viality 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