"And what is this?" demanded Trenmore sternly.
Drayton said nothing at all. With the policeman's hand clutching his arm, fear had him in a yet firmer grip. Was this another phase of the persecution to which he had been recently subjected? Was he about to suffer arrest, here in the presence of Viola Trenmore, upon some such trumped-up charge as had sent his partner to prison and death?
In the bitter grasp of this thought, it was a moment before he comprehended what the officer was replying to Trenmore's question.
"— and if you've lost your buttons, for why have you not reported yourselves at the proper quarters? Sure, 'tis me duty to run ye in without further argument; but 'tis a fair-spoken, soft-hearted man I am. If you've a reason, give it me quick, now!"
Drayton grasped the fact that it was not himself alone who was involved. Equally, it seemed, Trenmore and his sister were objects of the man's absurd though apparently official attention. The lawyer in him leaped to the fore. Here might be some curious local civic ruling of which he, a stranger to the city, had heard nothing.
"What about the buttons, officer?" he queried. "Do you mean that we should be wearing some sort of button as an insignia?"
"Is it crazy ye are all after being? What buttons, d'ye say? Why, what should I be meaning, savin' yer identification buttons? What are yer numbers now? At least ye can tell me that! Or are ye the connections of a family?"
There was a moment's silence. Then Trenmore said heavily, as if in some deep discouragement. "Faith, I myself was born in County Kerry, but till this living minute I never knew the meaning of the words 'a crazy Irishman!' Micky, or Pat, or whatever your name may be, we are connected with families so good that your ignorance never heard tell of them!
"And as for numbers, I do not doubt that you yourself have a number! I do not doubt that the driver of the poor little jitney bus yonder has a number! In jails men have numbers, and perhaps in the lunatic asylum you both came from they have numbers and wear buttons with those same numbers on them; but myself and my friend here and my sister, we have no numbers!
"We have names, my lad, names. And 'tis my own name I'll send in to the poor, unfortunate chief that has charge of you, and you'll find that it is not needful for Terence Trenmore to be given a number in order to have such as you discharged from the force your low intelligence is now disgracing!"
As Trenmore delivered this harangue his voice gradually grew in volume as his sentences grew longer, until it boomed out like the blast of a foghorn. The two or three idlers who had already gathered were reinforced by a rapidly increasing crowd. His last words were delivered to an exceedingly curious and numerous audience.
The policeman, a man of no very powerful physique, quailed before Trenmore's just wrath much as had the taxi driver. He, too, however, had another resource than his unaided strength. His only reply to the threat was a sharp blast on his whistle.
"You've done it now, Terry," groaned Drayton. "Never mind me. Get your sister away from here, if you can-quick!"
The young lady mentioned set her lips.
"Terry shall do not such thing, Mr. Drayton. Officer, surely you won't arrest three harmless people because of some foolish little misunderstanding that could be set right in the twinkle of an eye?"
The policeman eyed her admiringly-too admiringly, in Drayton's estimation.
"Sure, miss," he declared, "'tis myself is most reluctant to place inconvenience on so pretty a lass; but what can I do? Ye know the regulations."
"But indeed we do not," protested the girl truthfully.
Before more could be said on either side, there came an eddy and swirl in the crowd, and two more policemen burst into view. One of them, a sergeant by the stripes on his sleeve, came bustling forward with an air of petty arrogance which Drayton prayed might not collide with his huge friend's rising temper.
"What's this? What's all this, Forty-seven? What have these people been up to? What? No buttons? What do you mean by going about without your buttons? This is a very serious and peculiar offense, Forty-seven! The first I've ever met in this ward, I am glad to say. Under arrest? Certainly you are under arrest! The wagon will be here directly. What did you expect? What are your numbers? What have you done with your buttons, anyway?"
How long the sergeant could have continued this interlocutory monologue, which he delivered at extraordinary speed and without pause for answer or comment, it is impossible to say. He was interrupted by a clanging gong and again the crowd swirled and broke. A motor patrol drew up. Three more officers leaped down and stood at attention.
The accession of numbers drove from Drayton's brain any lingering hope that Trenmore might pick his sister up under his arm and bear her bodily from the shadow of this open disgrace.
That the exasperated Irishman had not acted was due partly to reluctance to leave his friend in the clutches of the law; partly to a rapidly increasing bewilderment. He could now observe that every person in the front ranks of the staring crowd did indeed wear a large yellow button, pinned below the left shoulder, and each bearing a perfectly legible number in black.
He could also see that these numbers ran mostly into five, six and even seven figures; but what those figures represented, or why the wearers should be so adorned, or what bearing the ornamentation might have upon their own liberty, was a puzzle before which the recent mysteries of Ulithia faded.
"Button, button, who's got the button?" he muttered. "Faith, 'tis a wild and barbarous land, this Philadelphia! Sergeant, are you really going to run us in, just for not knowing what you and the rest are talking of?"
The sergeant looked him up and down appreciatively.
"You know very well that I must. But Lord, man, you've nothing to worry over with the contests coming off in a couple of days. Or haven't you any muscle back of that size of yours?"
Distractedly, Trenmore clutched at his black, wild hair.
"Take us to the station, man!" he snarled. "And be quick, as you value your poor, worthless life! Muscle? I've the muscle to pull you to bits, and by all the powers I'll be driven to that act if you do not take me to speak with some sane man this living minute!"
CHAPTER 7: A FEW SMALL CHANGES
THE ensuing patrol ride, while commonplace and uneventful from the viewpoint of one accustomed to such jaunts, produced in the bosom of at least one of the prisoners emotions of the most painful and poignant nature. It was not for himself that Drayton suffered.
In the recent past he had been too thoroughly seared by the fires of undeserved disgrace to be hurt by so trifling a touch of flame as this. But that Viola Trenmore-Viola of the clear blue eyes and innocent white brow-that she should be forced to enter a common patrol wagon and be carried openly, like any pickpocket, through the city streets, was an intolerable agony in whose endurance he alternately flushed red with shame and paled with ineffective rage.
Trenmore the mighty also sat quiescent; but his was the quiescence of a white-hot anger, held in check for a worthy occasion and object. A pity to waste all that on mere underlings.
Having slowly ascended the short, steep incline where Market Street descended to the ferry, the patrol drove on with increased speed. A mile ahead, at the end of a long, straight, brilliantly lighted perspective, reared the huge bulk of City Hall. The immense building's lower part was sketched in lines of light; its tower gleamed gray and pale against the black sky.