Page:That Royle Girl (Balmer).pdf/339

 Every one turned, then, to Mr. Clarke.

"Your honor, the State asks leave," he said in his clear voice, "to nolle prosequi."

Joan Daisy, on tiptoes to see him better, caught at Herman Elmen's sleeve. "What does he mean?" she whispered.

"That's Latin," whispered Herman. "Latin for—"

Latin, she thought to herself; in her excitement, and not knowing it for the usual form, she imagined it an affectation of Mr. Clarke, and she was thrown for the instant into her old hostility to him. Now she heard him speaking to the judge in English.

"The motion is allowed," announced the judge and Mr. Clarke turned away.

"That is all," said Max Elmen's triumphant tones. "You are free!"

"Order!" commanded the loud, stern voice. "There will be order in the court!"

Some one kissed Ket. She was not his mother; for his mother waited beside Joan Daisy. It was Lola Nesson who kissed him and who clung to him when he turned to them. Two other girls clasped him, and a man—it was Weigal—grabbed Ket's hands. Joan Daisy dropped from tiptoes and waited with hot waves of blood warming her face and limbs; Ket's mother waited, also, for these others to release him. But they did not and he could not, or did not care to, put them off; so they all pressed together to the doors. A bailiff followed, carrying Ket's overcoat and hat, and when they reached the hall, Weigal ostentatiously, and calling attention to his action, thrust banknotes into the overcoat pockets, whereupon Ket laughed and shook himself free of the girls and reached with one hand for the coat and with the other to his mother.

"Come along, mamsie!" he invited grandly and gazed