"Day before rent day." The corner of the lady's mouth twitched, and Nance glanced at her suspiciously. "Can you repeat these numbers after me? Four, seven, nine, three, ten, six, fourteen." Nance was convinced now that the lady was crazy, but she rattled them off glibly. "Very good! Now if the little hand of your clock was at twelve, and the big hand at three, what time would it be?" Nance pondered the matter deeply. "Five after twelve!" she answered triumphantly. "No; try again." Nance was eager to oblige, but she had the courage of her convictions and held her point. "Wouldn't it be a quarter past?" suggested the examiner. "No, ma'am, it wouldn't. Our clock runs ten minutes slow." The grave face behind the spectacles broke into a smile; then business was resumed. "Shut your eyes and name as many objects as you can without stopping, like this: trees, flowers, birds. Go ahead." "Trees, flowers, birds, cats, dogs, fight, barrel, slop, mud, ashes." "Go on, quicker--keep it up. Nuts, raisins, cake--" "Cake, stove, smoke, tub, wash-board, scrub, rag, tub, stove, ashes." "Keep it up!" "I dunno no more." "We can't get beyond ashes, eh?" said the lady. "Now suppose you tell me what the following words mean. Charity?" "Is it a organization?" asked Nance doubtfully. "Justice?" "I dunno that one." "Do you know what God is?" Nance felt that she was doing badly. If her freedom depended on her passing this test, she knew the prison bars must be already closing on her. She no more knew what God is than you or I know, but the spectacled lady must be answered at any cost. "God," she said laboriously, "God is what made us, and a cuss word." Many more questions followed before she was sent back to her place between Uncle Jed and Mrs. Snawdor, and Dan was led away in turn to receive his test. Meanwhile Uncle Jed was getting restless. Again and again he consulted his large nickel-plated watch. "I ought to be getting to bed," he complained. "I won't get more 'n four hours' sleep as it is." "Here comes the Clarke boy!" exclaimed Nance, and all eyes were turned in the direction of the door. The group that presented itself at the entrance was in sharp contrast to its surroundings. Mac Clarke, arrayed in immaculate white, was flanked on one side by his distinguished-looking father and on the other by his father's distinguished-looking lawyer. The only evidence that the aristocratic youth had ever come into contact with the riffraff of Calvary Alley was the small patch of court-plaster above his right eye. "Tell the judge we are here," said Mr. Clarke briskly to his lawyer. "Ask him to get through with us as soon as possible. I have an appointment at twelve-thirty." The lawyer made his way up the aisle and disappeared through the door which all the morning had been swallowing one small offender after another. Almost immediately a loud voice called from the platform: