THE LIFE OF 
 THE PARTY 
 
 OBB
 
 DltGO 
 
 presented to the 
 UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 SAN DIEGO 
 
 by 
 
 Mrs. Griff ing Bancroft
 
 The Life of the Party
 
 "ARE YOU PAYIN AN* ELECTION BET THREE WEEKS 
 AFTER THE ELECTION S OVER? OR IS IT THAT 
 YOU RE JEST A PLAIN BEDADDLED IJIET?"
 
 The Life of the Party 
 
 By 
 
 Irvin S. Cobb 
 
 Author of "Back Home," "Old Judge 
 Priest," etc., etc. 
 
 Illustrated By James M. Preston 
 
 New York 
 George H. Dor an Company
 
 Copyright, 1919, 
 By George H. Doran Company 
 
 Copyright, IQIQ, by the Curtis Publishing Company 
 Printed in the United States of America
 
 The Life of the Party 
 
 To 
 
 MISTRESS MAY WILSON PRESTON 
 
 A LADY OF GREAT DRAWING QUALITIES
 
 The Life of the Party 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 "Are you payin an election bet three weeks after the 
 election s over? Or is it that you re jest a plain 
 bedaddled ijiet?" Frontispiece 
 
 PAGE 
 "That s nice," spake the fearsome stranger. "Now 
 
 stay jest the way you are and don t make no 
 peep or I ll have to plug you wit this here gat" 24 
 
 Mr. Leary s gait became a desperate gallop, and as 
 he galloped he shouted: "Wait, please, here I 
 am. Here s your passenger" 32
 
 The Life of the Party 
 
 IT had been a successful party, most successful. Mrs. 
 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. And 
 between dances they had played at the games of child 
 hood, such as drop the handkerchief, and King Wil 
 liam was King James son and prisoner s base and the 
 rest of them. 
 
 The novelty of the notion had been a main con 
 tributory factor to its success; that, plus the fact that 
 nine healthy adults out of ten dearly love to put on 
 freakish garbings and go somewhere. To be exactly 
 truthful, the basic idea itself could hardly be called 
 new, since long before some gifted mind thought out 
 the scheme of giving children s parties for grown-ups, 
 but with her customary brilliancy Mrs. Carroway had 
 seized upon the issues of the day to serve her social 
 
 ii
 
 12 The Life of the Party 
 
 purposes, weaving timeliness and patriotism into the 
 fabric of her plan by making it a war party as well. 
 Each individual attending was under pledge to keep 
 a full and accurate tally of the moneys expended upon 
 his or her costume and upon arrival at the place of 
 festivities to deposit a like amount in a repository put 
 in a conspicuous spot to receive these contributions, 
 the entire sum to be handed over later to the guardians 
 of a military charity in which Mrs. Carroway was 
 active. 
 
 It was somehow felt that this fostered a worthy 
 spirit of wartime economy, since the donation of a 
 person who wore an expensive costume would be 
 relatively so much larger than the donation of one 
 who went in for the simpler things. Moreover, 
 books of thrift stamps were attached to the favours, 
 the same being children s toys of guaranteed Ameri 
 can manufacture. 
 
 In the matter of refreshments Mrs. Carroway had 
 been at pains to comply most scrupulously with the 
 existing rationing regulations. As the hostess her 
 self said more than once as she moved to and fro in 
 a flounced white frock having the exaggeratedly low 
 waistline of the sort of frock which frequently is 
 worn by a tot of tender age, with a wide blue sash 
 draped about her almost down at her knees, and with 
 fluffy skirts quite up to her knees, with her hair caught 
 up in a coquettish blue bow on the side of her head 
 and a diminutive fan tied fast to one of her wrists 
 with a blue ribbon so many of the ladies who had 
 attained to Mrs. Carroway s fairly well-ripened years 
 did go in for these extremely girlishly little-girly ef 
 fects as the hostess thus attired and moving hither
 
 The Life of the Party 13 
 
 and yon remark, "If Mr. Herbert Hoover himself 
 were here as one of my guests to-night I am just too 
 perfectly sure he could find absolutely nothing what 
 soever to object to!" 
 
 It would have required much stretching of that 
 elastic property, the human imagination, to conceive 
 of Mr. Herbert Hoover being there, whether in cos 
 tume or otherwise, but that was what Mrs. Carroway 
 said and repeated. Always those to whom she spoke 
 came right out and agreed with her. 
 
 Now it was getting along toward three-thirty 
 o clock of the morning after, and the party was break 
 ing up. Indeed for half an hour past, this person or 
 that had been saying it was time, really, to be think 
 ing about going thus voicing a conviction that had 
 formed at a much earlier hour in the minds of the 
 tenants of the floor below Mrs. Carroway s studio 
 apartment, which like all properly devised studio 
 apartments was at the top of the building. 
 
