That early morning hour in the stinking atmosphere
of the over-heated police court was too ghastly ever to be
forgotten, but there were particular moments when pain
and pity, to say nothing of other strangely mixed emotions,
stabbed me with peculiar ferocity. When the reporters
flocked round him like vultures after prey was one of these;
another was when Boyde stood in front of the Tammany
magistrate, Ryan by name, and pleaded guilty. A mistake,
though not actually wrong, had crept into the charge
sheet. In my excitement of the night before the amount
stolen had been entered as $32, and though this was the
truth, I had meant to make it only $25. I was unintentionally
to blame for this--it was now Grand Larceny
instead of Petit Larceny. A magistrate could only deal
with the lesser offence, and Boyde therefore was held for
trial in General Sessions, instead of being sentenced then
and there. The look he gave me as Ryan spoke the words
was like a knife. He believed I had done this purposely.
A third unforgettable moment was when he was being
roughly pushed downstairs on his way to a cell in the
Tombs: he looked back forlornly over his shoulder at me.
In the reporters' room it was decided to print the "Boyde story." I knew all the men; Acton Davies was there for the Evening Sun, specially sent down by McCloy. The reporters dragged and tore at me. I realized what "interviewed" victims felt when they wished to hide everything away inside themselves. Yet the facts had to be told; it was best I should give them accurately, if as briefly, as leniently, as possible. The sight of all those vultures (of whom, incidentally, I was one) scribbling down busily the details of my intimate life with Boyde, to be hawked later in the streets as news, was likewise a picture not easily forgotten.
Before the ordeal was over, Lawler returned from the cell. He insisted, with a wink at me, that he had made the arrest; the credit of the chase he also claimed; he had, too, additional facts about Boyde's past criminal career of which I was quite ignorant, supplied by records at
headquarters. Lawler intended to get all the advertise-
