REGINAND’S HUMILIATION
Rex never felt so humiliated in his life. Here he was, surrounded by a
crowd, captured by a policeman and accused by a miserable Chinaman of
breaking a pane of glass.
“It’s all a mistake, I tell you,” he cried, starting to wrest himself
loose from the officer’s grasp, and then suddenly remaining passive as
he reflected that this was undignified.
“What did you run for then!” questioned the policeman.
“Because he told me to—the fellow with the red face,” and Rex looked
around in the throng to pick out the cause of his misfortune, but that
individual had discreetly disappeared.
“I don’t see him now,” he went on.
“I guess you don’t,” put in the bystander who had already spoken. “Do
you run every time anybody tells you to?”
“He said there was a runaway team behind me. Then I heard the glass
break. He must have thrown the stone himself.”
Rex tried to speak calmly, but he was boiling over with rage at the
trick which he now realized had been played upon him.
“Me wantee new glass,” the Chinaman insisted. “Play money.”
How fervently Rex wished at that moment that they had come into their
inheritance. He would have put his hand into his pocket, drawn out a
five dollar bill with a lordly air and handed it over with the words:
“Take this. I didn’t break the glass, but I pity the poor heathen’s
distress.”
As it was, he had not a penny about him. It was difficult to keep up an
air of bravado under these circumstances.
The crowd was growing bigger each minute. The policeman looked somewhat
perplexed. He judged from Rex’s appearance that he was not a hoodlum
who would be likely to throw a stone at a Chinaman’s window, but he
admitted that he had been running, and here was a man ready to swear
that he saw him throw the stone.
“What is your name?” he asked.
“Reginald Bemis Pell,” replied Rex promptly. He was proud of his name,
and brought it out now with a kind of flourish.
“Where do you live?” went on the officer, while the crowd pressed
closer to hear the replies.
“At Marley.”
“You don’t look like a boy who would break windows for the fun of it.”
“Of course I wouldn’t, and when my brother hears of this outrage he’ll
raise a big fuss over it. He’s a lawyer and knows how to do it.”
Rex didn’t feel a bit humorous when he made this assertion, but there
was something in it that struck the crowd as very funny. A good many
laughed, and the policeman tried to repress a smile.
“Where is this brother of yours?”
“Right here in the city,” and Rex gave the address.
“That’s not far,” said the officer. “We’ll go round there and see if
you have told us a straight story. Come along, John,” he added to the
laundryman.
Rex glowed with a sense of triumph for a minute, and then began to
reflect on what Syd would say at seeing him appear in such company—with
a police officer and a Chinaman. And there was the crowd that strung on
behind as the three moved off!
“I wish I’d stayed at home,” groaned poor Rex to himself.
However, he tried to take some comfort from the fact that the
policeman’s arm was not on his shoulder. People they passed might think
it was the Chinaman who was under arrest. Then he felt that he ought to
be glad that it was midsummer, with no chance of his meeting any of his
friends.
He was trying to decide what he should do in case Syd had not come back
by the time they reached the office, when just as they turned into
Chestnut Street a familiar voice cried out:
“Hello, Rex, what under the sun?”
It was Scott Bowman. He had just come out of a trunk store in time to
confront the sorry procession.
Rex wished the manhole cover over which he was passing would suddenly
give way and precipitate him under the sidewalk in theatrical trap door
fashion. Scott was the last person in all the world whom he wished to
see.
“Don’t you come near me, Scott,” he answered, “if you don’t want to be
disgraced. I’m under arrest.”
The look of utter and complete amazement on young Bowman’s face at
hearing this did more to convince the officer he had the wrong person
in custody than anything else. He allowed Rex to stop and parley with
his friend.
The situation was explained in few words. Scott was a year older than
Rex. His father was a city official with a salary of ten thousand a
year. He was highly indignant when he heard of the outrage.
“This is monstrous,” he said, and announcing who he was, demanded that
Rex be instantly released.
