ople taking a momentary
relaxation in the interval of some performance. Then a loud voice
cried, "Silence--order in the court, sit down, gentlemen," and there
fell an unearthly stillness on the place.

"To the right," said the policeman, coming beside him, and taking his
arm as if to direct him.

He was conscious of a score of curious faces turned on him, of some one
on the bench folding up a newspaper and adjusting his glasses, of a man
at a table throwing aside a quill pen and taking another, of a click of
a latch closing behind him, of a row of spikes in front of him. Then he
found himself alone.

What followed he scarcely could tell. He was vaguely aware of some one
with Mr Sniff's voice making a statement in which his (Reginald's) own
name occurred, another voice from the bench breaking in every now and
then, and yet another voice from the table talking too, accompanied by
the squeaking of a pen across paper. Then the constable who had
arrested him said something, and after the constable some one else.

Then followed a dialogue in undertone between the bench and the table,
and once more Mr Sniff's voice, and at last the voice from the bench, a
gruff, unsympathetic voice, said,--

"Now, sir, what have you got to say for yourself?"

The question roused him. It was intended for him, and he awoke to the
consciousness that, after all, he had some interest in what was going
on.

He raised his head and said,--

"I'm not guilty."

"You reserve your defence, then?"

"Tell him yes," said the policeman.

"Yes, sir."

"Very well, then. I shall remand you for three days. Bring him up
again on Friday."

And the magistrate took up his newspaper, the clerk at the table laying
down his pen; the bustle and shuffling of feet filled the room, and in
another moment Reginald was down the staircase, and the voice he had
heard before called,--

"Remand three days. Now then, Grinder, up you go--"

In all his conjectures as to what might befall him, the possibility of
being actually sent to prison had never entered Reginald's head. That
he would be suspected, arrested, taken to the police-station, and
finally brought before a magistrate, he had foreseen. That was bad
enough, but he had steeled his resolution to the pitch of going through
with it, sure that the clearing of his character would follow any
inquiry into the case.

But to be lodged for three days as a common felon in a police cell was a
fate he ha