_The Life of the Party_

 * * * * *

BY IRVIN S. COBB

FICTION

THE LIFE OF THE PARTYTHOSE TIMES AND THESELOCAL COLOROLD JUDGE PRIESTFIBBLE, D. D. BACK HOMETHE THUNDERS OF SILENCETHE ESCAPE OF MR. TRIMM

WIT AND HUMOR

EATING IN TWO OR THREE LANGUAGES"SPEAKING OF OPERATIONS----"EUROPE REVISEDROUGHING IT DE LUXECOBB'S BILL OF FARECOBB'S ANATOMY

MISCELLANY

THE GLORY OF THE COMINGPATHS OF GLORY"SPEAKING OF PRUSSIANS----"

GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANYNEW YORK

 * * * * *

[Illustration: "ARE YOU PAYIN' AN ELECTION BET THREE WEEKS AFTER THEELECTION'S OVER? OR IS IT THAT YOU'RE JEST A PLAIN BEDADDLED IJIET?"]

 * * * * *

_The Life of the Party

By

Irvin S. Cobb

Author of "Back Home, " "Old Judge Priest, " etc. , etc. 

Illustrated By James M. Preston_

[Illustration: Publisher's logo]

_New York George H. Doran Company_

_Copyright, 1919, By George H. Doran Company

Copyright, 1919, by the Curtis Publishing CompanyPrinted in the United States of America_

 * * * * *

TO

MISTRESS MAY WILSON PRESTON

A LADY OF GREAT DRAWING QUALITIES

 * * * * *

_ILLUSTRATIONS_

"Are you payin' an election bet three weeks after the election's over? Or is it that you're jest a plain bedaddled ijiet?" _Frontispiece_

 PAGE"That's nice, " spake the fearsome stranger. "Now stay jest the way you are and don't make no peep or I'll have to plug you wit' this here gat" 24

Mr. Leary's gait became a desperate gallop, and as he galloped he shouted: "Wait, please, here I am. --Here's your passenger" 32

 * * * * *

_The Life of the Party_

I

It had been a successful party, most successful. Mrs. Carroway's partiesalways were successes, but this one nearing its conclusion stood outnotably from a long and unbroken Carrowayian record. It had been achildren's party; that is to say, everybody came in costume with intentto represent children of any age between one year and a dozen years. Buttwelve years was the limit; positively nobody, either in dress ordeportment, could be more than twelve years old. Mrs. Carroway had madethis point explicit in sending out the invitations, and so it had been, down to the last hair ribbon and the last shoe buckle. And betweendances they had played at the games of childhood, such as drop thehandkerchief, and King William was King James' son and prisoner's baseand the rest of them. 

The novelty of the notion had been a main contributory factor to itssuccess; that, plus the fact that nine healthy adults out of ten dearlylove to put on freakish garbings and go somewhere. To be exactlytruthful, the basic idea itself could hardly be called new, since longbefore some gifted mind thought out the scheme of giving children'sparties for grown-ups, but with her customary brilliancy Mrs. Carrowayhad seized upon the issues of the day to serve her social purposes, weaving timeliness and patriotism into the fabric of her plan by makingit a war party as well. Each individual attending was under pledge tokeep a full and accurate tally of the moneys expended upon his or hercostume and upon arrival at the place of festivities to deposit a likeamount in a repository put in a conspicuous spot to receive thesecontributions, the entire sum to be handed over later to the guardiansof a military charity in which Mrs. Carroway was active. 

It was somehow felt that this fostered a worthy spirit of wartimeeconomy, since the donation of a person who wore an expensive costumewould be relatively so much larger than the donation of one who went infor the simpler things. Moreover, books of thrift stamps were attachedto the favours, the same being children's toys of guaranteed Americanmanufacture. 

In the matter of refreshments Mrs. Carroway had been at pains to complymost scrupulously with the existing rationing regulations. As thehostess herself said more than once as she moved to and fro in aflounced white frock having the exaggeratedly low waistline of the sortof frock which frequently is worn by a tot of tender age, with a wideblue sash draped about her almost down at her knees, and with fluffyskirts quite up to her knees, with her hair caught up in a coquettishblue bow on the side of her head and a diminutive fan tied fast to oneof her wrists with a blue ribbon--so many of the ladies who had attainedto Mrs. Carroway's fairly well-ripened years did go in for theseextremely girlishly little-girly effects--as the hostess thus attiredand moving hither and yon remark, "If Mr. Herbert Hoover himself werehere as one of my guests to-night I am just too perfectly sure he couldfind absolutely nothing whatsoever to object to!"

It would have required much stretching of that elastic property, thehuman imagination, to conceive of Mr. Herbert Hoover being there, whether in costume or otherwise, but that was what Mrs. Carroway saidand repeated. Always those to whom she spoke came right out and agreedwith her. 

Now it was getting along toward three-thirty o'clock of the morningafter, and the party was breaking up. Indeed for half an hour past, thisperson or that had been saying it was time, really, to be thinking aboutgoing--thus voicing a conviction that had formed at a much earlier hourin the minds of the tenants of the floor below Mrs. Carroway's studioapartment, which like all properly devised studio apartments was at thetop of the building. 

It was all very well to be a true Bohemian, ready to give and take, andif one lived down round Washington Square one naturally made allowancesfor one's neighbours and all that, but half past three o'clock in themorning was half past three o'clock in the morning, and there was nogetting round that, say what you would. And besides there were somepeople who needed a little sleep once in a while even if there were someother people who seemed to be able to go without any sleep; and finally, though patience was a virtue, enough of a good thing was enough and toomuch was surplusage. Such was the opinion of the tenants one flightdown. 

So the party was practically over. Mr. Algernon Leary, of the firm ofLeary & Slack, counsellors and attorneys at law, with offices at NumberThirty-two Broad Street, was among the very last to depart. Never hadMr. Leary spent a more pleasant evening. He had been in rare form, avariety of causes contributing to this happy state. To begin with, hehad danced nearly every dance with the lovely Miss Milly Hollister, forwhom he entertained the feelings which a gentleman of ripened judgment, and one who was rising rapidly in his profession, might properlyentertain for an entirely charming young woman of reputed means andundoubted social position. 

A preposterous ass named Perkins--at least, Mr. Leary mentally indexedPerkins as a preposterous ass--had brought Miss Hollister to the party, but thereafter in the scheme of things Perkins did not count. He was acipher. You could back him up against a wall and take a rubber-tippedpencil and rub him right out, as it were; and with regards to MissHollister that, figuratively, was what Mr. Leary had done to Mr. Perkins. Now on the other hand Voris might have amounted to something asa potential rival, but Voris being newly appointed as a policemagistrate was prevented by press of official duties from coming to theparty; so Mr. Leary had had a clear field, as the saying goes, and hadmade the most of it, as the other saying goes. 

Moreover, Mr. Leary had been the recipient of unlimited praise upon theingenuity and the uniqueness expressed in his costume. He had notrepresented a Little Lord Fauntleroy or a Buster Brown or a Boy Scout ora Juvenile Cadet or a Midshipmite or an Oliver Twist. There had beenthree Boy Scouts present and four Buster Browns and of sailor-suitedpersons there had been no end, really. But Mr. Leary had chosen toappear as Himself at the Age of Three; and, as the complimentary commentproved, his get-up had reflected credit not alone upon its wearer butupon its designer, Miss Rowena Skiff, who drew fashion pictures for oneof the women's magazines. Out of the goodness of her heart and thedepths of her professional knowledge Miss Skiff had gone to Mr. Leary'said, supervising the preparation of his wardrobe at a theatricalcostumer's shop up-town and, on the evening before, coming to hisbachelor apartments, accompanied by her mother, personally to add thosesmall special refinements which meant so much, as he now realised, inattaining the desired result. 

"Oh, Mr. Leary, I must tell you again how very fetching you do look!Your costume is adorable, really it is; so--so cute and everything. AndI don't know what I should have done without you to help in the gamesand everything. There's no use denying it, Mr. Leary--you were the lifeof the party, absolutely!"

At least twice during the night Mrs. Carroway had told Mr. Leary this, and now as he bade her farewell she was saying it once more inpractically the same words, when Mrs. Carroway's coloured maid, Blanche, touched him on the arm. 

"'Scuse me, suh, " apologised Blanche, "but the hall man downstairs hesend up word jes' now by the elevator man 'at you'd best be comin' righton down now, suh, effen you expects to git a taxicab. He say to tell youthey ain't but one taxicab left an' the driver of 'at one's beenwaitin' fur hours an' he act like he might go way any minute now. 'At'swhut the hall man send word, suh. "

Blanche had brought his overcoat along and held it up for him, impartingto the service that small suggestion of a ceremonial rite which themembers of her race invariably do display when handling a garment ofrichness of texture and indubitable cost. Mr. Leary let her help himinto the coat and slipped largess into her hand, and as he steppedaboard the waiting elevator for the downward flight Mrs. Carroway'svoice came fluting to him, once again repeating the flattering phrase:"You surely were the life of the party!"

II

It was fine to have been the life of the party. It was not quite so fineto discover that the taxicab to which he must entrust himself for thelong ride up to West Eighty-fifth Street was a most shabby-appearingvehicle, the driver of which, moreover, as Mr. Leary could divine evenas he crossed the sidewalk, had wiled away the tedium of waiting byindulgence in draughts of something more potent than the chill air oflatish November. Mr. Leary peered doubtfully into the illuminatedcountenance but dulled eyes of the driver and caught a whiff of a breathalcoholically fragrant, and he understood that the warning relayed tohim by Blanche had carried a subtle double meaning. Still, there was noother taxicab to be had. The street might have been a byway in oldPompeii for all the life that moved within it. Washington Square, facinghim, was as empty as a graveyard generally is at this hour, and thesemblance of a conventional graveyard in wintertime was helped out by alight snow--the first of the season--sifting down in large damp flakes. 