 It was all very well to be a true Bohemian, ready 
 to give and take, and if one lived down round Wash 
 ington Square one naturally made allowances for 
 one s neighbours and all that, but half past three 
 o clock in the morning was half past three o clock in 
 the morning, and there was no getting round that, 
 say what you would. 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 pa 
 tience 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
 
 14 The Life of the Party 
 
 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. 
 He had been in rare form, a variety of causes con 
 tributing to this happy state. To begin with, he had 
 danced nearly every dance with the lovely Miss Milly 
 Hollister, for whom he entertained the feelings which 
 a gentleman of ripened judgment, and one who was 
 rising rapidly in his profession, might properly enter 
 tain for an entirely charming young woman of re 
 puted means and undoubted social position. 
 
 A preposterous ass named Perkins at least, Mr. 
 Leary mentally indexed Perkins as a preposterous 
 ass had brought Miss Hollister to the party, but 
 thereafter in the scheme of things Perkins did not 
 count. He was a cipher. You could back him up 
 against a wall and take a rubber-tipped pencil and 
 rub him right out, as it were; and with regards to 
 Miss Hollister that, figuratively, was what Mr. Leary 
 had done to Mr. Perkins. Now on the other hand 
 Voris might have amounted to something as a po 
 tential rival, but Voris being newly appointed as a 
 police magistrate was prevented by press of official 
 duties from coming to the party; so Mr. Leary had 
 had a clear field, as the saying goes, and had made 
 the most of it, as the other saying goes. 
 
 Moreover, Mr. Leary had been the recipient of un 
 limited praise upon the ingenuity and the uniqueness 
 expressed in his costume. He had not represented a 
 Little Lord Fauntleroy or a Buster Brown or a Boy 
 Scout or a Juvenile Cadet or a Midshipmite or an 
 Oliver Twist. There had been three Boy Scouts
 
 The Life of the Party 15 
 
 present and four Buster Browns and of sailor-suited 
 persons there had been no end, really. But Mr. 
 Leary had chosen to appear as Himself at the Age of 
 Three; and, as the complimentary comment proved, 
 his get-up had reflected credit not alone upon its 
 wearer but upon its designer, Miss Rowena Skiff, 
 who drew fashion pictures for one of the women s 
 magazines. Out of the goodness of her heart and the 
 depths of her professional knowledge Miss Skiff had 
 gone to Mr. Leary s aid, supervising the preparation 
 of his wardrobe at a theatrical costumer s shop up 
 town and, on the evening before, coming to his 
 bachelor apartments, accompanied by her mother, per 
 sonally to add those small special refinements which 
 meant so much, as he now realised, in attaining the 
 desired result. 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Leary, I must tell you again how very- 
 fetching you do look! Your costume is adorable, 
 really it is; so so cute and everything. And I don t 
 know what I should have done without you to help 
 in the games and everything. There s no use denying 
 it, Mr. Leary you were the life of the party, abso 
 lutely!" 
 
 At least twice during the night Mrs. 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 ele 
 vator 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
 
 1 6 The Life of the Party 
 
 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." 
 
 Blanche had brought his overcoat along and held it 
 up for him, imparting to the service that small sug 
 gestion of a ceremonial rite which the members of 
 her race invariably do display when handling a gar 
 ment 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. Carro- 
 way s voice came fluting to him, once again repeating 
 the flattering phrase: "You surely were the life of 
 the party !" 
 
 ii 
 
 IT was fine to have been the life of the party. It was 
 not quite so fine to discover that the taxicab to which 
 he must entrust himself for the long ride up to West 
 Eighty-fifth Street was a most shabby-appearing 
 vehicle, the driver of which, moreover, as Mr. Leary 
 could divine even as he crossed the sidewalk, had wiled 
 away the tedium of waiting by indulgence in draughts 
 of something more potent than the chill air of latish 
 November. Mr. Leary peered doubtfully into the 
 illuminated countenance but dulled eyes of the driver 
 and caught a whiff of a breath alcoholically fragrant, 
 and he understood that the warning relayed to him 
 by Blanche had carried a subtle double meaning. Still, 
 there was no other taxicab to be had. The street 
 might have been a byway in old Pompeii for all the 
 life that moved within it. Washington Square, fac 
 ing him, was as empty as a graveyard generally is at
 
 The Life of the Party 17 
 
 this hour, and the semblance of a conventional grave 
 yard in wintertime was helped out by a light snow 
 the first of the season sifting down in large damp 
 flakes. 
 
 Twice and thrice he repeated the address, speak 
 ing each time sharply and distinctly, before the mean 
 ing seemed to filter into the befogged intellect of the 
 inebriate. On the third rendition the latter roused 
 from where he was slumped down. 
 
 "I garcia, Steve," he said thickly. "I garcia firs 
 time only y hollowed s loud I couldn* und stancher." 
 
 So saying he lurched into a semiupright posture 
 and fumbled for the wheel. Silently condemning the 
 curse of intemperance among the working classes of 
 a great city Mr. Leary boarded the cab and drew the 
 skirts of his overcoat down in an effort to cover his 
 knees. With a harsh grating of clutches and an 
 abrupt jerk the taxi started north. 
 