“But I can’t do that, Mr. Bowman, if that is really your name,”
responded the officer somewhat nettled. “Because this young gentleman
happens to be a friend of yours, it doesn’t make it any the less likely
that he broke that window.”
“‘If that is really my name?’” repeated Scott, highly incensed. “You’ll
find out whether that is my name or not when I report this affair to my
father.”
The officer smiled; so did a number in the crowd. Rex felt that his
former humiliation was nothing compared to that which he was now
undergoing, having caused his friend to be treated in this insulting
fashion.
“Come on,” said the policeman, and the line of march to Sydney’s office
was resumed, Scott valiantly falling into place beside Rex, vowing
vengeance on the entire force of bluecoats.
“Don’t stay with me, Scott,” Rex implored him. “You’ve borne enough. I
don’t want to drag you down into the mire too.”
“Do you suppose I’d desert a friend in a time of need like this?”
returned Scott. “I’m going to take this officer’s number now while I
think of it.”
Scott fished a pencil out of one pocket and a railroad timetable out of
the other, and glancing at the shield on the breast of the policeman
made a record of the figures on it in a very conspicuous manner. But
the officer did not tremble with apprehension. He simply turned to Rex
and observed, “This is the place, isn’t it?”
They had reached the building in which Sydney had his office.
“Yes, this is the place,” replied Rex slowly. He was thinking how
dreadful it would be to present himself before Syd with this crowd at
his heels.
“I don’t know whether he’s in or not,” he added. “Will you mind going
up and finding out, Scott?”
“Of course I won’t. I know just where the room is and I’ll bring him
down in a jiffy.”
The policeman motioned the crowd back and he and Rex and the patient
Chinaman went into the marble corridor and waited, while the throng
peered in at them from the doorway and a new one began to gather from
among those who passed to and fro in the building.
“I’m glad I never knew this was going to happen to me,” reflected Rex.
“I’d never have known a happy day if I had.”
He had no fear of going to jail. He felt that there was justice enough
in the world to ward that off.
But the ignominy of his present position was torture enough to a proud
spirit like his.
Ah, here was one of the elevators coming down, with Scott looking
eagerly out at him. And Syd was with him.
But was it Syd, this fellow with the pallid cheeks and deep circles
under the eyes? Yes, it certainly was his brother, for he stepped out
ahead of Scott and came over at once to pass his arm about Rex in
gesture of protection.
Reginald gave an almost unconscious sigh of relief. Within that embrace
he felt that he was safe.
“Now what is all this about?” said Sydney, in his business-like tone,
addressing the officer. “It seems you have arrested my brother here for
breaking a Chinaman’s windows. Did you see him throw the stone?”
“No, but a gentleman did,” replied the officer.
“Where’s that gentleman now?”
He was not to be found. He had dropped out of the procession before it
reached Chestnut Street.
“He was a bystander. He is not here now,” answered the policeman. “I
didn’t think the boy did it myself, but he admits that he was running
when the alarm was given.”
“That amounts to nothing. Do you arrest everybody that runs in the
street? Explain why you were running, Rex.”
Rex did so, as he had already done.
“This fellow who told you that there was a runaway coming for you,”
went on Sydney; “had you seen him before?”
“Yes; he came up and spoke to me while I was looking in a store window
at some bicycles.”
“Did you answer him?”
“Yes.”
“Pleasantly?”
Rex hesitated a moment.
“Well, I didn’t exactly like his looks, so I said ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ I
forget which now, and went on.”
“This seems like a clear case of the wrong man, officer,” summed up
Sydney. “It was that hoodlum who broke the glass just for the sake of
getting my brother into trouble. You ought to see that plainly enough.
You do, don’t you?”
“Yes, now. I didn’t know all the story before. I beg the young
gentleman’s pardon. Come, John, we’ll have to look elsewhere for your
tormentor,” and the officer took the Chinaman by the arm and walked out
with him.