Twice and thrice he repeated the address, speaking each time sharply anddistinctly, before the meaning seemed to filter into the befoggedintellect of the inebriate. On the third rendition the latter rousedfrom where he was slumped down. 

"I garcia, Steve, " he said thickly. "I garcia firs' time only y'hollowed s'loud I couldn und'stancher. "

So saying he lurched into a semiupright posture and fumbled for thewheel. Silently condemning the curse of intemperance among the workingclasses of a great city Mr. Leary boarded the cab and drew the skirts ofhis overcoat down in an effort to cover his knees. With a harsh gratingof clutches and an abrupt jerk the taxi started north. 

Wobbling though he was upon his perch the driver mechanically steered areasonably straight course. The passenger leaning back in the depths ofthe cab confessed to himself he was a trifle weary and more than atrifle sleepy. At thirty-seven one does not dance and play children'sgames alternately for six hours on a stretch without paying for theexertion in a sensation of let-downness. His head slipped forward on hischest. 

III

With a drowsy uncertainty as to whether he had been dozing for hours oronly for a very few minutes Mr. Leary opened his eyes and sat up. Thecar was halted slantwise against a curbing; the chauffeur was jammeddown again into a heap. Mr. Leary stepped nimbly forth upon thepavement, feeling in his overcoat pocket for the fare; and then herealised he was not in West Eighty-fifth Street at all; he was not inany street that he remembered ever having seen before in the course ofhis life. Offhand, though, he guessed he was somewhere in that mysticmaze of brick and mortar known as Old Greenwich Village; and, for afurther guess, in that particular part of it where business during theselast few years had been steadily encroaching upon the ancient residencesof long departed Knickerbocker families. 

The street in which he stood, for a wonder in this part of town, ran afairly straight course. At its western foot he could make out throughthe drifting flakes where a squat structure suggestive of a North Riverfreight dock interrupted the sky line. In his immediate vicinity thestreet was lined with tall bleak fronts of jobbing houses, all dark andall shuttered. Looking the other way, which would be eastward, he couldmake out where these wholesale establishments tailed off, to besucceeded by the lower shapes of venerable dwellings adorned with thedormered windows and the hip roofs which distinguished a bygonearchitectural period. Some distance off in this latter direction thevista between the buildings was cut across by the straddle-bug structureof one of the Elevated roads. All this Mr. Leary comprehended in a quickglance about him, and then he turned on the culprit cabman with rage inhis heart. 

"See here, you!" he snapped crossly, jerking the other by the shoulder. "What do you mean by bringing me away off here! This isn't where Iwanted to go. Oh, wake up, you!"

Under his vigorous shaking the driver slid over sideways until hethreatened to decant himself out upon Mr. Leary. His cap falling offexposed the blank face of one who for the time being has gone dead tothe world and to all its carking cares, and the only response he offeredfor his mishandling was a deep and sincere snore. The man was hopelesslyintoxicated; there was no question about it. More to relieve his owndeep chagrin than for any logical reason Mr. Leary shook him again; thenet results were a protesting semiconscious gargle and a furthercareening slant of the sleeper's form. 

Well, there was nothing else to do but walk. He must make his way afootuntil he came to Sixth Avenue or on to Fifth, upon the chance of findingin one of these two thoroughfares a ranging nighthawk cab. As a lastresort he could take the Subway or the L north. This contingency, though, Mr. Leary considered with feelings akin to actual repugnance. Hedreaded the prospect of ribald and derisive comments from chance fellowtravellers upon a public transportation line. For you should know thatthough Mr. Leary's outer garbing was in the main conventional there werestrikingly incongruous features of it too. 

From his neck to his knees he correctly presented the aspect of agentleman returning late from social diversions, caparisoned in ahandsome fur-faced, fur-lined top coat. But his knees were entirelybare; so, too, were his legs down to about midway of the calves, wherethere ensued, as it were, a pair of white silk socks, encircled by pinkgarters with large and ornate pink ribbon bows upon them. His feet werebestowed in low slippers with narrow buttoned straps crossing theinsteps. It was Miss Skiff, with her instinct for the verities, who hadinsisted upon bows for the garters and straps for the slippers, thesebeing what she had called finishing touches. Likewise it was due to thatyoung lady's painstaking desire for appropriateness and completeness ofdetail that Mr. Leary at this moment wore upon his head a verywide-brimmed, very floppy straw hat with two quaint pink-ribbonstreamers floating jauntily down between his shoulders at the back. 

For reasons which in view of this sartorial description should beobvious, Mr. Leary hugged closely up to the abutting house fronts whenhe left behind him the marooned taxi with its comatose driver asleepupon it, like one lone castaway upon a small island in a sea ofemptiness, and set his face eastward. Such was the warmth of hisannoyance he barely felt the chill striking upon his exposed netherlimbs or took note of the big snowflakes melting damply upon his thinlyprotected ankles. Then, too, almost immediately something befell whichupset him still more. 

He came to where a wooden marquee, projecting over the entrance to ashipping room, made a black strip along the feebly lighted pavement. Ashe entered the patch of darkness the shape of a man materialised out ofthe void and barred his way, and in that same fraction of a secondsomething shiny and hard was thrust against Mr. Leary's daunted bosom, and in a low forceful rumble a voice commanded him as follows: "Put upyour mitts--and keep 'em up!"

Matching the action of his hands everything in Mr. Leary seemed tostart skyward simultaneously. His hair on his scalp straightened, hisbreath came up from his lungs in a gasp, his heart lodged in his throat, and his blood quit his feet, leaving them practically devoid ofcirculation and ascended and drummed in his temples. He had a horrid, emptied feeling in his diaphragm, too, as though the organs customarilyresident there had caught the contagion of the example and gone north. 

"That's nice, " spake the fearsome stranger. "Now stay jest the way youare and don't make no peep or I'll have to plug you wit' this here gat. "

[Illustration: "THAT'S NICE, " SPAKE THE FEARSOME STRANGER. "NOW STAYJEST THE WAY YOU ARE AND DON'T MAKE NO PEEP OR I'LL HAVE TO PLUG YOUWIT' THIS HERE GAT"]

His right hand maintained the sinister pressure of the weapon againstthe victim's deflated chest, while his left dexterously explored theside pockets of Mr. Leary's overcoat. Then the same left hand jerked thefrogged fastenings of the garment asunder and went pawing swiftly overMr. Leary's quivering person, seeking the pockets which would have beenthere had Mr. Leary been wearing garments bearing the regulation andordained number of pockets. But the exploring fingers merely slid alonga smooth and unbroken frontal surface. 

"Wot t'ell? Wot t'ell?" muttered the footpad in bewilderment. "Say, where're you got yore leather and yore kittle hid? Speak up quick!"

"I'm--I'm--not carrying a watch or a purse to-night, " quavered Mr. Leary. "These--these clothes I happen to be wearing are not made withplaces in them for a watch or anything. And you've already taken whatmoney I had--it was all in my overcoat pocket. "

"Yep; a pinch of chicken feed and wot felt like about four one-bonebills. " The highwayman's accent was both ominous and contemptuous. "Say, wotcher mean drillin' round dis town in some kinder funny riggin'wit'out no plunder on you? I gotta right to belt you one acrost thebean. "

"I'd rather you didn't do that, " protested Mr. Leary in all seriousness. "If--if you'd only give me your address I could send you some money inthe morning to pay you for your trouble----"

"Cut out de kiddin', " broke in the disgusted marauder. His tone changedslightly for the better. "Say, near as I kin tell by feelin' it, datain't such a bum benny you're sportin'. I'll jest take dat along wit'me. Letcher arms down easy and hold 'em straight out from yore sideswhile I gits it offen you. And no funny business!"

"Oh, please, please, don't take my overcoat, " implored Mr. Leary, plunged by these words into a deeper panic. "Anything but that!I--you--you really mustn't leave me without my overcoat. "

"Wot else is dere to take?"

Even as he uttered the scornful question the thief had wrested thegarment from Mr. Leary's helpless form and was backing away into thedarkness. 

Out of impenetrable gloom came his farewell warning: "Stay right whereyou are for fi' minutes wit'out movin' or makin' a yelp. If you wigglebefore de time is up I gotta pal right yere watchin' you, and he'll sureplug you. He ain't no easy-goin' guy like wot I am. You're gittin' offlucky it's me stuck you up, stidder him. "

With these words he was gone--gone with Mr. Leary's overcoat, with Mr. Leary's last cent, with his latchkey, with his cardcase, with all bywhich Mr. Leary might hope to identify himself before a wary andincredulous world for what he was. He was gone, leaving there in theprotecting ledge of shadow the straw-hatted, socked-and-slippered, leg-gartered figure of a plump being, clad otherwise in a singlevestment which began at the line of a becomingly low neckband andterminated in blousy outbulging bifurcations just above the naked knees. Light stealing into this obscured and sheltered spot would have revealedthat this garment was, as to texture, a heavy, silklike, sheeny, material; and as to colour a vivid and compelling pink--the exact colourof a slice of well-ripened watermelon; also that its sleeves endedelbow-high in an effect of broad turned-back cuffs; finally, that adownits owner's back it was snugly and adequately secured by means of aclose-set succession of very large, very shiny white pearl buttons; thewhole constituting an enlarged but exceedingly accurate copy of what, descriptively, is known to the manufactured-garment trade as a one-piecesuit of child's rompers, self-trimmed, fastening behind; suitable fornursery, playground and seashore, especially recommended as summer wearfor the little ones; to be had in all sizes; prices such-and-such. 

