The sergeant looked over the cards and said, “Patrolman Mancuso here says you resisted arrest and called him a communiss.”

“I didn’t mean it,” the old man said sadly, noticing how fiercely the sergeant was handling the little cards.

“Mancuso says you says all policemen are communiss.”

“Oo-wee,” the Negro said across the room.

“Will you shut up, Jones?” the sergeant called out.

“Okay,” Jones answered.

“I’ll get to you next.”

“Say, I didn call nobody no cawmniss,” Jones said. “I been frame by that flo’walk in Woolsworth. I don even like cashews.”

“Shut your mouth up.”

“Okay,” Jones said brightly and blew a great thundercloud of smoke.

“I didn’t mean anything I said,” Mr. Robichaux told the sergeant. “I just got nervous. I got carried away. This policeman was trying to arress a poor boy waiting for his momma by Holmes.”

“What?” the sergeant turned to the wan little policeman. “What were you trying to do?”

“He wasn’t a boy,” Mancuso said. “He was a big fat man dressed funny. He looked like a suspicious character. I was just trying to make a routine check and he started to resist. To tell you the truth, he looked like a big prevert.”

“A pervert, huh?” the sergeant asked greedily.

“Yes,” Mancuso said with new confidence. “A great big prevert.”

“How big?”

“The biggest I ever saw in my whole life,” Mancuso said, stretching his arms as if he were describing a fishing catch. The sergeant’s eyes shone. “The first thing I spotted was this green hunting cap he was wearing.”

Jones listened in attentive detachment somewhere within his cloud.

“Well, what happened, Mancuso? How come he’s not standing here before me?”

“He got away. This woman came out the store and got everything mixed up, and she and him run around the corner into the Quarter.”

“Oh, two Quarter characters,” the sergeant said, suddenly enlightened.