Irvin S. Cobb

“ 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. ”

“ A waggish young person in white beaded slippers and a green sport skirt broke free from the cavorting ring, and behind Mr. Leary's back the nimble fingers of the madcap tapped his spinal ornamentations as an instrumentalist taps the stops of an organ; and she chanted a familiar counting 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. "And he said his name was Algernon. Well, I believe the Algernon part—the big A. P. A."
"Oh, you Algy!" ”

“ Death by processes of congealment must carry an added sting if one had to die in a suit of pink rompers buttoning down the back. As though the thought of freezing had been a cue to Nature he noted a tickling in his nose and a chokiness in his throat, and somewhere in his system, a long way off, so to speak, he felt a sneeze forming and approaching the surface.
To add to his state of misery, if anything could add [Pg 28] to its distressing total, he was taking cold. When Mr. Leary took cold he took it thoroughly and throughout his system. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But a human being can stand just so many shocks in a given number of minutes—just so many and no more. Gently, slowly, the gartered legs gave way, bending outward, and as their owner collapsed down upon his side with the light of consciousness flickering in his eyes, his figure was half-turned to them, and they saw how that he was ornamentally but securely buttoned down the back with many large buttons and how that with a last futile fluttering effort of his relaxing hands he fumbled first at one and then at another of these buttons.
"Leary, what in thunder have you been doing? ”

“ As he entered the patch of darkness the shape of a man materialised out of the void and barred his way, and in that same fraction of a second something shiny and hard was thrust against Mr. Leary's daunted bosom, and in a low forceful rumble a voice commanded him as follows: "Put up your mitts—and keep 'em up!" ”

“ Blanche had brought his overcoat along and held it up for him, imparting to the service that small suggestion of a ceremonial rite which the members of her race invariably do display when handling a garment of richness of texture and indubitable cost. Mr. Leary let her help him into the coat and slipped largess into her hand, and as he stepped aboard the waiting elevator for the downward flight Mrs. Carroway's voice came fluting to him, once again repeating the flattering phrase: "You surely were the life of the party!" ”

“ Leary had bedreamed thus, but at this moment he realised how much more dread and distressing may be a dire actuality than a vision conjured up out of the mysteries of sleep.
One surprised by strangers in a nude or partially nude state may have any one of a dozen acceptable excuses for being so circumstanced. An earthquake may have caught one unawares, say; or inopportunely a bathroom door may have blown open. Once the first shock occasioned by the untoward appearance of the victim has passed away he is sure of sympathy. ”

“ Carroway's parties always were successes, but this one nearing its conclusion stood out notably from a long and unbroken Carrowayian record. It had been a children's party; that is to say, everybody came in costume with intent to represent children of any age between one year and a dozen years. But twelve years was the limit; positively nobody, either in dress or deportment, could be more than twelve years old. Mrs. Carroway had made this point explicit in sending out the invitations, and so it had been, down to the last hair ribbon and the last shoe buckle. ”

“ Leary was hot bent upon retreating to the only imaginable refuge left to him at this juncture—to wit, the interior of the stranded taxicab which he had abandoned but a short time previously.
IV
Nearly all of us at some time or other in our lives have dreamed awful dreams of being discovered in a public place with nothing at all upon our bodies, and have awakened, burning hot with the shame of an enormous and terrific embarrassment. ”

“ Moreover, years of practice have given her adeptness in accomplishing this achievement, so that to her it has become an everyday feat. But man has neither the experience to qualify him nor yet the bodily adaptability.
By reaching awkwardly up and over his shoulder Mr. Leary managed to tug the topmost button of his array of buttons out of its attendant buttonholes, but below and beyond that point he could not progress. ”

“ Leary that he must awaken the caretaker—who, he seemed dimly to recall as a remembrance of past visits to Bob Slack, was a woman; and this done he must induce the caretaker to admit him to the inside of the house. Once within the building the refugee promised himself he would bring the slumberous Slack to consciousness if he had to beat down that individual's door doing it. He centred his attack upon the bottom push button of all. ”

“ The transom gave under the strain, moving upward and inward upon its hinges, disclosing an oblong gap above the jamb. With a splendid wriggle the fugitive vaulted up, thrusting his person into the clear space thus provided. Balanced across the opening upon his stomach, half in and half out, for one moment he remained there, his legs kicking wildly as though for a purchase against something more solid than air. ”

“ It was a man who emerged from the hallway entrance; a stockily built man wearing his hat well over one ear and with his ulster opened and flung back exposing a broad chest to the wintry air. He was whistling a sprightly air.
Just as this individual came opposite the lumber pile the first dedicatory sneeze of a whole subsequent series of sneezes which had been burgeoning somewhere in the top of Mr. Leary's head, and which that [Pg 30] unhappy gentleman had been mechanically endeavouring to suppress, burst from captivity with a vast moist report. ”

“ No regular guy with the name of Leary would let a cheap stiff of a stick-up rob him out of the coat offen his back without puttin' up a battle. No regular guy named Leary would be named Algernon. Say, I think you're a Far Downer. ”