Within a space of some six or seven minutes this precisely was what thenearest street lamp did reveal unto itself as its downward-slantingbeams fell upon a furtive, fugitive shape, suggestive in that deficientsubradiance of a vastly overgrown forked parsnip, miraculously endowedwith powers of locomotion and bound for somewhere in a hurry; exceptingof course no forked parsnip, however remarkable in other respects, wouldbe wearing a floppy straw hat in a snowstorm; nor is it likely it wouldbe adorned lengthwise in its rear with a highly decorative design ofbroad, smooth, polished disks which, even in that poor illumination, gleamed and twinkled and wiggled snakily in and out of alignment, inaccord with the movements of their wearer's spinal column. 

But the reader and I, better informed than any lamp post could be as tothe prior sequence of events, would know at a glance it was no parsnipwe beheld, but Mr. Algernon Leary, now suddenly enveloped, through nofault of his own, in one of the most overpowering predicamentsconceivable to involve a rising lawyer and a member of at least two goodclubs; and had we but been there to watch him, knowing, as we wouldknow, the developments leading up to this present situation, we mighthave guessed what was the truth: That Mr. Leary was hot bent uponretreating to the only imaginable refuge left to him at thisjuncture--to wit, the interior of the stranded taxicab which he hadabandoned but a short time previously. 

IV

Nearly all of us at some time or other in our lives have dreamed awfuldreams of being discovered in a public place with nothing at all uponour bodies, and have awakened, burning hot with the shame of an enormousand terrific embarrassment. Being no student of the psychic phenomena ofhuman slumber I do not know whether this is a subconsciousharking-back to the days of our infancy or whether it is merely amanifestation to prove the inadvisability of partaking of Welsh rabbitsand lobster salads immediately before retiring. More than once Mr. Learyhad bedreamed thus, but at this moment he realised how much more dreadand distressing may be a dire actuality than a vision conjured up out ofthe mysteries of sleep. 

One surprised by strangers in a nude or partially nude state may haveany one of a dozen acceptable excuses for being so circumstanced. Anearthquake may have caught one unawares, say; or inopportunely abathroom door may have blown open. Once the first shock occasioned bythe untoward appearance of the victim has passed away he is sure ofsympathy. For him pity is promptly engendered and volunteer aid isenlisted. 

But Mr. Leary had a profound conviction that, revealed in this ghastlyplight before the eyes of his fellows, his case would be regardeddifferently; that instead of commiseration there would be for him onlythe derision which is so humiliating to a sensitive nature. He felt soundignified, so glaringly conspicuous, so--well, so scandalouslyimmature. If only it had been an orthodox costume party which Mrs. Carroway had given, why, then he might have gone as a Roman senator oras a private chief or an Indian brave or a cavalier. In doublet or jackboots or war bonnet, in a toga, even, he might have mastered the dilemmaand carried off a dubious situation. But to be adrift in an alienquarter of a great and heartless city round four o'clock in the morning, so picturesquely and so unseasonably garbed, and in imminent peril ofdetection, was a prospect calculated to fill one with the frenzieddelirium of a nightmare made real. Put yourself in his place, I ask you. 

His slippered feet spurned the thin snow as he moved rapidly back towardthe west. Ahead of him he could detect the clumped outlines of thetaxicab, and at the sight of it he quickened to a trot. Once safelywithin it he could take stock of things; could map out a campaign offuture action; could think up ways and means of extricating himself fromhis present lamentable case with the least possible risk of undesirablepublicity. At any rate he would be shielded for the moment from the lifewhich might at any moment awaken in the still sleeping and apparentlyvacant neighbourhood. Finally, of course, there was the hope that thedrunken cabman might be roused, and once roused might be capable, underpromise of rich financial reward, of conveying Mr. Leary to his bachelorapartments in West Eighty-fifth Street before dawn came, with itsearly-bird milkmen and its before-day newspaper distributors and itsothers too numerous to mention. 

Without warning of any sort the cab started off, seemingly of its ownvolition. Mr. Leary's gait became a desperate gallop, and as he gallopedhe gave voice in entreaty. 

[Illustration: MR. LEARY'S GAIT BECAME A DESPERATE GALLOP, AND AS HEGALLOPED HE SHOUTED: "WAIT, PLEASE. HERE I AM--HERE'S YOUR PASSENGER!"]

"Hey there!" he shouted. "Wait, please. Here I am--here's yourpassenger!"

His straw hat blew off, but this was no time to stop for a straw hat. For a few rods he gained upon the vehicle, then as its motion increasedhe lost ground and ran a losing race. Its actions disclosed that aconscious if an uncertain hand guided its destinies. Wabbling this wayand that it wheeled skiddingly round a corner. When Mr. Leary, rowelledon to yet greater speed by the spurs of a mounting misery, likewiseturned the corner it was irrevocably remote, beyond all prospect ofbeing overtaken by anything human pursuing it afoot. The swaying blackbulk of it diminished and was swallowed up in the snow shower and thedarkness. The rattle of mishandled gears died to a thin metallicclanking, then to a purring whisper, and then the whisper expired, deadsilence ensuing. 

V

In the void of this silence stood Mr. Leary, shivering now in thereaction that had succeeded the nerve jar of being robbed at a pistol'spoint, and lacking the fervour of the chase to sustain him. For him theinconceivable disaster was complete and utter; upon him despairdescended as a patent swatter upon a lone housefly. Miles away fromhome, penniless and friendless--the two terms being practicallysynonymous in New York--what asylum was there for him now? Supposedaylight found him abroad thus? Suppose he succumbed to exposure and wasdiscovered stiffly frozen in a doorway? Death by processes ofcongealment must carry an added sting if one had to die in a suit ofpink rompers buttoning down the back. As though the thought of freezinghad been a cue to Nature he noted a tickling in his nose and a chokinessin his throat, and somewhere in his system, a long way off, so to speak, he felt a sneeze forming and approaching the surface. 

To add to his state of misery, if anything could add to its distressingtotal, he was taking cold. When Mr. Leary took cold he took itthoroughly and throughout his system. Very soon, as he knew by pastexperience, his voice would be hoarse and wheezy and his nose and hiseyes would run. But the sneeze was delayed in transit, and Mr. Learytook advantage of the respite to cast a glance about him. Perhaps--theexpedient had surged suddenly into his brain--perhaps there might be ahotel or a lodging house of sorts hereabouts? If so, such anestablishment would have a night clerk on duty, and despite thebaggageless and cashless state of the suppliant it was possible thenight clerk might be won, by compassion or by argument or by both, tofurnish Mr. Leary shelter until after breakfast time, when over thetelephone he could reach friends and from these friends procure anoutfit of funds and suitable clothing. 

In sight, though, there was no structure which by its outward appearancedisclosed itself as a place of entertainment for the casual wayfarer. Howsomever, lights were shining through the frosted panes of a row ofwindows stretching across the top floor of a building immediately athand, and even as he made this discovery Mr. Leary was aware of thedimmed sounds of revelry and of orchestral music up there, and also ofan illuminated canvas triangle stuck above the hallway entrance of theparticular building in question, this device bearing a letteredinscription upon it to advertise that here the members of the LawrenceP. McGillicuddy Literary Association and Pleasure Club were holdingtheir Grand Annual Civic Ball; admission One Dollar, including HatCheck; Ladies Free when accompanied by Gents. Evidently the Lawrence P. McGillicuddys kept even later hours at their roisterings than theBohemian sets in Washington Square kept. 

Observing these evidences of adjacent life and merry-makings Mr. Learycogitated. Did he dare intrude upon the festivities aloft there? And ifhe did so dare would he enter cavortingly, trippingly, with intent todeceive the assembled company into the assumption that he had come totheir gathering in costume; or would he throw himself upon their charityand making open confession of his predicament seek to enlist thefriendly offices of some kindly soul in extricating him from it?

While he canvassed the two propositions tentatively he heard the thud offootsteps descending the stairs from the dance hall, and governed by anuncontrollable impulse he leaped for concealment behind a pile ofbuilding material that was stacked handily upon the sidewalk almost athis elbow. He might possibly have driven himself to face a multitudeindoors, but somehow could not, just naturally could not, in his presentapparel, face one stranger outdoors--or at least not until he hadopportunity to appraise the stranger. 

It was a man who emerged from the hallway entrance; a stockily built manwearing his hat well over one ear and with his ulster opened and flungback exposing a broad chest to the wintry air. He was whistling asprightly air. 

Just as this individual came opposite the lumber pile the firstdedicatory sneeze of a whole subsequent series of sneezes which had beenburgeoning somewhere in the top of Mr. Leary's head, and which thatunhappy gentleman had been mechanically endeavouring to suppress, burstfrom captivity with a vast moist report. At the explosion the passer-byspun about and his whistle expired in a snort of angered surprise as thebared head of Mr. Leary appeared above the topmost board of the pile, and Mr. Leary's abashed face looked into his. 

"Say, " he demanded, "wotcher meanin', hidin' there and snortin' in aguy's ear?"

His manner was truculent; indeed, verged almost upon the menacing. Evidently the shock had adversely affected his temper, to the pointwhere he might make personal issues out of unavoidable trifles. Instinctively Mr. Leary felt that the situation which had arisen calledfor diplomacy of the very highest order. He cleared his throat beforereplying. 

"Good evening, " he began, in what he vainly undertook to make a casualtone of voice. "I beg your pardon--the sneeze--ahem--occurred when Iwasn't expecting it. Ahem--I wonder if you would do me a favour?"

