There the superintendent and his plump
and kindly wife had fallen head over heels in love with
him, and had dressed him in a smart little Norfolk
suit and a frivolous plaid silk tie. There were
delays in the case, and postponement after postponement,
so that Bennie appeared in the court room every Tuesday
for four weeks. The reporters, and the probation
officers and policemen became very chummy with Bennie,
and showered him with bright new pennies and certain
wonderful candies. Superintendent Arnett of the
Detention Home was as proud of the boy as though he were
his own. And when Bennie would look shyly and
questioningly into his face for permission to accept the
proffered offerings, the big superintendent would chuckle
delightedly. Bennie had a strangely mobile face for such
a baby, and the whitest, smoothest brow I have ever seen.
The comedy and tears and misery and laughter of the
big, white-walled court room were too much for Bennie.
He would gaze about with puzzled blue eyes; then, giving
up the situation as something too vast for his
comprehension, he would fall to drawing curly-cues on a
bit of paper with a great yellow pencil presented him by
one of the newspaper men.
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