A half-hour later Mottka stood before the sergeant in the
Twenty-second street station.
"What's the trouble?" asked the sergeant.
And Policeman Billings explained.
"He claims to be selling chestnuts and roasting them. But I never see him
sell any, much less do I see him roasting any. He's got about a dozen
chestnuts altogether and I think he may bear looking into."
"What about it, Mottka?" asked the sergeant.
Mottka shrugged his shoulders, shook his head and smiled deprecatingly.
"Nothing," he said, "I got a chestnut roaster I got from a friend on the
West Side. And I try to make business. I got a license."
"But the officer says you never roast any chestnuts and he thinks you're a
fake."
"Yes, yes," smiled Mottka; "I don't have so many chestnuts. I can't afford
only a little bit at a time. Some time I buy a basket of chestnuts."
"Where do you live, Mottka?"
"Oh, on the West Side. On the West Side."
"And what did you do before you roasted chestnuts?"
"Me? Oh, I was in a business. Yes, in a business. And it failed. So I got
the chestnut roaster. I got a license."
"It seems to me I've seen you before, Mottka."
"Yes, yes. A policeman bring me here before when I was on Wabash Avenue
with my chestnuts.
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