Slowly the sitting figure before him relaxed, almost it seemed, muscle by muscle. At last the hands fell apart, and lay flexed and idle. Finally Porgy raised eyes that had become hard and impenetrable as onyx. They met the angry glare that beat down upon them without flinching. After a long moment, he spoke slowly, and with great quietness. “I ain’t know nuttin’ ’bout um. I been inside, asleep on my bed, wid de do’ closed.” “You’re a damn liar,” the man snapped. He shrilled a whistle, and two policemen entered. “He saw the killing,” the detective said, indicating Peter. “Take him along, and lock him up as a material witness.” “How about the cripple?” asked one of the officers. “He could not have helped seeing it,” the man said sourly. “That’s his room right there. But I can’t make him come through. But it don’t matter. One’s enough to hang Crown, if we ever get him. Come, get the old man in the wagon.” The policeman lifted the shaking old negro to his feet. “Come along, Uncle. It ain’t going to be as bad for you as Crown, anyway,” encouraged one of them. Then the little party passed out of the entrance, leaving Porgy alone. From the street sounded the shrill gong of the patrol wagon, followed by the beat of swiftly receding hoofs upon the cobbles. § Ten days had passed since the detective had taken Peter away. For a week the wagon had waited under the tottering shed, and the dejected old horse had subsisted upon a varied diet brought to him by the friends of his absent master. Then a man had come and taken the outfit away. In answer to the protests of the negroes, he had exhibited a contract, dated three years previous, by which Peter was to pay two dollars a week for an indefinite period, on an exorbitant purchase price. Failure to pay any installment would cause the property to revert to the seller. It all looked thoroughly legal. And so the dilapidated old rig rattled over the cobbles and departed. Then the man from the installment furniture house came. He was a vile-mouthed, bearded Teuton, and swore so fiercely that no one dared to protest when he loaded Peter’s furniture on his truck and drove away. Now there remained in a corner of Porgy’s room, where he had taken them into custody, only a battered leather trunk, a chromo of “The Great Emancipator,” and a bundle of old clothes; mute reminders of their kindly and gentle old owner. II [Illustration] PART II The languor of a Southern May was in the air. It was a season dear to the heart of a negro. Work on the wharves was slowing down, and the men were putting in only two or three days a week. There were always some of them lying about the court, basking in the sun, laughing, and telling stories while they waited for their women to come from the “white folks’” kitchens, with their full dinner pails.