VI

"Here, here, here! Cut out the yellin'! D'you want the whole block up

out of their beds?" The voice of the personified law, gruff and

authoritative, broke in upon the clamour, and the majesty of the law,

typified in bulk, with galoshes, ear muffs and woollen gloves on, not to

mention the customary uniform of blue and brass, ploughed a path toward

the centre of the group.

"'S all right, Switzer," gaily replied a hoydenish lassie; she, the

same who had begged Mr. Leary for a sea-pearl souvenir. "But just see

wot Morrie Cassidy went and found here on the street!"

Patrolman Switzer looked then where she pointed, and could scarce

believe his eyes. In his case gleefulness took on a rumbling thunderous

form, which shook his being as with an ague and made him to beat himself

violently 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. "I

wouldn't a blamed you much if you'd fell down and had a fit." And then

he rocked on his heels, filled with joviality clear down to his rubber

soles. Anon, though, he remembered the responsibilities of his position.

"Still, at that, and even so," said he, sobering himself, "enough of a

good thing's enough." He glared accusingly, yea, condemningly, at the

unwitting cause of the quelled commotion.

"Say, what's the idea, you carousin' round Noo York City this hour of

the 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 the

idea, 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 am

being misjudged; I am the victim of circumstances over which I have no

control. You see, officer, I went last evening to a fancy-dress party

and----"

"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 he

went to sleep on the way and the taxicab stopped and I got out of it and

started 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 held

me up at the point of a revolver, and he took my overcoat and what money

I 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 this

one."

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

Patrolman Switzer spoke with enhanced severity; his professional honour

had been touched in a delicate place. The bare suggestion that a footpad

might dare operate in a district under his immediate personal

supervision would have been to him deeply repugnant, and here was this

weirdly 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 about

you. Your voice sounds to me like you've been drinkin' about a gallon of

mixed ale. I think you dreamed all this here pipe about a robber and a

pistol and an overcoat and a taxicab and all. Now you take a friendly

tip from me and you run along home as fast as ever you can, and you get

them delirious clothes off of you and then you get in bed and take a

good night's sleep and you'll feel better. Because if you don't it's

goin' to be necessary for me to run you in for a public nuisance. I

ain't askin' you--I'm tellin' you, now. If you don't want to be locked

up, start movin'--that's my last word to you."

The recent merrymakers, who had fallen silent the better to hear the

dialogue, grouped themselves expectantly, hoping and waiting for a yet

more exciting and humorous sequel to what had gone before--if such a

miracle might be possible. Nor were they to be disappointed. The

denouement came quickly upon the heels of the admonition.

For into Mr. Leary's reeling and distracted mind the warning had sent a

clarifying idea darting. Why hadn't he thought of a police station

before now? Perforce the person in charge at any police station would be

under requirement to shelter him. What even if he were locked up

temporarily? In a cell he would be safe from the slings and arrows of

outrageous ridicule; and surely among the functionaries in any station

house would be one who would know a gentleman in distress, however

startlingly the gentleman might be garbed. Surely, too, somebody--once

that somebody's amazement had abated--would he willing to do some

telephoning for him. Perhaps, even, a policeman off duty might be

induced to take his word for it that he was what he really was, and not

what he seemed to be, and loan him a change of clothing.

Hot upon the inspiration Mr. Leary decided on his course of action. He

would get himself safely and expeditiously removed from the hateful

company and the ribald comments of the Lawrence P. McGillicuddys and

their friends. He would get himself locked up--that was it. He would now

take 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 his

answer. "I'm not going home--and you can't make me go home, either." He

rejoiced inwardly to see how the portly shape of Switzer stiffened and

swelled at the taunt. "I'm a citizen and I have a right to go where I

please, dressed as I please, and you don't dare to stop me. I defy you

to arrest me!" Suddenly he put both his hands in Patrolman Switzer's

fleshy midriff and gave him a violent shove. An outraged grunt went up

from Switzer, a delighted whoop from the audience. Swept off his balance

by the prospect of fruition for his design the plotter had technically

been guilty before witnesses of a violent assault upon the person of an

officer in the sworn discharge of his duty.

He felt himself slung violently about. One mitted hand fixed itself in

Mr. Leary's collar yoke at the rear; the other closed upon a handful of

slack material in the lower breadth of Mr. Leary's principal habiliment

just below where his buttons left off.

"So you won't come, won't you? Well then I'll show you--you pink

strawberry drop!"

Enraged at having been flaunted before a jeering audience the patrolman

pushed his prisoner ten feet along the sidewalk, imparting to the

offender's movements an involuntary gliding gait, with backward jerks

between forward shoves; this method of propulsion being known in the

vernacular 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, cheered

the suggestion, seeing in it prospect of a prolonging of this delectable

sport which providence without charge had so graciously deigned to

provide.

"Never mind about the wagon. Us two'll walk, me and him," announced the

patrolman. "'Taint so far where we're goin', and the walk'll do this

fresh guy a little good--maybe'll sober him up. And never mind about any

of the rest of you taggin' along behind us neither. This is a pinch--not

a free street parade. Go on home now, the lot of youse, before you wake

up the whole Lower West Side."

Loath to be cheated out of the last act of a comedy so unique and so

rich the whimsical McGillicuddys and their chosen mates fell reluctantly

away, with yells and gibes and quips and farewell bursts of laughter.