The van came at last, a vehicle he had often eyed curiously as it rumbled past him in the streets. Little had he ever dreamed of riding one day inside it.
The usual knot of loungers waited at the door of the police-court to see the van disgorge its freight. Sometimes they had been rewarded for their patience by the glimpse of a real murderer, or wife-kicker, or burglar, and sometimes they had had their bit of fun over a "tough customer," who, if he must travel at her Majesty's expense, was determined to travel all the way, and insisted on being carried by the arms and legs across the pavement into the tribunal of justice. There was no such fun to be got out of Reginald as he stepped hurriedly from the van, and with downcast eyes entered by the prisoners' door into the court-house.
A case was already in progress, and he had to wait in a dimly-lit underground lobby for his summons. The constable who had arrested him was still beside him, and other groups, mostly of police, filled up the place. But he heeded none, longing--oh! how intensely--to hear his name called and to know the worst.
Presently there was a bustle near the door, and he knew the case upstairs was at an end.
"Whew--old Fogey's in one of his tantrums, then. He'd have only got three at Dark Street."
Then some one called the name "Reginald," and the policeman near him said "Coming." Then, turning to the prisoner, he said,--
"Fogey's on the bench to-day, and he's particular. Look alive."
Reginald found himself being hurried to the door through a lane of officials and others towards the stairs.
"Your turn next, Grinder," he heard some one say as he passed. "Ten- minutes will do this case."
To Reginald the stairs seemed interminable. There was a hum of voices above, and a shuffling of feet as of people taking a momentary relaxation in the interval of some performance. Then a loud voice cried, "Silence--order in the court, sit down, gentlemen," and there fell an unearthly stillness on the place.
"To the right," said the policeman, coming beside him, and taking his arm as if to direct him.
He was conscious of a score of curious faces turned on him, of some one on the bench folding up a newspaper and adjusting his glasses, of a man at a table throwing aside a quill pen and taking another, of a click of a latch closing behind him, of a row of spikes in front of him. Then he found himself alone.