Her behaviour after she was handed over to the policeman was not likely to improve the impression already taken up against her, for her passion was by no means exhausted, and she fought at the man in her ungoverned rage much as a wild cat might have done. She was eventually taken to the police station and locked up for the night, while her father waited hour after hour thinking she would surely return, and supposing she had met with some of her fellow-workers and had gone for a walk with them, for the evenings were fine and pleasant now, and it was a relief to get away from the close stuffy streets. If he could have walked, he would have gone to make some inquiries about her, but as it was, he had to content himself with hobbling down to the Chaplins to tell them how concerned he was about Annie being out so long. "She told me she would be back soon," he said as he stood in the doorway looking at Winny, and then glancing down the stairs in the hope of seeing Annie. But no Annie came, and Brown grew more anxious and alarmed, until at last a policeman came and told them that the girl was locked up on a charge of assault. Brown was almost beside himself with anger when he heard it. He swore he would be the death of Rutter for locking up his girl, his Annie, who was the best girl in London, and would not hurt a fly unless she was angry. "That's it, Brown," said his neighbour Chaplin, who had undertaken to bring him to reason over the matter, "she must have lost her temper, as you say, and that always makes matters worse." Fortunately for Brown, the policeman who came to bring him the bad news was a reasonable man, and his new friends the Chaplins were quite ready to say a good word for the girl, so that he was at length persuaded to go to bed without going to Rutter's or fighting the policeman. This in itself was a new experience; for Brown to control himself under such provocation was something he had never dreamed of doing before, and it was not easy to get him to do it now. It was for the "little un who was ill," he declared, that he did not knock the policeman down when he came to tell him of it. But Annie would not have her frightened, he knew, and so for her sake, he was quiet, and promised not to go out until he went to the police court to hear the charge. To keep him under due control, Chaplin agreed to lose his chance of getting a job in the morning and go with him, and it was well he did. For in spite of his lameness, he would certainly have struck at the man who by his evidence had got his girl committed to prison for a month. Chaplin had spoken to him before they went in to the magistrate, asking him to do what he could for her, but instead of saying a word to get a mitigation of the sentence, he did all he could to prejudice the magistrate's mind against her, saying he would make an example of her that it might be a warning to others.