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HENRY FINDS HIMSELF IN A STRANGE PREDICAMENT
* 'Sorry." The officer *s tone was non-committal. ''But maybe youse c'n git bail. Come along.''
The next hour was a sickening maze of horrors to Rosser: a dizzy glimpse of a jeering crowd gathered about a patrolwagon ; a racking ride ; a bare, dingy room, with a man in uniform at a long desk; questions to which he replied mazedly, as one in a direful nightmare.
Then, at last, he was standing in the night-court, a blurry sense of faces behind him in rows along the wooden benches, and, before him, a frowsy man, in dirty judge's gown, chewing a rusty pen. Twin pig-eyes twinkled from the magistrate's face, and his broad jowls heaved with suppressed chuckles as he surveyed the wretched prisoner. The ill-omened bird uttered loud barnyard anathemas and shed feathers broadcast over the scene. Henry himself stood dazed and phlegmatic, mechanically clutching the turkey as the one reality in this chaos of impossibilities. Then the sound of his own name fell hollowly on his ears.
**Yes, your honor?"
**Can you furnish five hundred dollars for bail, Mr. Rosser?"
Five hundred dollars ! Henry almost laughed aloud.
"No, sir; I'm afraid not."
"Then" — the magistrate sighed sympathetically — ' ' I 'm afraid you must remain in jail until the saloonkeeper's case comes up, day after tomorrow. ' '
The room whirled. Henry put a dazed hand to his head, and the turkey, taking gross advantage, flapped loose and dived, gobbling, down the aisle, pursued by two earnest policemen. Above the sounds of the chase came a broken wail :
"No — no — oh, your honor — not in jail. Me? Why, I've done nothing. It will kill my wife. And tomorrow Thanksgiving Day ! ' '
Ten minutes later, in a dirty, whitewashed cell, with the outraged and outrageous cause of his distress as a jail-mate, Henry sat on a plank bench and endeavored, valiantly, to consider pros and cons. Somewhere out in the noisy darkness a clock struck seven. He groaned. "What must Josie be thinking now ? Supper stood chilling on the table; the kiddies had come back disconsolate, and she was trying to laugh and reassure them over her own fears — ^brave little
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