Page:The Rejuvenation Of Miss Semaphore.pdf/222

 "Will you stop that talking, please," said a burly policeman, thrusting his head into the room where the witnesses were assembled. "They can 'ear you in court."

The voices fell immediately.

"Oh, there they are, poor little dears!" said a new-comer, bustling in, a neighbour of "good Mrs. Brown," who had been called on to give evidence as to the condition in which the children were kept. "Let me see, there's Florrie and Joey and Ada and Rosy and Tommie; yes, everyone of them, but where's the last child? The one Sal got all the dibs with?"

"Here she is," said the workhouse matron, indicating Augusta.

"No you don't," said the woman rudely. "'Twas a new-born hinfant, it was. That child's a goin' on two years old, or I'm a Dutchman, an' I never set heyes on her before. She don't belong to Sal's little lot."

The matron made an angry reply, which Sal's neighbour resented, and trouble would have ensued, but that the big policeman interfered once more and commanded silence. Both parties appealed to him, but he would listen to neither, and gruffly told them to