Inside the office Babbitts went up the hall to the old man’s den and I tried to find out what she wanted. Her nervousness was then obvious. Shifting from foot to foot, her free hand—she kept a tight clutch on the boy—fingering at the buttons of her coat, she refused to say. All I could get out of her was that she had something important to tell and she wouldn’t tell it to anyone but "L’yer Whitney." By this time my curiosity was aroused. I asked her if she was a witness in a case, and with a troubled look she said "maybe she was," and then, backing away from me against the wall, reiterated with stubborn determination, "But I won’t speak to no one but L’yer Whitney himself." I went up to the private office where the old man and George were talking with Babbitts and told them. George was sent to see if he could manage better than I had and presently was back again with the announcement: "I can’t get a thing out of her. She insists on seeing you, father, and says she won’t go till she does." "Bring her in," growled the chief, and as George disappeared he turned to Babbitts and said, "Wait here for a moment. I want to ask you a few more things about that girl last night." Babbitts drew back to the window and I, taking a chair by the table, said, laughing: "She’s probably been sued by her landlord and wants you to take the case." "Maybe," said the old man quietly. "I’m curious to see." Just then the woman came in, the child beside her, and George following. She looked at the chief with a steady, inquiring gaze, and he rose, as urbanely welcoming as if she were a star client. "You want to see me, Madam?" "I do," she answered, "if you’re L’yer Whitney. For it’s to no one else I’ll be goin’ with what I’m bringin’." He assured her she’d found the right man, and waved her to a chair. She sat down, drawing the boy against her knee, the chief opposite, leaning a little forward in his chair, all encouraging attention. "Well, what is it?" he said. "It’s about the Harland suicide," she answered, "and it’s my husband, Dan Meagher, who drives a dray for the Panama Fruit Company, who’s sent me here. ’Go to L’yer Whitney and tell him,’ he says to me, ’and don’t be sayin’ a word to a soul, not your own mother if she was above the sod to hear ye.’" George, who had been standing by the table with the sardonic smile he affects, suddenly became grave and dropped into a chair. The chief, nodding pleasantly, said: "The Harland suicide, Mrs. Meagher; that’s very good. We’d like any information you can give us about it." The woman fetched up a breath so deep it was almost a gasp. With her eyes on the old man she bent forward, her words, with their rich rolling r’s, singularly impressive. "It’s an honest woman I am, your Honor, and what I’ll be after tellin’ you is God’s truth for me and for Dannie here, who’s never lied since the day he was born." The little boy looked up and spoke, his voice clear and piping, after the fuller tones of his mother: