The Life of the Party Read online

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. Thedenouement 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