FICTION

The Honest Cop

Tecla (38-M-2)

Through the teeming Saturday afternoon crowds at a large shopping center, as irate woman elbows her way toward the policeman standing duty near the main en- trance. "Officer! Officer! You must stop that man!" she shrieks. He looks in the direction she frantically points but sees only a rather large woman easing her- self behind the wheel of her automobile.

In reply to the policeman's puzzled look, the lady, now quite beside herself with indignation cries: "that's him! That's the man! He lives next door to me! I suspected him of being one of those 'oddballs' for a long time and when I heard his car pull out this morning, I decided to follow him and be sure. Now you let him get away!

"

"But he didn't seem to be bothering anyone, ma'm,' smiled the man in blue. The woman had him by the lapels now. Her face was flushed. She screamed: "Both- ering anyone INDEED? He's a menace to the whole neigh- borhood parading around that way! I've seen him at nights on his patio when he thought no one was looking, sitting around out there in a dress and nylons and high- heeled shoes---and goodness knows what he had on under- neath, the way his figure was twisted! I want you to come right now and arrest him!"

"On what grounds", asked the officer gently.

"On the grounds that he was wearing the clothes of the opposite sex and that he has done so in the past and will probably continue to do so in the future unless we DECENT citizens can do something about it, she con- tinued in her high pitched voice.

"Alright, ma'm," he said, "but first, we'll have to stop at the station house and book you.

Since quite a crowd had collected by this time, the woman's face reddened to the point where some feared

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