“Well,” the officer read from his notes. “It was around one-thirty A.M. on the night of July twenty-eighth. I was working the night duty around the combat zone. I come across the defendant there soliciting cars. I had seen the defendant there soliciting cars on previous occasions in the same vicinity. I had then on previous occasions warned the defendant there about such activities. But she kept on doing it. On that night I come across the defendant soliciting a car full of colored gentlemen. She was standing on the curb with her arm leaning up against the door of the car and talking with these two colored gentlemen. As I came up they drove off. I then arrested her, after informing her of her rights, for being a common streetwalker and a public nuisance. And that’s all I got to say.”

Counsel for the whore waived cross-examination of the officer and proceeded to examine her.

“What’s your name?”

“Mrs. Philomena Brown.”

“Speak louder so the Court can hear you, Mrs. Brown.”

She narrowed her eyes at the lawyer.

“What is your religion, Mrs. Brown?”

“I am a Roman Catholic. Roman Catholic born.”

“Are you presently married?”

“Yeah.”

“What is your husband’s name?”

“Rudolph Leroy Brown, Jr.”

The old men in the second row were beginning to snicker and the Judge lowered his eyes to them. Jimmy Mulligan smiled.

“Does your husband support you?”

“Yeah. We get along all right.”

“Do you work, Mrs. Brown?”

“Yeah. That’s how I make my living.”

“What do you do for a living?”

“I’m a file clerk.”

“Are you working now?”

“No. I lost my job last month on account of a bad leg I got. I couldn’t move outta bed.”

The men in the second row were grinning and others in the audience joined them in muffled guffaws and snickerings.

“What were you doing on Beaver Avenue on the night of July twenty-eighth?”

“I was looking for a job.”

Now the entire court was laughing and the Judge glared out at them from behind his bench as he paced, his arms clasped behind his back.

“Will you please tell this court, Mrs. Brown, how you intended to find a job at that hour?”

“These two guys in a car told me they knew where I could find some work.”

“As a file clerk?”

“Yeah. What the hell else do you think?”

There was here a roar of laughter from the court, and when the Judge visibly twitched the corners of his usually severe mouth, Philomena Brown saw it and began to laugh too.

“Order! Order!” the Clerk shouted above the roar. But he was laughing.

Jimmy Mulligan bit his lip. “Now, Mrs. Brown, I want you to tell me the truth. Have you ever been arrested before for prostitution?”