“Hell no!” she fired back. “They had me in here a coupla times but it was all a fluke. They never got nothing on me. I was framed, right from the start.”

“How old are you, Mrs. Brown?”

“Nineteen.”

Now the Judge stopped pacing and stood next to his chair. His face was dubious: very close and very far away from smiling. The old men in the second row saw this and stopped laughing, awaiting a cue from him.

“That’s enough of this,” said the Judge. “I know you. You’ve been up here seven times already this year and it’s still summer. I’m going to throw the book at you.” He moved over to the left end of the platform and leaned down to where a husky, muscular woman Probation Officer was standing. She had very short hair and looked grim. She had not laughed with the others. “Let me see her record,” said the Judge. The manly Probation Officer handed it up to him and then they talked together in whispers for a few minutes.

“All right, Mrs. Brown,” said the Judge, moving over to the right side of the platform near the defendant’s box and pointing his finger at her. “You’re still on probation from the last time you were up here. I’m tired of this.”

“I don’t wanna go back up there, Your Honor,” the whore said. “They hate me up there.”

“You’re going back. That’s it! You got six months on the State. Maybe while you’re there you can learn how to be a file clerk so you can look for work during the day.”

Now everyone laughed again.

“Plus you get a one-year suspended sentence on probation.”

The woman hung her head with the gravity of this punishment.

“Maybe you can even learn a good profession while you’re up there. Who knows? Maybe you could be a ballerina dancer.”

The courtroom roared with laughter. The Judge could not control himself now.

“And another thing,” he said. “When you get out, keep off the streets. You’re obstructing traffic.”

Such was the spontaneity of laughter from the entire courtroom after the remark that the lawyer Jimmy Mulligan had to wipe the tears from his eyes with his finger and the short-haired Probation Officer smiled, and even Philomena Brown had to laugh at this, her final moment of glory. The Judge’s teeth showed through his own broad grin, and Ralph, sitting beside his Italian, a very pretty boy with clean, blue eyes, patted him on the back enthusiastically between uncontrollable bursts of laughter.