"I would not! Come snortin' in a guy's ear that-a-way and then askin'him would he do you a favour: You got a crust for fair!" Here, though, anatural curiosity triumphed over the rising tides of indignation. "Wotfavour do you want, anyway?" he inquired shortly. 

"Would you--would you--I wonder if you would be willing to sell me thatovercoat you're wearing?"

"I would not!"

"You see, the fact of the matter is I happened to be needing an overcoatvery badly at the moment, " pressed Mr. Leary. "I was hoping that youmight be induced to name a price for yours. "

"I would not! M. J. Cassidy wears M. J. Cassidy's clothes, and nobodyelse wears 'em, believe me! Wot's happened to your own coat?"

"I lost it--I mean it was stolen. "

"Stole?"

"Yes, a robber with a revolver held me up a few minutes ago just overhere in the next cross street and he took my coat away. "

"Huh! Well, did you lose your hat the same way?"

"Yes--that is to say, no. I lost my hat running. "

"Oh, you run, hey? Well, you look to me like a guy wot would run. Well, did he take your clothes, too? Is that why you're squattin' behind themtimbers?" The inquisitive one took a step nearer. 

"No--oh, no! I'm still wearing my--my--the costume I was wearing, "answered Mr. Leary, apprehensively wedging his way still farther backbetween the stack of boards and the wall behind. "But you see----"

"Well then, barrin' the fact that you ain't got no hat, ain't you jestas well off without no overcoat now as I'd be if I fell for anyhard-luck spiel from you and let you have mine?"

"I wouldn't go so far as to say that exactly, " tendered Mr. Learyingratiatingly. "I'm afraid my clothing isn't as suitable for outdoorwear as yours is. You see, I'd been to a sort of social function and onmy way home it--it happened. "

"Oh, it did, did it? Well, anyway, I should worry about you and yourclothes, " stated the other. He took a step onward, then halted; and nowthe gleam of speculative gain was in his eye. "Say, if I was willin' tosell--not sayin' I would be, but if I was--wot would you be willin' togive for an overcoat like this here one?"

"Any price within reason--any price you felt like asking, " said Mr. Leary, his hopes of deliverance rekindling. 

"Well, maybe I'd take twenty-five dollars for it just as it stands andno questions ast. How'd that strike you?"

"I'll take it. That seems a most reasonable figure. "

"Well, fork over the twenty-five then, and the deal's closed. "

"I'd have to send you the money to-morrow--I mean to-day. You see, thethief took all my cash when he took my overcoat. "

"Did, huh?"

"Yes, that's the present condition of things. Very annoying, isn't it?But I'll take your address. I'm a lawyer in business in Broad Street, and as soon as I reach my office I'll send the amount by messenger. "

"Aw, to hell with you and your troubles! I might a-knowed you was somenew kind of a panhandler when you come a-snortin' in my ear that-a-way. Better beat it while the goin's good. You're in the wrong neighbourhoodto be springin' such a gag as this one you just now sprang on me. Anyhow, I've wasted enough time on the likes of you. "

He was ten feet away when Mr. Leary, his wits sharpened by hisextremity, clutched at the last straw. 

"One moment, " he nervously begged. "Did I understand you to say yourname was Cassidy?"

"You did. Wot of it?"

"Well, curious coincidence and all that--but my name happens to beLeary. And I thought that because of that you might----"

The stranger broke in on him. "Your name happens to be Leary, does it?Wot's your other name then?"

"Algernon. "

Stepping lightly on the balls of his feet Mr. Cassidy turned back, andhis mien for some reason was potentially that of a belligerent. 

"Say, " he declared threateningly, "you know wot I think about you? Well, I think you're a liar. No regular guy with the name of Leary would let acheap stiff of a stick-up rob him out of the coat offen his back withoutputtin' up a battle. No regular guy named Leary would be named Algernon. Say, I think you're a Far Downer. I wouldn't be surprised but wot youwas an A. P. A. On the top of that. And wot's all this here talk aboutgoin' to a sociable functure and comin' away not suitably dressed? Comeon out of that now and let's have a look at you. "

"Really, I'd much rather not--if you don't mind, " protested themiserable Mr. Leary. "I--I have reasons. "

"The same here. Will you come out from behind there peaceable or will Ifetch you out?"

So Mr. Leary came, endeavouring while coming to wear a manner combiningan atmosphere of dignified aloofness and a sentiment of frankindifference to the opinion of this loutish busybody, with just a touch, a mere trace, as it were, of nonchalance thrown in. In short, coming outhe sought to deport himself as though it were the properest thing inthe world for a man of years and discretion to be wearing a bright pinkone-piece article of apparel on a public highway at four A. M. Orthereabouts. Undoubtedly, considering everything, it was the hardestindividual task essayed in New York during the first year of the war. Need I add that it was a failure--a total failure? As he stood forthfully and comprehensively revealed by the light of the adjacenttransparency, Mr. Cassidy's squint of suspicion widened into a pop-eyedstare of temporary stupefaction. 

"Well, for the love of---- In the name of---- Did anywan ever see thelikes of----!"

He murmured the broken sentences as he circled about the form of themartyr. Completing the circuit, laughter of a particularly boisterousand concussive variety interrupted his fragmentary speech. 

"Ha ha, ha ha, " echoed Mr. Leary in a palpably forced and hollow effort, to show that he, too, could enter into the spirit of the occasion withheartiness. "Does strike one as rather unusual at first sight--doesn'tit?"

"Why, you big hooman radish! Why, you strollin' sunset!" thus Mr. Cassidy responded. "Are you payin' an election bet three weeks after theelection's over? Or is it that you're just a plain bedaddled ijiet? Orwot is it, I wonder?"

"I explained to you that I went to a party. It was a fancy-dress party, "stated Mr. Leary. 

Sharp on the words Mr. Cassidy's manner changed. Here plainly was aperson of moods, changeable and tempersome. 

"Ain't you ashamed of yourself, and you a large, grown man, to beskihootin' round with them kind of foolish duds on, and your own countryat war this minute for decency and democracy?" From this it also wasevident that Mr. Cassidy read the editorials in the papers. "You shouldtake shame to yourself that you ain't in uniform instid of babyclothes. "

It was the part of discretion, so Mr. Leary inwardly decided, to ignorethe fact that the interrogator himself appeared to be well within themilitary age. 

"I'm a bit old to enlist, " he stated, "and I'm past the draft age. "

"Then you're too old to be wearin' such a riggin'. But, by cripes, I'llsay this for you--you make a picture that'd make a horse laugh. "

Laughing like a horse, or as a horse would laugh if a horse everlaughed, he rocked to and fro on his heels. 

"Sh-sh; not so loud, please, " importuned Mr. Leary, casting an uneasyglance toward the lighted windows above. "Somebody might hear you!"

"I hope somebody does hear me, " gurgled the temperamental Mr. Cassidy, now once more thoroughly beset by his mirth. "I need somebody to help melaugh. By cripes, I need a whole crowd to help me; and I know a way toget them!"

He twisted his head round so his voice would ascend the hallway. "Hey, fellers and skoirts, " he called; "you that's fixin' to leave! Hurry ondown here quick and see Algy, the livin' peppermint lossenger, before hemelts away with his own sweetness. "

Obeying the summons with promptness a flight of the Lawrence P. McGillicuddy's, accompanied for the most part by lady friends, cascadeddown the stairs and erupted forth upon the sidewalk. 

"Here y'are--right here!" clarioned Mr. Cassidy as the first skylarkishpair showed in the doorway. His manner was drolly that of a showmanexhibiting a rare freak, newly captured. "Come a-runnin'!"

They came a-running and there were a dozen of them or possibly fifteen;blithesome spirits, all, and they fenced in the shrinking shape of Mr. Leary with a close and curious ring of themselves, and the combinedvolume of their glad, amazed outbursts might be heard for a distance offurlongs. On prankish impulse then they locked hands and with skippingsand prancings and impromptu jig steps they circled about him; and he, had he sought to speak, could not well have been heard; and, anyway, hewas for the moment past speech, because of being entirely engaged ingiving vent to one vehement sneeze after another. And next, above thechorus of joyous whooping might be heard individual comments, eachshrieked out shrilly and each punctuated by a sneeze from Mr. Leary'sconvulsed frame; or lacking that by a simulated sneeze from one of therevellers--one with a fine humorous flare for mimicry. And thesecomments were, for example, such as:

"Git onto the socks!"

"Ker-chew!"

"And the slippers!"

"Ker-chew!"

"And them lovely pink garters!"

"Ker-chew!"

"Oh, you cutey! Oh, you cut-up!"

"Ker-chew!"

"Oh, you candy kid!"

"And say, git onto the cunnin' elbow sleeves our little playmate'ssportin'. "

"Yes, but goils, just pipe the poilies--ain't they the greatest ever?"

"They sure are. Say, kiddo, gimme one of 'em to remember you by, won'tyou? You'll never miss it--you got a-plenty more. "

"Wot d'ye call wot he's got on 'um, anyway?" The speaker was a male, naturally. 

"W'y, you big stoopid, can't you see he's wearin' rompers?" The answercame in a giggle, from a gay youthful creature of the opposite sex asshe kicked out roguishly. 

"Well, then be chee, w'y don't he romp a little?"

"Give 'um time, cancher? Don't you see he's blowin' out his flues? He'sbusy now. He'll romp in a minute. "

"Sure he will! We'll romp with 'um. "

A waggish young person in white beaded slippers and a green sport skirtbroke free from the cavorting ring, and behind Mr. Leary's back thenimble fingers of the madcap tapped his spinal ornamentations as aninstrumentalist taps the stops of an organ; and she chanted a familiarcounting game of childhood:

"Rich man--poor man--beggar man--thief--doctor--loiryer----"

"Sure, he said he was a loiryer. " It was Mr. Cassidy breaking in. "Andhe said his name was Algernon. Well, I believe the Algernon part--thebig A. P. A. "

"Oh, you Algy!"

"Algernon, does your mother know you're out?"

"T'ree cheers for Algy, the walkin' comic valentine!"

"Algy, Algy--Oh, you cutey Algy!" These jolly Greenwich Villagers weregoing to make a song of his name. They did make a song of it, and it wasa frolicsome song and pitched to a rollicksome key. Congenial newcomersarrived, pelting down from upstairs whence they had been drawn by thehappy rocketing clamour; and they caught spirit and step and tune withthe rest and helped manfully to sing it. As one poet hath said, "And nowreigned high carnival. " And as another has so aptly phrased it, "Therewas sound of revelry by night. " And, as the second poet once put it, ormight have put it so if so be he didn't, "And all went merry as amarriage bell. " But when we, adapting the line to our own descriptiveusages, now say all went merry we should save out one exception--onewhose form alternately was racked by hot flushes of a terrificself-consciousness and by humid gusts of an equally terrific sneezingfit. 

VI

"Here, here, here! Cut out the yellin'! D'you want the whole block upout of their beds?" The voice of the personified law, gruff andauthoritative, broke in upon the clamour, and the majesty of the law, typified in bulk, with galoshes, ear muffs and woollen gloves on, not tomention the customary uniform of blue and brass, ploughed a path towardthe centre of the group. 

"'S all right, Switzer, " gaily replied a hoydenish lassie; she, thesame who had begged Mr. Leary for a sea-pearl souvenir. "But just seewot Morrie Cassidy went and found here on the street!"

Patrolman Switzer looked then where she pointed, and could scarcebelieve his eyes. In his case gleefulness took on a rumbling thunderousform, which shook his being as with an ague and made him to beat himselfviolently upon his ribs. 

"D'ye blame us for carryin' on, Switzer, when we seen it ourselves?"

"I don't--and that's a fact, " Switzer confessed between gurgles. "Iwouldn't a blamed you much if you'd fell down and had a fit. " And thenhe rocked on his heels, filled with joviality clear down to his rubbersoles. Anon, though, he remembered the responsibilities of his position. "Still, at that, and even so, " said he, sobering himself, "enough of agood thing's enough. " He glared accusingly, yea, condemningly, at theunwitting cause of the quelled commotion. 

"Say, what's the idea, you carousin' round Noo York City this hour ofthe night diked up like a Coney Island Maudie Graw? And what's the idea, you causin' a boisterous and disorderly crowd to collect? And what's theidea, you makin' a disturbance in a vicinity full of decent hard-workin'people that's tryin' to get a little rest? What's the general idea, anyhow?"

At this moment Mr. Leary having sneezed an uncountable number of times, regained the powers of coherent utterance. 

"It is not my fault, " he said. "I assure you of that, officer. I ambeing misjudged; I am the victim of circumstances over which I have nocontrol. You see, officer, I went last evening to a fancy-dress partyand----"

"Well, then, why didn't you go on home afterwards and behave yourself?"

"I did--I started, in a taxicab. But the taxicab driver was drunk and hewent to sleep on the way and the taxicab stopped and I got out of it andstarted to walk across town looking for another taxicab and----"

"Started walkin', dressed like that?"

"Certainly not. I had an overcoat on, of course. But a highwayman heldme up at the point of a revolver, and he took my overcoat and what moneyI had and my card case and----"

"Where did all this here happen--this here alleged robbery?"

"Not two blocks away from here, right over in the next street to thisone. "

"I don't believe nothin' of the kind!"

Patrolman Switzer spoke with enhanced severity; his professional honourhad been touched in a delicate place. The bare suggestion that a footpadmight dare operate in a district under his immediate personalsupervision would have been to him deeply repugnant, and here was thisweirdly attired wanderer making the charge direct. 

"But, officer, I insist--I protest that----"

"Young feller, I think you've been drinkin', that's what I think aboutyou. Your voice sounds to me like you've been drinkin' about a gallon ofmixed ale. I think you dreamed all this here pipe about a robber and apistol and an overcoat and a taxicab and all. Now you take a friendlytip from me and you run along home as fast as ever you can, and you getthem delirious clothes off of you and then you get in bed and take agood night's sleep and you'll feel better. Because if you don't it'sgoin' to be necessary for me to run you in for a public nuisance. Iain't askin' you--I'm tellin' you, now. If you don't want to be lockedup, start movin'--that's my last word to you. "

The recent merrymakers, who had fallen silent the better to hear thedialogue, grouped themselves expectantly, hoping and waiting for a yetmore exciting and humorous sequel to what had gone before--if such amiracle might be possible. Nor were they to be disappointed. Thedénouement came quickly upon the heels of the admonition. 

For into Mr. Leary's reeling and distracted mind the warning had sent aclarifying idea darting. Why hadn't he thought of a police stationbefore now? Perforce the person in charge at any police station would beunder requirement to shelter him. What even if he were locked uptemporarily? In a cell he would be safe from the slings and arrows ofoutrageous ridicule; and surely among the functionaries in any stationhouse would be one who would know a gentleman in distress, howeverstartlingly the gentleman might be garbed. Surely, too, somebody--oncethat somebody's amazement had abated--would he willing to do sometelephoning for him. Perhaps, even, a policeman off duty might beinduced to take his word for it that he was what he really was, and notwhat he seemed to be, and loan him a change of clothing. 

Hot upon the inspiration Mr. Leary decided on his course of action. Hewould get himself safely and expeditiously removed from the hatefulcompany and the ribald comments of the Lawrence P. McGillicuddys andtheir friends. He would get himself locked up--that was it. He would nowtake the first steps in that direction. 

"Are you goin' to start on home purty soon like I've just been tellin'you; or are you ain't?" snapped Patrolman Switzer, who, it would appear, was by no means a patient person. 

"I am not!" The crafty Mr. Leary put volumes of husky defiance into hisanswer. "I'm not going home--and you can't make me go home, either. " Herejoiced inwardly to see how the portly shape of Switzer stiffened andswelled at the taunt. "I'm a citizen and I have a right to go where Iplease, dressed as I please, and you don't dare to stop me. I defy youto arrest me!" Suddenly he put both his hands in Patrolman Switzer'sfleshy midriff and gave him a violent shove. An outraged grunt went upfrom Switzer, a delighted whoop from the audience. Swept off his balanceby the prospect of fruition for his design the plotter had technicallybeen guilty before witnesses of a violent assault upon the person of anofficer in the sworn discharge of his duty. 

He felt himself slung violently about. One mitted hand fixed itself inMr. Leary's collar yoke at the rear; the other closed upon a handful ofslack material in the lower breadth of Mr. Leary's principal habilimentjust below where his buttons left off. 

"So you won't come, won't you? Well then I'll show you--you pinkstrawberry drop!"

Enraged at having been flaunted before a jeering audience the patrolmanpushed his prisoner ten feet along the sidewalk, imparting to theoffender's movements an involuntary gliding gait, with backward jerksbetween forward shoves; this method of propulsion being known in thevernacular of the force as "givin' a skate the bum's rush. "

"Hey, Switzer, lend me your key and I'll ring for the wagon for you, "volunteered Mr. Cassidy. His care-free companions, some of them, cheeredthe suggestion, seeing in it prospect of a prolonging of this delectablesport which providence without charge had so graciously deigned toprovide. 

"Never mind about the wagon. Us two'll walk, me and him, " announced thepatrolman. "'Taint so far where we're goin', and the walk'll do thisfresh guy a little good--maybe'll sober him up. And never mind about anyof the rest of you taggin' along behind us neither. This is a pinch--nota free street parade. Go on home now, the lot of youse, before you wakeup the whole Lower West Side. "

Loath to be cheated out of the last act of a comedy so unique and sorich the whimsical McGillicuddys and their chosen mates fell reluctantlyaway, with yells and gibes and quips and farewell bursts of laughter. 

VII

Closely hyphenated together the deep blue figure and the bright pink onerounded the corner and were alone. It was time to open the overtureswhich would establish Patrolman Switzer upon the basis of a betterunderstanding of things. Mr. Leary, craning his neck in order to lookrearward into the face of his custodian, spoke in a key very differentfrom the one he had last employed. 

"I really didn't intend, you know, to resist you, officer. I had aprivate purpose in what I did. And you were quite within your rights. And I'm very grateful to you--really I am--for driving those peopleaway. "

"Is that so?" The inflection was grimly and heavily sarcastic. 

"Yes. I am a lawyer by profession, and generally speaking I know whatyour duties are. I merely made a show--a pretence, as it were--ofresisting you, in order to get away from that mob. It was--ahem--it wasa device on my part--in short, a trick. "

"Is that so? Fixin' to try to beg off now, huh? Well, nothin' doin'!Nothin' doin'! I don't know whether you're a fancy nut or a plain souseor what-all, but whatever you are you're under arrest and you're goin'with me. "

"That's exactly what I desire to do, " resumed the schemer. "I desiremost earnestly to go with you. "

"You're havin' your wish, ain't you? Well, then, the both of us shouldoughter be satisfied. "

"I feel sure, " continued the wheedling and designing Mr. Leary, "that assoon as we reach the station house I can make satisfactory atonement toyou for my behaviour just now and can explain everything to yoursuperiors in charge there, and then----"

"Station house!" snorted Patrolman Switzer. "Why, say, you ain't headin'for no station house. The crowd that's over there where you're headin'for should be grateful to me for bringin' you in. You'll be a treat tothem, and it's few enough pleasures some of them gets----"

A new, a horrid doubt assailed Mr. Leary's sorely taxed being. He beganto have a dread premonition that all was not going well and his brainwhirled anew. 

"But I prefer to be taken to the station house, " he began. 

"And who are you to be preferrin' anything at all?" countered Switzer. "I'll phone back to the station where I am and what I've done; thoughthat part of it's no business of yours. I'll be doin' that after I'vearrainged you over to Jefferson Market. "

"Jeff--Jefferson Market!"

"Sure, 'tis to Jefferson Market night court you're headin' this minute. Where else? They're settin' late over there to-night; the magistrate isexpectin' some raids somewheres about daylight, I dope it. Anyhow, they're open yet; I know that. So it'll be me and you for JeffersonMarket inside of five minutes; and I'm thinkin' you'll get quite areception. "

Jefferson Market! Mr. Leary could picture the rows upon rows of gloatingeyes. He heard the incredulous shout that would mark his entrance, theswell of unholy glee from the benches that would interrupt theproceedings. He saw stretched upon the front pages of the early editionsof the afternoon yellows the glaring black-faced headlines:

 WELL-KNOWN LAWYER CLAD IN PINK ROMPERS HALED TO NIGHT COURT

He saw--but Switzer's next remark sent a fresh shudder of apprehensionthrough him, caught all again, as he was, in the coils of accursedcircumstance. 

"Magistrate Voris will be gettin' sleepy what with waitin' for themraids to be pulled off, and I make no doubt the sight of you will puthim in a good humour. "

And Magistrate Voris was his rival for the favours of Miss MillyHollister! And Magistrate Voris was a person with a deformed sense ofhumour! And Magistrate Voris was sitting in judgment this moment atJefferson Market night court. And now desperation, thrice compounded, rent the soul of the trapped victim of his own misaimed subterfuge. 

"I won't be taken to any night court!" he shouted, wresting himselftoward the edge of the sidewalk and dragging his companion along withhim. "I won't go there! I demand to be taken to a station house. I'm asick man and I require the services of a doctor. "

"Startin' to be rough-house all over again, huh?" grunted Switzervindictively. "Well, we'll see about that part of it, too--right now!"

Surrendering his lowermost clutch, the one in the silken seat of thesuit of his writhing prisoner, he fumbled beneath the tails of hisovercoat for the disciplinary nippers that were in his righthand reartrousers pocket. 

With a convulsive twist of his body Mr. Leary jerked himself free of themittened grip upon his neckband, and as, released, he gave a deerlikelunge forward for liberty he caromed against a burdened ash can upon thecurbstone and sent it spinning backward; then recovering sprang onwardand outward across the gutter in flight. In the same instant he heardbehind him a crash of metal and a solid thud, heard a sound as of ascrambling solid body cast abruptly prone, heard the name of Deityprofaned, and divined without looking back that the ash can, conveniently rolling between the plump legs of the personified Arm ofthe Law, had been Officer Switzer's undoing, and might be his salvation. 

VIII

With never a backward glance he ran on, not doubting as a hare beforethe beagle, but following a straight course, like unto a hunted roebuck. He did not know he could run so fast, and he could not have run so fastany other time than this. Beyond was a crossing. It was blind instinctthat made him double round the turn. And it was instinct, quickened andguided by desperation, that made him dart like a rose-tinted flash upthe steps to the stoop of an old-fashioned residence standing justbeyond the corner, spring inside the storm doors, draw them to behindhim, and crouch there, hidden, as pursuit went lumbering by. 

Through a chink between the door halves he watched breathlessly whileSwitzer, who moved with a pronounced limp and rubbed his knees as helimped, hobbled halfway up the block, slowed down, halted, glared abouthim for sight or sign of the vanished fugitive, and then misled by afalse trail departed, padding heavily with a galoshed tread, round thenext turn. 

With his body still drawn well back within the shadow line of theoverhanging cornice Mr. Leary, coyly protruded his head and took visualinventory of the neighbourhood. So far as any plan whatsoever hadformed in the mind of our diffident adventurer he meant to bide where hewas for the moment. Here, where he had shelter of a sort, he wouldrecapture his breath and reassemble his wits. Even so, the respite fromthose elements which Mr. Leary dreaded most of all--publicity, observation, cruel jibes, the harsh raucous laughter of thepopulace--could be at best but a woefully transient one. He was notresigned--by no means was he resigned--to his fate; but he was helpless. For what ailed him there was no conceivable remedy. 

Anon jocund day would stand tiptoe on something or other; GreenwichVillage would awaken and bestir itself. Discovery would come, and forthhe would be drawn like a shy, unwilling periwinkle from its shell, oncemore to play his abased and bashful role of free entertainer toguffawing mixed audiences. For all others in the great city there werehavens and homes. But for a poor, lorn, unguided vagrant, enmeshed inthe burlesque garnitures of a three-year-old male child, what haven wasthere? By night the part had been hard enough--as the unresponsiveheavens above might have testified. By the stark unmerciful sunlight; bythe rude, revealing glow of the impending day how much more scandalouswould it be!

His haggard gaze swept this way and that, seeking possible succour wherereason told him there could be no succour; and then as his vision piecedtogether this outjutting architectural feature and that into a coherentpicture of his immediate surroundings he knew where he was. The one bitof chancy luck in a sequence of direful catastrophes had brought himhere to this very spot. Why, this must be West Ninth Street; it had tobe, it was--oh joy, it was! And Bob Slack, his partner, lived in thisidentical block on this same side of the street. 

With his throat throbbing to the impulse of new-born hope he emergedcompletely from behind the refuge of the storm doors, backed himself outand down upon the top step, and by means of a dubious illuminationpercolating through the fanlight above the inner door he made out thefigures upon the lintel. This was such and such a number; therefore BobSlack's number must be the second number to the eastward, at the nextdoor but one. 

IX

Five seconds later a fleet apparition of a prevalent pinkish tone gave aranging house cat the fright of its life as former darted past latter tovault nimbly up the stone steps of a certain weatherbeatenfour-story-and-basement domicile. Set in the door jamb here was avertical row of mail-slots, and likewise a vertical row of electric pushbuttons; these objects attesting to the fact that this house, once upona time the home of a single family, had eventually undergone thetransformation which in lower New York befalls so many of its kind, andhad become a layer-like succession of light-housekeeping apartments, oneapartment to a floor, and the caretaker in the basement. 

Since Bob Slack's bachelor quarters were on the topmost floor BobSlack's push button would be the next to the lowermost of the battery ofbuttons. A chilled tremulous finger found that particular button andpressed it long and hard, released it, pressed it again and yet again. And in the interval following each period of pressing the finger's ownerhearkened, all ears, for the answering click-click that would tell himthe sleeper having been roused by the ringing had risen and pressed themaster button that released the mechanism of the street door's lock. 

But no welcome clicking rewarded the expectant ringer. Assuredly BobSlack must be the soundest sleeper in the known world. He who waitedrang and rang and rerang. There was no response. 

Eventually conviction was forced upon Mr. Leary that he must awaken thecaretaker--who, he seemed dimly to recall as a remembrance of pastvisits to Bob Slack, was a woman; and this done he must induce thecaretaker to admit him to the inside of the house. Once within thebuilding the refugee promised himself he would bring the slumberousSlack to consciousness if he had to beat down that individual's doordoing it. He centred his attack upon the bottom push button of all. Directly, from almost beneath his feet, came the sound of an areawaywindow being unlatched, and a drowsy female somewhat crossly inquired toknow who might be there and what might be wanted. 

"It's a gentleman calling on Mr. Slack, " wheezed Mr. Leary with his headover the balusters. He was getting so very, very hoarse. "I've beenringing his bell, but I can't seem to get any answer. "

"A gentleman at this time o' night!" The tone was purely incredulous. 

"Yes; a close friend of Mr. Slack's, " assured Mr. Leary, striving to putstress of urgency into his accents, and only succeeding in imparting anadded hoarseness to his fast-failing vocal cords. "I'm his law partner, in fact. I must see him at once, please--it's very important, verypressing indeed. "

"Well, you can't be seein' him. "

"C-can't see him? What do you mean?"

"I mean he ain't here, that's what. He's out. He's went out for thenight. He's ginerally always out on Friday nights--playin' cards at hisclub, I think. And sometimes he don't come in till it's near breakfasttime. If you're a friend of his I sh'd think it'd be likely you'd knowthat same. "

"Oh, I do--I do, " assented Mr. Leary earnestly; "only I had forgottenit. I've had so many other things on my mind. But surely he'll be comingin quite soon now--it's pretty late, you know. "

"Don't I know that for myself without bein' told?"

"Yes, quite so, of course; naturally so. " Mr. Leary was growing more andmore nervous, and more and more chilled, too. "But if you'll only be sovery kind as to let me in I'll wait for him in his apartment. "

"Let you in without seein' you or knowin' what your business is? Ishould guess not! Besides, you couldn't be gettin' inside his flatanyways. He's locked it, unless he's forgot to, which ain't likely, himbein' a careful man, and he must a-took the key with him. I know I ain'tgot it. "

"But if you'll just let me inside the building that will be sufficient. I would much rather wait inside if only in the hall, than out here onthe stoop in the cold. "

"No doubt, no doubt you would all of that. " The tone of the unseenfemale was drily suspicious. "But is it likely I'd be lettin' a strangerinto the place, that I never seen before, and ain't seen yet for thatmatter, just on the strength of his own word? And him comin'unbeknownst, at this hour of the mornin'? A fat chancet!"

"But surely, though, you must recall me--Mr. Leary, his partner. I'vebeen here before. I've spoken to you. "

"That voice don't sound to me like no voice I ever heard. "

"I've taken cold--that's why it's altered. "

"So? Then why don't you come down here where I can have a look at youand make sure?" inquired this careful chatelaine. 

"I'm leaning with my head over the rail of the steps right above you, "said Mr. Leary. "Can't you poke your head out and see my face? I'm quitesure you would recall me then. "

"With this here iron gratin' acrost me window how could I poke me headout? Besides, it's dark. Say, mister, if you're on the level what's thematter with you comin' down here and not be standin' there palaverin'all the night?"

"I--I--well, you see, I'd rather not come for just a minute--until I'veexplained to you that--that my appearance may strike you as being atrifle unusual, in fact, I might say, queer, " pleaded Mr. Leary, seekingby subtle methods of indirection to prepare her for what must surelyfollow. 

"Never mind explainin'--gimme a look!" The suspicious tenseness in hervoice increased. "I tell you this--ayther you come down here right thissecont or I shut the window and you can be off or you can go to thedivil or go anywheres you please for all of me, because I'm anoverworked woman and I need my rest and I've no more time to waste onyou. "

"Wait, please; I'm coming immediately, " called out Mr. Leary. 

He forced his legs to carry him down the steps and reluctantly, yetbriskly, he propelled his pink-hued person toward the ray of light thatstreamed out through the grated window-opening and fell across theareaway. 

"You mustn't judge by first appearances, " he was explaining with a falseand transparent attempt at matter-of-factness as he came into the zoneof illumination. "I'm not what I seem, exactly. You see, I----"

"Mushiful Evans!" The exclamation was half shrieked, half gasped out;and on the words the window was slammed to, the light within flippedout, and through the glass from within came a vehement warning. 

"Get away, you--you lunatic! Get away from here now or I'll have thecops on you. "

"But please, please listen, " he entreated, with his face close againstthe bars. "I assure you, madam, that I can explain everything if youwill only listen. "

There was no mercy, no suggestion of relenting in the threateningmessage that came back to him. 

"If you ain't gone from here in ten seconts I'll ring for the nightwatchman on the block, and I'll blow a whistle for the police. I've gotme hand on the alarm hook right now. Will you go or will I rouse thewhole block?"

"Pray be calm, madam, I'll go. In fact, I'm going now. "

He fell back out of the areaway. Fresh uproar at this critical juncturewould be doubly direful. It would almost certainly bring the vengefulSwitzer, with his bruised shanks. It would inevitably bring some one. 

X

Mr. Leary retreated to the sidewalk, figuratively casting from him theshards and potsherds of his reawakened anticipations, now all so rudelyshattered again. He was doomed. It would inevitably be his fate to cowerin these cold and drafty purlieus until----

No, it wouldn't either!

Like a golden rift in a sable sky a brand-new ray of cheer opened beforehim. Who were those married friends of Slack's, who lived on the thirdfloor--friends with whom once upon a time he and Slack had shared achafing-dish supper? What was the name? Brady? No, Braydon. That wasit--Mr. And Mrs. Edward Braydon. He would slip back again, on noiselessfeet, to the doorway where the bells were. He would bide there until thestartled caretaker had gone back to her sleep, or at least to her bed. Then he would play a solo on the Braydons' bell until he roused them. They would let him in, and beyond the peradventure of a doubt, theywould understand what seemed to be beyond the ken of flighty andexcitable underlings. He would make them understand, once he was in andonce the first shock of beholding him had abated within them. They werea kindly, hospitable couple, the Braydons were. They would be only tooglad to give him shelter from the elements until Bob Slack returnedfrom his session at bridge. He was saved!

Within the coping of the stoop he crouched and waited--waited for fivelong palpitating minutes which seemed to him as hours. Then he appliedan eager and quivering finger to the Braydons' button. Sweet boon ofvouchsafed mercy! Almost instantly the latch clicked. And now in anotherinstant Mr. Leary was within solid walls, with the world and the weathershut out behind him. 

He stood a moment, palpitant with mute thanksgiving, in the hallway, which was made obscure rather than bright by a tiny pinprick ofgaslight; and as thus he stood, fortifying himself with resolution forthe embarrassing necessity of presenting himself, in all his show ofquaint frivolity, before these comparative strangers, there camefloating down the stair well to him in a sharp half-whisper a woman'svoice. 

"Is that you?" it asked. 

"Yes, " answered Mr. Leary, truthfully. It was indeed he, Algernon Leary, even though someone else seemingly was expected. But the explanationcould wait until he was safely upstairs. Indeed, it must wait. Attemptedat a distance it would take on rather a complicated aspect; besides, thecaretaker just below might overhear, and by untoward interruptionscomplicate a position already sufficiently delicate and difficult. 

Down from above came the response, "All right then. I've been worried, you were so late coming in, Edward. Please slip in quietly and take thefront room. I'm going on back to bed. "

"All right!" grunted Mr. Leary. 

But already his plan had changed; the second speech down the stair wellhad caused him to change it. Safety first would be his motto from nowon. Seeing that Mr. Edward Braydon apparently was likewise out late itwould be wiser and infinitely more discreet on his part did he avoidfurther disturbing Mrs. Braydon, who presumably was alone and who mightbe easily frightened. So he would just slip on past the Braydonapartment, and in the hallway on the fourth floor he would cannily bide, awaiting the truant Slack's arrival. 

On tiptoe then, flight by flight, he ascended toward the top of thehouse. He was noiselessly progressing along the hallway of the thirdfloor; he was about midway of it when under his tread a loose plank gaveoff an agonized squeak, and, as involuntarily he crouched, right at hisside a door was flung open. 

What the discomfited refugee saw, at a distance from him to be measuredby inches rather than by feet, was the face of a woman; and not the faceof young Mrs. Edward Braydon, either, but the face of a middle-aged ladywith startled eyes widely staring, with a mouth just dropping ajar assudden horror relaxed her jaw muscles, and with a head of grey hairhaloed about by a sort of nimbus effect of curl papers. What the strangelady saw--well, what the strange lady saw may best perhaps be gauged bywhat she did, and that was instantly to slam and bolt the door and thento utter a succession of calliopelike shrieks, which echoed through thehouse and which immediately were answered back by a somewhat similarseries of outcries from the direction of the basement. 

XI

Up the one remaining flight of stairs darted the intruder. He flunghimself with all his weight and all his force against Bob Slack's door. It wheezed from the impact, but its stout oaken panels held fast. Whosays the impossible is really impossible? The accumulated testimony ofthe ages shows that given the emergency a man can do anything he justnaturally has to do. Neither by training nor by habit of life nor yet byfigure was Mr. Leary athletically inclined, but a trained gymnast mightwell have envied the magnificent agility with which he put a foot uponthe doorknob and sprang upward, poising himself there upon a slipperedtoe, with one set of fingers clutching fast to the minute projections ofthe door frame while with his free hand he thrust recklessly against thetransom. 

The transom gave under the strain, moving upward and inward upon itshinges, disclosing an oblong gap above the jamb. With a splendid wrigglethe fugitive vaulted up, thrusting his person into the clear space thusprovided. Balanced across the opening upon his stomach, half in and halfout, for one moment he remained there, his legs kicking wildly as thoughfor a purchase against something more solid than air. Then convulsivedesperation triumphed over physical limitations. There was a rending, tearing sound as of some silken fabric being parted biaswise of itsfibres, and Mr. Leary's droll after sections vanished inside; andpractically coincidentally therewith, Mr. Leary descended upon therugged floor with a thump which any other time would have stunned himinto temporary helplessness, but which now had the effect merely ofstimulating him onward to fresh exertion. 

In a fever of activity he sprang up. Pawing a path through theencompassing darkness, stumbling into and over various sharp-corneredobjects, barking his limbs with contusions and knowing it not, he foundthe door of the inner room--Bob Slack's bedroom--and once within thatsanctuary he, feeling along the walls, discovered a push bulb andswitched on the electric lights. 

What matter though the whole house grew clamorous now with a mountingand increasing tumult? What mattered it though he could hear more andmore startled voices commingled with the shattering shrieks emanatingfrom the Braydon apartment beneath his feet? He, the hard-pressed andsore-beset and the long-suffering, was at last beyond the sight ofmortal eyes. He was locked in, with two rooms and a bath to himself, andhe meant to maintain his present refuge, meant to hold this fort againstall comers, until Bob Slack came home. He would barricade himself in ifneed be. He would pile furniture against the doors. If they took him atall it would be by direct assault and overpowering numbers. 

And while he withstood siege and awaited attack he would rid himself ofthese unlucky caparisons that had been his mortification and hisundoing. When they broke in on him--if they did break in on him--hewould be found wearing some of Bob Slack's clothes. Better far to bemistaken for a burglar than to be dragged forth lamentably yetfancifully attired as Himself at the Age of Three. The one thing mightbe explained--and in time would be; but the other? He felt that he wasnear the breaking point; that he could no more endure. 

XII

He stopped where he was, in the middle of the room, with his eyes andhis hands seeking for the seams of the closing of his main garment. Thenhe remembered what in his stress he had forgotten--the opening orperhaps one should say the closing was at the back. He twisted his armsrearward, his fingers groping along his spine. 

Now any normal woman has the abnormal ability to do and then to undo agarment hitching behind. Nature, which so fashioned her elbows that shecannot throw a stone at a hen in the way in which a stone properlyshould be thrown at a hen, made suitable atonement for this articularoversight by endowing her joints with the facile knack of turning onexactly the right angle, with never danger of sprain or dislocation, forthe subjugation of a back-latching frock. Moreover, years of practicehave given her adeptness in accomplishing this achievement, so that toher it has become an everyday feat. But man has neither the experienceto qualify him nor yet the bodily adaptability. 

