The Life of the Party Read online

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-p
earl 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