I SEND A MAN TO JAIL
The two policemen shifted impatiently.
"That'll about do, Foxy," growled O'Keefe. "It's entertaining, but
enough of a thing--"
But the old duffer caught his sleeve.
"Wait!" he panted. "One second--wait--just one second!"
He looked at Jenkins and ducked his neck forward, swallowing hard.
"Jenkins," he said with a sickly smile. "You--you see how it is with
Lightnut--poor fellow! None of us ever thought he would go off that bad
though. But, as it is, I guess you're the one now who will have to set
me right with these people. You'll have to stand for me."
Jenkins looked alarmed. He addressed the officers eagerly:
"S'help me," he cried, his glance impaling the prisoner with scorn, "I
never see this party before in the ten years I been in New York!"
Did that settle the fellow? By Jove, not a bit; his jolly nerve seemed
inexhaustible!
He blinked a little; and then with a roar he jumped for Jenkins, but
O'Keefe shoved him back. Panting and struggling between the two
officers, and fairly at bay at last, the desperate old man seemed to
determine one last bluff, don't you know, and with the janitor.
"Here, you," he bellowed, as the man dodged behind Jenkins. "You have
seen me come in this building often! Tell 'em so, or I'll kill you!"
The little man turned pale, but came up pluckily.
"If--if I had," he stammered, "you never would have come in again, if I
knew as much about you as I do now. I assure you, gents, I never laid
eyes on this man before."
"Well, I'll be--"
He broke off and seemed to fall out of the grasp of the men backward
into a big chair. Couldn't quit his jolly acting, it was clear to me,
even when he had played his last card.
"Is everybody crazy, or am I?" he said, brushing his hand across his
forehead; and dashed if the perspiration didn't stand on it in big
drops, clear up into his old bald pate.
"See here," he broke out again, addressing O'Keefe, "send for somebody
else in this building; send for--" He seemed to deliberate.
The policeman laughed derisively.
"Likely we'll be hauling people out of bed at this hour, isn't it," he
sneered, "just to let you keep up this fool's game!" He leveled his
stick menacingly. "Now, looky here, Braxton!" he exclaimed sternly.
"I'm being easy with you because you're a gray-headed old man, but--"
By Jove, it was plain he had struck a sensitive point!
"Gray-headed old man!" shouted the fellow, coming out of the chair like
a rubber ball, and pointing to his reflection in the long mirror. "Does
that look like gray hair--that red topknot? It'll _be_ gray, though, if
this infernal craziness goes on much longer--I'll say that much!" And
back he flopped into the chair.
The two officers exchanged glances, and, by Jove, they looked ugly!
"Call for the wagon, Tim," said O'Keefe shortly, indicating the 'phone.
"The fool's going to give trouble. Kahoka Apartments, tell them. Hurry;
let's get him to the street."
He made a dive at the figure in the chair and jerked him forward.
But his grip seemed to slip and he only moved his prisoner a few inches.
He tried again with about the same result.
"Get a move on, Tim," he said pantingly. "He's bigger, somehow, than he
looks, and awful heavy; it'll take both of us. Get up, Braxton, unless
you want the club!"
The man settled solidly in the depths of the chair.
"Club and be hanged!" he replied with a snap of his jaw. "I won't go in
any dirty police wagon--that's flat! You may take me in a hearse first.
Get a cab or a taxi, if I have to go with you!"
"Gamey old sport, anyhow, by Jove!" I thought with sudden admiration.
Couldn't help it, dash it! Heart just went out to him, somehow.
I gently interposed as O'Keefe prepared to lunge again.
"I'll stand the cab for him, officer," I said with a smile, "if your
rules, don't you know, or whatever it is, will allow."
I added in a lowered voice:
"Makes it devilish easier for you, don't you know, and avoids such a
jolly row. And--er--I want to ask you and your friend to accept from me
a little token of my appreciation."
The policeman exchanged a glance with Tim and considered.
"Well, sir," he said, "as to the cab, of course if you're a mind to want
to do that, it's your own affair."
He turned to his companion.
"Just cancel that, Tim," he directed. "Call a four-wheeler."
"Thank you, Lightnut," put in the old man gratefully. "You _have_ got a
grain of decency left, by George, after all!"
Meantime, Jenkins was answering my inquiry.
"I don't believe, sir, you have a bit of cash in the house. You told me
so when you were retiring."
By Jove, I remembered now! The poker game in the evening!
I was wondering whether they could use a check, when I spied Billings'
wallet on the table.
The very thing, by Jove!
Examination showed, first thing, a wad of yellow-backs, fresh from the
bank. I peeled off two and pushed them into the officer's hand.
"This belongs to a friend of mine," I remarked; "but it's just the same
as my own, don't you know, and he won't mind. Dash it, we're just like
brothers!"
A howl of maniacal laughter from the old fool in the chair startled us
both.
"Regular Damon and Pythias, damn it!" he gabbled, grinning with hideous
face contortions. "One for all, and all for one! And just help yourself;
don't mind me. Why--_hell_!"
O'Keefe prodded him sharply in the shoulder with his night stick.
"Stop your skylarking now, Foxy," he admonished angrily, "and come on.
Here the gentleman's gone and put up his money for a cab for you and you
ought to want to get out of his way so he can rest."
"He's sure been kind to you," supplemented Tim, whose eye had noted the
passing of the yellow boys.
"Kind!" mocked the old geezer, showing his scattered teeth in a horrible
grin. "Why, he's a lu-lu, a regular Samaritan!"
"No names!" warned O'Keefe, slightly lifting his night stick. "Come on
to the street--you seem to forget you're under arrest."
He added hastily:
"And I ought to have warned you that anything you may say, Foxy--"
"Oh, you go to--Brooklyn!" snarled Foxy. "For two pins I'd knock your
block off, you fat-headed Irish fool! Think I'm going down to the
sidewalk without my clothes?"
"Are your clothes somewhere in this building?" I asked with some
sympathy.
He whirled on me sneeringly and jeered like a jolly screech owl:
"Oh, no; not exactly _in_ the building--they're on the flagpole on the
roof, of course! He-he-he! Bloody good joke, isn't it?"
I sat on the edge of the table wearily; and, catching the policeman's
eye, shrugged my shoulders significantly.
"You're right, sir," he said apologetically. "We won't fool a second
longer. Here, you take that side, Tim. Let's pull!"
And they did pull, but, by Jove, they couldn't raise him.
"Queerest go I ever see," Tim gasped. "He ain't holding on to nothing,
is he? And, O'Keefe, he _feels big_!"
"Pshaw, it's not that," the other panted; "it's just the way he's
sitting. Why, you can _see_ he ain't so very big." He nodded to Jenkins
and the janitor. "Here, you two! Help us, can't you?"
And with one mighty, united heave, they brought the loudly protesting
old man to his feet and held him there. O'Keefe faced me.
"Might be well to take a look around, sir, and see if you think of
anything else he's stolen, before we take him off."
"Good idea, Lightnut!" Old Braxton stopped struggling and whirled his
head toward me, his face almost black with rage. "Ha, ha! Why don't you
have me searched? There's not a pocket in these damn pajamas!"
"Anything whatever, sir, we'll have him leave behind," said O'Keefe.
"By Jove!" I don't know how I ever managed to say it. Fact is, things
had just suddenly spun round before me like a merry what's-its-name. For
I _did_ recognize something! The old fellow's unabashed reference to
pajamas was what brought it to my attention.
"Ha!" O'Keefe nodded. "There _is_ something! Just say the word, sir."
I looked helplessly at Jenkins, and then I saw that of a sudden he
recognized them, too. His eyes rolled at me understandingly.
"What is it, sir?" demanded O'Keefe respectfully. "The law requires--"
I swallowed hard. "It--it's the pajamas," I said faintly.
The old rascal uttered a roar and tried to get at me.
"You cold-blooded scoundrel!" he bellowed. "So this is why--"
But here a jab of the night stick took him in the side with a sound like
a blow on a punching bag. Words left the old man and he gasped
desperately for breath. O'Keefe tried to shake him.
"Did you get those pajamas in here?" he demanded fiercely, and he drew
back his stick as though for another jab. But the old geezer nodded
quickly, glaring at me and trying to wheeze something.
"That's enough," said the officer. He turned to me. "You recognize them,
do you, sir?"
"I--I think so," I stammered, looking at Jenkins, who nodded. "They
belong to a friend of mine who--a--must have left them here."
"I see." He fished out a note-book. "Mind giving me the name, sir? Just
a matter of form, you know--" He licked his pencil expectantly.
"Oh, I say, you know--" I gasped at Jenkins. "I don't think she--I--"
"Certainly not, sir," affirmed Jenkins, solemnly looking upward.
"She?" The note-book slowly closed, then with the pencil went back into
the officer's pocket. "Excuse _me_, sir. H'm!"
"H'm!" echoed Tim apologetically. Then they both glared at Foxy.
The old man just snarled at them. He was like a dog at bay.
"All right!" he hissed. "You just try to take them off--I'll kill
somebody, that's all. Think I'm going to make a spectacle of myself?"
Jenkins whispered to me.
"To be sure," I said aloud. "He might as well wear them now to the
station. Just so he returns them when he gets his clothes."
"Very good, sir," said O'Keefe, relieved. "We'll see he does that. Come
along now, Braxton--_shut_ up, I tell you!"
And with all four of them behind the charge, they managed to rush the
loudly protesting old man to the door.
"I _won't_ go without my clothes, I tell you," he raged.
But he did. Fighting, swearing and protesting, the jolly old vagabond
was roughly bundled into the elevator.
"Good night, sir," called O'Keefe as the four of them dropped downward.
"We'll let you know if it seems necessary to trouble you."
Once again inside, Jenkins and I just stared at each other without a
word, we were that tired and disgusted. To me, the only dashed crumb of
comfort in the whole business was the wonderful fact that Billings
seemed to have slept like a jolly Rip through the whole beastly row.
Very softly I opened his door again, so that the breeze flowed through
once more. Jenkins put out the lights, and I stood there listening, but
could hear no sound within the room, for the street below was already
heralding the clamor of the coming day.
Jenkins' whisper brushed my ear as I moved away:
"Sleeping like a baby, ain't he, sir?"