"Yer Honor!" the policeman broke in. "It's three times lately I've found him sleepin' in doorways after midnight. Him and the gang is a bad lot, yer Honor, a scrappin' an' hoppin' freights an' swipin' junk, an' one thing an' another." "I never swiped no junk," Dan said hopelessly, "I never swiped nothink in my life." "Is there no definite charge against this boy?" "Well, sir," said Mason, "he is always a-climbin' up the steeple of the cathedral." Dan, sullen, frightened, and utterly unable to defend himself, looked from the officer to the janitor with the wide, distrustful eyes of a cornered coyote. Suddenly a voice spoke out in his behalf, a shrill, protesting, passionate voice. "He ain't no worser nor nobody else! Ast Mammy, ast Uncle Jed! He's got to sleep somewheres when his maw fergits to come home! Ever'body goes an' picks on Danny 'cause he ain't got nobody to take up fer him. 'T ain't fair!" Nance ended her tirade in a burst of tears. "There, there," said the judge, "it's going to be fair this time. You stop crying now and tell me your name?" "Nance Molloy," she gulped, wiping her eyes on her sleeve. "How old are you?" "'Leven, goin' on twelve." "Well, take that gum out of your mouth and stop crying." He consulted his papers and then looked at her over his glasses. "Nancy," he said, "are you in the habit of slipping into the cathedral when the janitor is not around?" "Yes, sir." "What for?" "Lookin' at the pretties, an' seein' if there's any nickels under the seats." "You want to buy candy, I suppose?" "No, sir, a bureau." Even the tired-looking probation officer looked up and smiled. "What does a little girl like you want with a bureau?" asked the judge. "So's I won't have to keep me duds under the bed." "That's a commendable ambition. But what about these other charges; truancy from school, fighting with the boys, throwing mud, and so on?" "I never th'ow mud, 'ceptin' when I'm th'owin' back," explained Nance. "A nice distinction," said the judge. "Is this child's mother present?" Mrs. Snawdor, like a current that has been restrained too long, surged eagerly forward, and overflowed her conversational banks completely. "Well, I ain't exactly her mother, but I'm just the same as her mother. You ast anybody in Calvary Alley. Ast Mr. Burks here, ast Mrs. Smelts what I been to her ever since she was a helpless infant baby. When Bud Molloy lay dyin' he says to the brakeman, 'You tell my wife to be good to Nance,'" "So she's your stepchild?" "Yes, sir, an' Bud Molloy was as clever a man as ever trod shoe-leather. So was Mr. Yager. Nobody can't say I ever had no trouble with my two first. They wasn't what you might call as smart a man as Snawdor, but they wasn't no fool." It was a peculiarity of Mrs. Snawdor's that she always spoke of her previous husbands as one, notwithstanding the fact that the virtues which she attributed to them could easily have been distributed among half a dozen.