could wait no longer, and he braved the wrath of the justice, and, what was much more formidable to him, the gleeful relish of two reporters from other papers, who were even now writing him up before his eyes as fast as their waggish pencils could travel.

"Ned!" he cried indignantly, "why don't you answer his honor? You know that you _can't_ be guilty of all those crimes. Tell him about the affair!"

The justice was for a moment as one petrified. Then he rallied his faculties. "Young man," he said menacingly, "do you know where you are?"

One of the gayly facetious reporters added "at" to the sentence, and thus it stood in the printed columns in the morning.

"I beg your honor's pardon," said the dude reporter humbly, "but noting your honor's kind efforts to make the child divulge the names of the wicked men who may be utilizing his youth and ignorance to conceal their crimes of larceny and arson, I ventured to speak to him. He knows me very well, and I thought I might aid your honor by reason of my long acquaintance with him. He is a very good boy--"

"Must be," interrupted the justice sarcastically,--"not at all obstinate."

--"and greatly valued by his employers. I felt that you would like that any one who could should testify in his behalf."

"If you have anything specific to say on that head you may speak,--that is, if he will permit you,--you see that he has no counsel; otherwise it is not worth while to administer the oath."

The dude reporter reflected doubtfully, all unmindful of the flying pencils of the other reporters "scooping" him on the spot. But when he came to consider his knowledge of Ned he was compelled to perceive that it was in the nature of things negative and trivial, and would do more harm adduced than neglected. Of what avail to detail the puerile little incidents of which such a boy's life was made up? When Ned fell into disgrace because the office cat was reduced to misery and despair by reason of a tin can tied to its tail, it required no great knowledge of character to discover that this was the joyous work of a certain roguish office-boy, and to relieve Ned of suspicion, which only fell upon him because he was the younger of the two. Ned dined with this cat daily, dividing with it the meagre contents of the little tin pail which he brought from home. He went about much of the time with the cat in his arms, although scornfully admonished to "Hush-a-bye your baby!" by this office-boy, who could be mocking as well as roguish. The too dainty staff, as Ned considered them, were often scandalized by the cat's appearance in triumph, bearing a big, live rat through the editorial rooms, and not to be diverted from a tour of the place till the devil could be found, and the notable capture exhibited to its human friend. Ned seemed to delight in little services of utility, offered gratuitously and evidently with no expectation of reward; but this only proved the kindness of heart of this gentle little devil, and as the reporter racked his brains he realized that many of the facts possible to cite in his favor were only of this nature. Ned would see to it that a great array of pencils well sharpened were laid ready for use on each desk before the editorial work commenced daily, although this was none of his duty, more properly falling within the functions of the negligent office-boys. The night editor, the proud possessor of a spherical pincushion fashioned by an ingenious female relative, on frugal holiday gifts intent, was helplessly wont to see it roll its rotundities out of reach whenever needed, followed by reluctant feet and hearty maledictions, till he found it one day secured against the wall by a wire ingeniously wrought basket-wise, effectually restraining its activities thereafter. Another editorial pincushion was of a dark hue, on a dusky desk, in a dim corner, often secluded altogether from discovery till it was rendered easily visible to the naked eye in any weather by a neatly adjusted frill of white tissue paper fashioned by the deft fingers of the devil, and daily renewed. The boy never forgot anything that might serve the comfort of others, slight though were his powers to promote this. The door of the editorial room had creaked from time immemorial till Ned and a drop of oil came. If a budget of papers was forgotten and left at home, if a personal errand was to be swiftly done, and the leaden-footed office-boys recoiled and protested against it as impracticable and contended that they were hired for no such miracles of speed, "Lemme go fur 'em," Ned would beg; "I'll git 'em as soon as the printers let me off!" To be sure Ned had his trifling rewards, his favors being duly reciprocated in the way of small change, but these tokens were obviously unexpected, the simple little boy regarding them rather as free-will gratuities, mere gifts from sheer kindness, than as payment for services. No wonder the dude reporter was willing to exert himself. But how could he urge these trifling indicia of temperament and character, albeit Ned's opportunities were commensurately small? The reporter hesitated, and the sarcastic justice remarked at last, "May I remind your wisdom that the court awaits your pleasure?"

The blond young man--the very wave of his dainty cow-lick on his handsome forehead was an offense to the bluff justice--flushed, but replied with good temper,--

"Your honor knows that in the nature of things but little can be said for a mere child, whose opportunities for wrong-doing are limited as well as--"

"Perhaps not so limited as one might well think!" the magistrate interposed significantly.

"He has no position of trust, of course, but he has been faithful over the few things in his care. I know the boy to be greatly esteemed by his employers,--hard-working, punctual, careful, honest so far as I have ever heard or observed, eager to please, industrious, cheerful, willing, the most kindly disposed little fellow I ever saw in my life."

The justice rapped impatiently on his desk. "_This_ is not to the purpose," he said. "Will you give bail for him?"

"In ignorance of the circumstances of the crime?--no, your honor, I will not."

"Will the paper go on his bail-bond?"

"_I_ cannot speak for the management, naturally."

The justice, with the air of a man whose time has been unwarrantably wasted, turned back to the defendant. He inquired of Ned in curt accents if he could find bail, evidently expecting the negative answer which he received. In view of the testimony against him and the prisoner's own statement the justice declared that it was impossible to consider his release. There was anger in the magistrate's eye and impatience in the bang of his blotting-pad as he signed the "mittimus" commanding the officer who had made the arrest to deliver the prisoner to the jailer of the county.

There the printer's devil was to await his trial at the next term of the criminal court; and Peter Bateman, when duly arraigned among the "drunk-and-disorderlies" in the police court, escaped with a reprimand because of his youth and the fact of a first offense, and was discharged and at liberty once more.

When the door of Ned's cell fairly closed upon him he could do nothing but throw himself on the floor in a frenzy of weeping. For a time he could think only of the disgrace,--the shame to himself and to his mother. Presently ideas more practical, more immediate in their effects, usurped this sentiment. He remembered her desolation,--her destitution. His wages would be lost to the little family while he was locked up here,--for how long,--oh, for how long! If they would only let him work,--on his wages had he and his mother lived,--if they only would let him work for his mother, he would care for nothing besides. He broke once more into loud cries and sobs. How could the little household live without him and his weekly wage! They would starve--they would die! He beat as frantically as futilely on the door. He tried the strong bars at the window till every muscle in his arms ached.

When exhaustion brought calmness at last, he sat down and tried to think quietly of what could be done. He entertained now no intention of appealing to his father's old patrons to whom he had contemplated applying for counsel, for guidance, in a difficult emergency. Now, as he was tarnished by an actual criminal charge, he knew they would look askance upon him. He was aware that his mother had never, in her most stringent financial needs, considered seeking for help or charity from them, and hence he judged the tie was not of a kind that might justify money aid. His father's name, for old sake's sake, Ned had fancied might warrant an appeal for advice, but he knew it would be futile as an urgency to them to risk money or to go upon his bond, and naturally so! If those who were acquainted with him personally could not venture thus, how could he expect it from strangers in effect, who had known his father indeed, but in humble guise and long ago, and whose attention could be brought now to Ned himself, only as a most precocious suspect of crime? He did not blame even the dude reporter for declining, but was grateful to him for the good word he had taken the trouble to say.

Ned's mind soon left the details of the future. Try as he might, it would not go forward. It would only travel over and over again the familiar ground of the singular events at the theatre and the detective's story in the magistrate's court to-day. Ned gave, however, no special heed to the episode, as recounted, of mailing the letter; that only proved to him that he was watched then, and now he knew that he had been watched all day. He had no idea that the letter was of any particular importance to the police. The detective had included its mention in his testimony for purposes of his own. He did not disclose the fact that he had ascertained to whom it was addressed. He only wished to discover by the expression of the boy's face whether Ned attached any significance to a possible disclosure of this correspondence; but there was no added shade of fear or anxiety upon it, and the wily detective was for the nonce baffled.