The first case called, after Jarvis’s entrance, was that of the keeper of a disorderly house.  She was horrible.  He felt she ought to be branded in some way, so that she and her vile trade would be known wherever she went.  A man went her bail, and she flounced out in a cloud of patchouli.

Two coloured girls were brought in, and sent up for thirty days.  Then several old women, the kind of human travesties Jarvis had seen sleeping on the benches, were marched before the judge, who called them all by name.

“Well, Annie,” he said to one of them, “you haven’t been here for some weeks.  How did it happen this time?”

“I’ve been a-walkin’ all day, your honour.  I guess I fell asleep in the doorway.”

“You’ve been pretty good lately.  I’ll let you off easy.  Fine, one dollar.”

“Oh, thanks, your honour.”  She was led off, and Jarvis sickened at the sight.

A series of young girls followed, cheaply modish, with their willow plumes and their vanity bags.  Some cheerful, some cynical, some defiant.  One slip of a thing heard her sentence, looked up in the judge’s face, and laughed.  Jarvis knew that never, while he lived, would he forget that girl’s laugh.  It was into the face of our whole hideous Society that she hurled that bitter laugh.

Then his girl was brought in.  He saw her clearly for the first time.  A thin, wizened little face, framed in curly red hair, with bright, birdlike eyes.  Her thin, flat child’s figure was outlined in a tight, black satin dress, with a red collar and sash.  Her quick glance darted to him, and she smiled.  The policeman made his charge.  The judge glanced at her.

“Anything to say for yourself?”

She shook her head wearily.  Jarvis was out of his seat before he thought.

“I have something to say for her.  I am the man she was supposed to have approached.”

“Silence in the courtroom,” said the judge, sternly.

“She didn’t say one word to me, except ‘Good evening,’” shouted Jarvis.

“Is that the man?” the judge asked the officer.

“Yes.  He’s made a lot of trouble, too, trying to make me arrest him.”

“If you have any evidence to give in this case, come to the front and be sworn in.”

Jarvis jumped the railing and stood before him.  The oath was administered.

“Now, tell me, briefly, what the girl said to you.”

“She said, ‘Hello, kid!’”

A titter went over the courtroom.  The clerk rapped for order.

“Then what happened?”

“This officer arrested her.  I told him what had passed between us, and insisted on being arrested, too.  We said the same thing, the girl and I.”

“The girl has been here before.  She has a record.”

“Where are the men she made the record with?” demanded Jarvis.

“We do not deal with that feature of it,” replied the judge, turning to the officer.