_“A Young Man's Darling,”_ said the girl, after a bashful hesitation. Lemuel had read that book just before he left home; he had not thought it was much of a book. “The captain wants to know your name,” said the officer in charge of Lemuel. “Oh,” said the girl, with mortification. “Statira Dudley.” “What age?” asked the captain. “Nineteen last June,” replied the girl with eager promptness, that must have come from shame from the blunder she had made. Lemuel was twenty, the 4th of July. “Weight?” pursued the captain. “Well, I hain't been weighed very _lately_,” answered the girl, with increasing interest. “I don't know as I been weighed since I left home.” The captain looked at her judicially. “That so? Well, you look pretty solid. Guess I'll put you down at a hundred and twenty.” “Well, I guess it's full as _much_ as that,” said the girl, with a flattered laugh. “Dunno how high you are?” suggested the captain, glancing at her again. “Well, yes, I _do_. I am just five feet two inches and a half.” “You don't look it,” said the captain critically. “Well, I _am_,” insisted the girl, with a returning gaiety. The captain apparently checked himself and put on a professional severity. “What business--occupation?” “Sales-lady,” said the girl. “Residence?” “No. 2334 Pleasant Avenue.” The captain leaned back in his arm-chair, and turned his toothpick between his lips, as he stared hard at the girl. “Well, now,” he said, after a moment, “you know you've got to come into court and testify to-morrow morning.” “Yes,” said the girl, rather falteringly, with a sidelong glance at Lemuel. “You've got to promise to do it, or else it will be my duty to have you locked up overnight.” “Have me locked up?” gasped the girl, her wide blue eyes filling with astonishment. “Detain you as a witness,” the captain explained. “Of course, we shouldn't put you in a cell; we should give you a good room, and if you ain't sure you'll appear in the morning----” The girl was not of the sort whose tongues are paralysed by terror. “Oh, I'll be _sure_ to appear, captain! Indeed I will, captain! You needn't lock me up, captain! Lock me _up!_” she broke off indignantly. “It would be a _pretty_ idea if I was first to be robbed of my satchel and then put in prison for it overnight! A great kind of law _that_ would be! Why, I never heard of such a thing! I think it's a perfect shame! I want to know if that's the way you do with poor things that you don't know about?” “That's about the size of it,” said the captain, permitting himself a smile, in which the officer joined. “Well, it's a shame!” cried the girl, now carried far beyond her personal interest in the matter. The captain laughed outright. “It _is_ pretty rough. But what you going to do?” “Do? Why, I'd----” But here she stopped for want of science, and added from emotion, “I'd do _any_thing before I'd do that.”