"Naw, I wasn't doin' nawthin', an' I'm goin' ter git that rookie broke fer assaultin' me. I'm goin' ter write a letter to the Mayor!" growled Jimmie. Officer Burke laughed a bit ruefully. He mopped some blood off his face, from the nail scratches of Jimmie's lady associate, and then turned toward the two officers. "He didn't pick my pockets--it was just the old story, of beating up his woman, trying to get the money she made on the street to-night. When I tried to help her they both turned on me." "Faith, Burke, I thought you had more horse sense," responded Maguire. "That's a dangerous thing to do with married folks, or them as ought to be married. They'll fight like Kilkenny cats until the good Samaritan comes along and then they form a trust and beat up the Samaritan." "I think most women these days need a little beating up anyway, to keep 'em from worrying about their troubles," volunteered Officer Dexter. "I'd have been happier if I had learned that in time." "Say, nix on dis blarney, youse!" interrupted the Monk, who was trying to wriggle out of the arm hold of Burke and Maguire. "I ain't gonter stand fer dis pinch wen I ain't done nawthin." A police sergeant, who had heard the whistle as he made his rounds, now came up. "What's the row?" he gruffly exclaimed. Burke explained. The sergeant shook his head. "You're wasting time, Burke, on this sort of stuff. When you've been on the force a while longer you'll learn that it's the easiest thing to look the other way when you see these men fighting with their women. The magistrates won't do a thing on a policeman's word alone. You just see. Now you've got to go down to Night Court with this man, get a call down because you haven't got a witness, and this rummie gets set free. Why, you'd think these magistrates had to apologize for there being a police force! The papers go on about the brutality of the police, and the socialists howl about Cossack methods, and the ministers preach about graft and vice, and the reformers sit in their mahogany chairs in the skyscraper offices and dictate poems about sin, and the cops have to walk around and get hell beat out of 'em by these wops and kikes every time they tries to keep a little order!" The sergeant turned to Maguire. "You know these gangs around here, Mack. Who's this guy's girl?" "He's got three or four, sergeant," responded the officer. "I guess this one must be Dutch Annie. Was she all dolled up with about a hundred dollars' worth of ostrich feathers, Burke?" "Yes--tall, and some fighter." "That's the one. Her hangout is over there on the corner, in Shultberger's cabaret. We can get her now, maybe." The sergeant beckoned to Dexter.