The Life of the Party Page 3

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.

  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 veh
icle, 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