"Oh, tutt-_tutt_ and naughty-naughty!" rebuked Mayme. "Somebody's sister
been puttin' somethin' over on poor little Willy?"
"My own sister has." He was in that state of semi-hysterical exhaustion
in which revelation of one's intimate troubles to the first comer seems
natural. "She's gone and got arrested," he wailed.
Mayme's face became grave and practical.
"That's different," said she. "What's her lay?"
"Lay? I don't know--"
"What's her line? What's she done to get pinched?"
"Shoplifting. At the special night sale of the Emporium."
"You're tellin' me! In the silks, huh?"
"What do you know about it? My God! Is it in the papers already?"
"Keep your hair on, Buddy. I work there, and I heard about that pinch.
Swell young married lady. Say," she added, after a thoughtful pause:
"has she got somethin' comin'?"
"Something coming? How? What?"
"Don't be dumb. A kid."
He stared. She was looking at him with unabashed frankness. Those who
live in the close, rough intimacy of the slums do not cherish false
shame about the major facts of life.
"Suppose she has?" queried the youth sulkily.
"Why, that'll be all right, you poor boob," returned the kindly Mayme.
"The judge'll let her off with a warning."
"How do you know?"
"They always do. Those cases are common. Dolan ought to be canned for
makin' a pinch of a lady in the fam'ly way.
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