By reaching awkwardly up and over his shoulder Mr. Leary managed to tugthe topmost button of his array of buttons out of its attendantbuttonholes, but below and beyond that point he could not progress. Hetwisted and contorted his body; he stretched his arms in their socketsuntil twin pangs of agony met and crossed between his shoulder blades, and with his two exploring hands he pulled and fumbled and pawed andwrenched and wrested, to make further headway at his task. But thesewing-on had been done with stout thread; the buttonholes were taut andsnug and well made. Those slippery flat surfaces amply resisted him. They eluded him; defied him; outmastered him. Thanks be to, or curses beupon, the passionate zeal of Miss Rowena Skiff for exactitudes, he, lacking the offices of an assistant undresser, was now as definitely andfinally inclosed in this distressful pink garment as though it had beenhis own skin. Speedily he recognised this fact in all its bitter andabominable truth, but mechanically, he continued to wrestle with theobdurate fastenings. 

While he thus vainly contended, events in which he directly wasconcerned were occurring beneath that roof. From within his refuge heheard the sounds of slamming doors, of hurrying footsteps, of excitedvoices merging into a distracted chorus; but above all else, and fromthe rest, two of these voices stood out by reason of their augmentedshrillness, and Mr. Leary marked them both, for since he had just heardthem he therefore might identify their respective unseen owners. 

"There's something--there's somebody in the house!" At the top of itsregister one voice was repeating the warning over and over again, andjudging by direction this alarmist was shrieking her words through akeyhole on the floor below him. "I saw it--him--whatever it was. Iopened my door to look out in the hall and it--he--was right there. Oh, I could have touched him! And then it ran and I didn't see him any moreand I slammed the door and began screaming. "

"You seen what?"

The strident question seemed to come from far below, down in the depthsof the house, where the caretaker abided. 

"Whatever it was. I opened the door and he was right in the hall thereglaring at me. I could have touched it. And then he ran and I----"

"What was he like? I ast what was he like--it's that I'm astin' you!"The janitress was the one who pressed for an answer. 

For the moment the question, pointed though it was, went unanswered. Themain speaker--shrieker, rather--was plainly a person with a mania fordetails, and even in this emergency she intended, as now developed, topresent all the principal facts in the case, and likewise all theincidental facts so far as these fell within her scope of knowledge. 

"I was awake, " she clarioned through the keyhole, speaking much fasterthan any one following this narrative can possibly hope to read thewords. "I couldn't sleep. I never do sleep well when I'm in a strangehouse. And anyhow, I was all alone. My nephew by marriage--Mr. EdwardBraydon, you know--had gone out with the gentleman who lives on thefloor above to play cards, and he said he was going to be gone nearlyall night, and my niece--I'm Mrs. Braydon's unmarried aunt fromPoughkeepsie and I'm down here visiting them--my niece was called toLong Island yesterday by illness--it's her sister who's ill withsomething like the bronchitis. And he was gone and so she was gone, andso here I was all alone and he told me not to stay up for him, but Icouldn't sleep well--I never can sleep in a strange house--and just afew minutes ago I heard the bell ring and I supposed he had forgottento take his latchkey with him, and so I got up to let him in. And Icalled down the stairs and asked him if it was him and he answered back. But it didn't sound like his voice. But I didn't think anything of that. But, of course, it was out of the ordinary for him to have a voice likethat. But all the same I went back to bed. But he didn't come in and Iwas just getting up again to see what detained him--his voice reallysounded so strange I thought then he might have been taken sick orsomething. But just as I got to the door a plank creaked and I openedthe door and there it was right where I could have touched him. And thenit ran--and oh, what if----"

"I'm astin' you once more what it was like?"

"How should I know except that----"

"Was it a big, fat, wild, bare-headed, scary, awful-lookin' scoundreldressed in some kind of funny pink clothes?"

"Yes, that's it! That's him--he was all sort of pink. Oh, did you seehim too? Oh, is it a burglar?"

"Burglar nothin'! It's a ravin', rampagin' lunatic--that's what it is!"

"Oh, my heavens, a lunatic!"

"Sure it is. He tried to git me to let him in and----"

"Oh, whatever shall we do!"

XIII

"Hey, what's all the excitement about?"

A new and deeper voice here broke into the babel, and Mr. Learyrecognising it at a distance, where he stood listening--but not failing, even while he listened, to strive unavailingly with his problem ofbuttons--knew he was saved. Knowing this he nevertheless retreated stilldeeper into the inner room. The thought of spectators in numbersremained very abhorrent to him. So he did not hear all that happenednext, except in broken snatches. 

He gathered though, from what he did hear, that Bob Slack and Mr. EdwardBraydon were coming up the stairs, and that a third male whom theycalled Officer was coming with them, and that the janitress was cominglikewise, and that divers lower-floor tenants were joining in the march, and that as they came the janitress was explaining to all and sundry howthe weird miscreant had sought to inveigle her into admitting him to Mr. Slack's rooms, and how she had refused, and how with maniacal craft--orwords to that effect--he had, nevertheless, managed to secure admittanceto the house, and how he must still be in the house. And through all herdiscourse there were questions from this one or that, crossing its flowbut in no-wise interrupting it; and through it all percolated hootinglythe terrorised outcries of Mr. Braydon's maiden aunt-in-law, issuingthrough the keyhole of the door behind which she cowered. Only now shewas interjecting a new harassment into the already complicated mysteryby pleading that someone repair straightway to her and renderassistance, as she felt herself to be on the verge of fainting deadaway. 

With searches into closets and close scrutiny of all dark corners passeden route, the procession advanced to the top floor, mainly guided in itsoncoming by the clew deduced from the circumstances of the mad intruderhaving betrayed a desire to secure access to Mr. Slack's apartment, with the intention, as the caretaker more than once suggested on her wayup, of murdering Mr. Slack in his bed. Before the ascent had beencompleted she was quite certain this was the correct deduction, and socontinued to state with all the emphasis of which she was capable. 

"He couldn't possibly have got downstairs again, " somebody hazarded; "sohe must be upstairs here still--must be right round here somewhere. "

"Didn't I tell you he was lookin' for Mr. Slack to lay in wait for himand destroy the poor man in his bed?" shrilled the caretaker. 

"Watch carefully now, everybody. He might rush out of some corner atus. "

"Say, my transom's halfway open!" Mr. Bob Slack exclaimed. "And, byJove, there's a light shining through it yonder from the bedroom. He'sinside--we've got him cornered, whoever he is. "

Boldly Mr. Slack stepped forward and rapped hard on the door. 

"Better step on out peaceably, " he called, "because there's an officerhere with us and we've got you trapped. "

"It's me, Bob, it's me, " came in a wheezy, plaintive wail from somewherewell back in the apartment. 

"Who's me?" demanded Mr. Slack, likewise forgetting his grammar in thethrill of this culminating moment. 

"Algy--Algernon Leary. "

"Not with that voice, it isn't. But I'll know in a minute who it is!"Mr. Slack reached pocketward for his keys. 

"Better be careful. He might have a gun or something on him. "

"Nonsense!" retorted Mr. Slack, feeling very valiant. "I'm not afraid ofany gun. But you ladies might stand aside if you're frightened. Allready, officer? Now then!"

"Please come in by yourself, Bob. Don't--don't let anybody else comewith you!"

XIV

If he heard the faint and agonised appeal from within Mr. Slack chosenot to heed it. He found the right key on his key ring, applied it tothe lock, turned the bolt and shoved the door wide open, giving backthen in case of an attack. The front room was empty. Mr. Slack crossedcautiously to the inner room and peered across the threshold into it, Mr. Braydon and a grey-coated private watchman and a procession ofhalf-clad figures following along after him. 

Where was the mysterious intruder? Ah, there he was, huddled up in a farcorner alongside the bed as though he sought to hide himself away fromtheir glaring eyes. And at the sight of what he beheld Mr. Bob Slackgave one great shocked snort of surprise, and then one of recognition. 

For all that the cowering wretch wore a quaint garment of a bright andwatermelonish hue, except where it was streaked with transom dust andmarked with ash-can grit; for all that his head was bare, and his knees, and a considerable section of his legs as well; for all that he hadwhite socks and low slippers, now soaking wet, upon his feet; for allhis elbow sleeves and his pink garters and his low neck; and finally forall that his face was now beginning, as they stared upon it, to wearthe blank wan look of one who is about to succumb to a swoon ofexhaustion induced by intense physical exertion or by acutely prolongedmental strain or by both together--Mr. Bob Slack detected in thisfabulous oddity a resemblance to his associate in the practice of law atNumber Thirty-two Broad Street. 

"In the name of heaven, Leary----" he began. 

But a human being can stand just so many shocks in a given number ofminutes--just so many and no more. Gently, slowly, the gartered legsgave way, bending outward, and as their owner collapsed down upon hisside with the light of consciousness flickering in his eyes, his figurewas half-turned to them, and they saw how that he was ornamentally butsecurely buttoned down the back with many large buttons and how thatwith a last futile fluttering effort of his relaxing hands he fumbledfirst at one and then at another of these buttons. 

"Leary, what in thunder have you been doing? And where on earth have youbeen?" Mr. Slack shot the questions forth as he sprang to his partner'sside and knelt alongside the slumped pink shape. 

Languidly Mr. Leary opened one comatose eye. Then he closed it again andthe wraith of a smile formed about his lips, and just as he went soundasleep upon the floor Mr. Slack caught from Mr. Leary the softlywhispered words, "I've been the life of the party!"