“ Leary's outer garbing was in the main conventional there were strikingly incongruous features of it too.
From his neck to his knees he correctly presented the aspect of a gentleman returning late from social diversions, caparisoned in a handsome fur-faced, fur-lined top coat. But his knees were entirely bare; so, too, were his legs down to about midway of the calves, where there ensued, as it were, a pair of white [Pg 20] silk socks, encircled by pink garters with large and ornate pink ribbon bows upon them. ”

“ At any rate he would be shielded for the moment from the life which might at any moment awaken in the still sleeping and apparently vacant neighbourhood. Finally, of course, there was the hope that the drunken cabman might be roused, and once roused might be capable, under promise of rich financial reward, of conveying Mr. Leary to his bachelor apartments in West Eighty-fifth Street before dawn came, with its early-bird milkmen and its before-day newspaper distributors and its others too numerous to mention. ”

“ Now any normal woman has the abnormal ability to do and then to undo a garment hitching behind. Nature, which so fashioned her elbows that she cannot throw a stone at a hen in the way in which a stone properly should be thrown at a hen, made suitable atonement for this articular oversight by endowing her joints with the facile knack of turning on exactly the right angle, with never danger of sprain or dislocation, for the subjugation of a back-latching frock. ”

“ Light stealing into this obscured and sheltered spot would have revealed that this garment was, as to texture, a heavy, silklike, sheeny, material; and as to colour a vivid and compelling pink—the exact colour of a slice of well-ripened watermelon; also that its sleeves ended elbow-high in an effect of broad turned-back cuffs; finally, that adown its owner's back it was snugly and adequately secured by means of a close-set succession of very large, very shiny white pearl buttons ”

“ Leary in a palpably forced and hollow effort, to show that he, too, could enter into the spirit of the occasion with heartiness. "Does strike one as rather unusual at first sight—doesn't it?"
"Why, you big hooman radish! Why, you strollin' sunset!" thus Mr. Cassidy responded. "Are you payin' an election bet three weeks after the election's over? Or is it that you're just a plain bedaddled ijiet? ”

“ And besides there were some people who needed a little sleep once in a while even if there were some other people who seemed to be able to go without any sleep; and finally, though patience was a virtue, enough of a good thing was enough and too much was surplusage. Such was the opinion of the tenants one flight down.
So the party was practically over. Mr. Algernon [Pg 14] Leary, of the firm of Leary & Slack, counsellors and attorneys at law, with offices at Number Thirty-two Broad Street, was among the very last to depart. Never had Mr. Leary spent a more pleasant evening. ”

“ Leary.
[Pg 56]
But already his plan had changed; the second speech down the stair well had caused him to change it. Safety first would be his motto from now on. Seeing that Mr. Edward Braydon apparently was likewise out late it would be wiser and infinitely more discreet on his part did he avoid further disturbing Mrs. Braydon, who presumably was alone and who might be easily frightened. So he would just slip on past the Braydon apartment, and in the hallway on the fourth floor he would cannily bide, awaiting the truant Slack's arrival. ”

“ 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 the bean."
"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 in the morning to pay you for your trouble——"
"Cut out de kiddin'," broke in the disgusted marauder. His tone changed slightly for the better. "Say, near as I kin tell by feelin' it, dat ain't such a bum benny you're sportin'. ”

“ But the reader and I, better informed than any lamp post could be as to the prior sequence of events, would know at a glance it was no parsnip we beheld, but Mr. Algernon Leary, now suddenly enveloped, through no fault of his own, in one of the most overpowering predicaments conceivable to involve a rising lawyer and a member of at least two good clubs ”

“ He's locked it, unless he's forgot to, which ain't likely, him bein' a careful man, and he must a-took the key with him. I know I ain't got it."
"But if you'll just let me inside the building that will be sufficient. I would much rather wait inside if only in the hall, than out here on the stoop in the cold." ”

“ 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 on down here quick and see Algy, the livin' peppermint lossenger, before he melts away with his own sweetness."
Obeying the summons with promptness a flight of the Lawrence P. McGillicuddy's, accompanied for the [Pg 36] most part by lady friends, cascaded down the stairs and erupted forth upon the sidewalk.
"Here y'are—right here!" clarioned Mr. Cassidy as the first skylarkish pair showed in the doorway. ”

“ You'll be a treat [Pg 45] to them, and it's few enough pleasures some of them gets——"
A new, a horrid doubt assailed Mr. Leary's sorely taxed being. He began to have a dread premonition that all was not going well and his brain whirled anew.
"But I prefer to be taken to the station house," he began.
"And who are you to be preferrin' anything at all?" countered Switzer. "I'll phone back to the station where I am and what I've done; though that part of it's no business of yours. I'll be doin' that after I've arrainged you over to Jefferson Market."
"Jeff—Jefferson Market!" ”

“ Carroway had told Mr. Leary this, and now as he bade her farewell she was saying it once more in practically the same words, when Mrs. Carroway's coloured maid, Blanche, touched him on the arm.
"'Scuse me, suh," apologised Blanche, "but the hall man downstairs he send up word jes' now by the elevator man 'at you'd best be comin' right on down now, suh, effen you expects to git a taxicab. He say to tell you they ain't but one taxicab left an' the driver of [Pg 16] 'at one's been waitin' fur hours an' he act like he might go way any minute now. 'At's whut the hall man send word, suh." ”