g anyway. Just the same old story."

They noisily arose, and walked out, while Officer Burke could hear one
of the gilded youths exclaim in a loud voice as they reached the outer
corridor:

"Come on, let's go up to Rector's for a little tango, and see some real
life...."

The magistrate who had heard it tapped his pen on the desk, and looked
quizzically at the matron.

"They are doubtless preparing some reform legislation for the suffrage
platform, Mrs. Grey, and I have inadvertently delayed the millennium.
Ah, a pity!"

Burke was impatient for the calling of his own case. He was tired. He
would have been hungry had he not been so nauseated by the sickening
environment. He longed for the fresh air; even the snowstorm was
better than this.

But his turn had not come. The next to be called was another answer to
his mental question.

A young woman with a blackened eye and a bleeding cheek was brought in
by a fat, jolly officer, who led a burly, sodden man with him.

The charge was quarreling and destroying the furniture of a neighbor in
whose flat the fight had taken place.

"Who started it?" asked the magistrate.

"She did, your honor. She ain't never home when I wants my vittles
cooked, and she blows my money so there ain't nothing in the house to
eat for meself. She's always startin' things, and she did this time
when I tells her to come on home...."

"Just a minute," interrupted the magistrate. "What is the cause of
this, little woman? Who struck you on the eye?"

The woman's lips trembled, and she glanced at the big fellow beside
her. He glowered down at her with a threatening twist of his mouth.

"Why, your honor, you see, the baby was sick, and Joe, he went out with
the boys pay night, and we didn't have a cent in the flat, and I had
to..."

"Shut up, or I'll bust you when I get you alone!" muttered Joe, until
the judge pounded on the table with his gavel.

"You won't be where you can bust her!" sharply exclaimed the
magistrate. "Go on, little woman. When did he hit you?"

The wife trembled and hesitated. The magistrate nodded encouragingly.

"Why weren't you home?" he asked softly.

"My neighbor, Mrs. Goldberg, likes the baby, and she was showing me how
to make some syrup for its croup, your honor, sir. We haven't got any
light--it's a quarter gas meter, and there wasn't anything to cook
with, and I had the baby in her flat, and Joe he just got home--he
hadn't been there ... si