 Wobbling though he was upon his perch the driver 
 mechanically steered a reasonably straight course. 
 The passenger leaning back in the depths of the cab 
 confessed to himself he was a trifle weary and more 
 than a trifle sleepy. At thirty-seven one does not 
 dance and play children s games alternately for six 
 hours on a stretch without paying for the exertion in 
 a sensation of let-downness. His head slipped forward 
 on his chest. 
 
 in 
 
 WITH a drowsy uncertainty as to whether he ha3 
 been dozing for hours or only for a very few minutes 
 Mr. Leary opened his eyes and sat up. The car was 
 halted slantwise against a curbing; the chauffeur was
 
 1 8 The Life of the Party 
 
 jammed down again into a heap. Mr. Leary stepped 
 nimbly forth upon the pavement, feeling in his over 
 coat pocket for the fare; and then he realised he was 
 not in West Eighty-fifth Street at all; he was not 
 in any street that he remembered ever having seen 
 before in the course of his life. Offhand, though, he 
 guessed he was somewhere in that mystic maze of 
 brick and mortar known as Old Greenwich Village; 
 and, for a further guess, in that particular part of it 
 where business during these last few years had been 
 steadily encroaching upon the ancient residences of 
 long departed Knickerbocker families. 
 
 The street in which he stood, for a wonder in this 
 part of town, ran a fairly straight course. At its 
 western foot he could make out through the drifting 
 flakes where a squat structure suggestive of a North 
 River freight dock interrupted the sky line. In his 
 immediate vicinity the street was lined with tall bleak 
 fronts of jobbing houses, all dark and all shuttered. 
 Looking the other way, which would be eastward, he 
 could make out where these wholesale establishments 
 tailed off, to be succeeded by the lower shapes of 
 venerable dwellings adorned with the dormered win 
 dows and the hip roofs which distinguished a bygone 
 architectural period. Some distance off in this lat 
 ter direction the vista between the buildings was cut 
 across by the straddle-bug structure of one of the Ele 
 vated roads. All this Mr. Leary comprehended in a 
 quick glance about him, and then he turned on the 
 culprit cabman with rage in his heart. 
 
 "See here, you!" he snapped crossly, jerking the 
 other by the shoulder. "What do you mean by bring-
 
 The Life of the Party 19 
 
 ing me away off here! This isn t where I wanted to 
 go. Oh, wake up, you!" 
 
 Under his vigorous shaking the driver slid over 
 sideways until he threatened to decant himself out 
 upon Mr. Leary. His cap falling off exposed the 
 blank face of one who for the time being has gone 
 dead to the world and to all its carking cares, and the 
 only response he offered for his mishandling was a 
 deep and sincere snore. The man was hopelessly in 
 toxicated ; there was no question about it. More to re 
 lieve his own deep chagrin than for any logical reason 
 Mr. Leary shook him again; the net results were 
 a protesting semiconscious gargle and a further 
 careening slant of the sleeper s form. 
 
 Well, there was nothing else to do but walk. He 
 must make his way afoot until he came to Sixth 
 Avenue or on to Fifth, upon the chance of finding 
 in one of these two thoroughfares a ranging night- 
 hawk cab. As a last resort he could take the Subway 
 or the L north. This contingency, though, Mr. Leary 
 considered with feelings akin to actual repugnance. 
 He dreaded the prospect of ribald and derisive com 
 ments from chance fellow travellers upon a public 
 transportation line. For you should know that 
 though Mr. Leary s outer garbing was in the main con 
 ventional 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 ,
 
 2O The Life of the Party 
 
 silk socks, encircled by pink garters with large and 
 ornate pink ribbon bows upon them. His feet were 
 bestowed in low slippers with narrow buttoned straps 
 crossing the insteps. It was Miss Skiff, with her in 
 stinct for the verities, who had insisted upon bows for 
 the garters and straps for the slippers, these being 
 what she had called finishing touches. Likewise it 
 was due to that young lady s painstaking desire for 
 appropriateness and completeness of detail that Mr. 
 Leary at this moment wore upon his head a very 
 wide-brimmed, very floppy straw hat with two quaint 
 pink-ribbon streamers floating jauntily down between 
 his shoulders at the back. 
 
 For reasons which in view of this sartorial descrip 
 tion should be obvious, Mr. Leary hugged closely up 
 to the abutting house fronts when he left behind him 
 the marooned taxi with its comatose driver asleep 
 upon it, like one lone castaway upon a small island in 
 a sea of emptiness, and set his face eastward. Such 
 was the warmth of his annoyance he barely felt the 
 chill striking upon his exposed nether limbs or took 
 note of the big snowflakes melting damply upon his 
 thinly protected ankles. Then, too, almost imme 
 diately something befell which upset him still more. 
 
 He came to where a wooden marquee, projecting 
 over the entrance to a shipping room, made a black 
 strip along the feebly lighted pavement. As he en 
 tered the patch of darkness the shape of a man ma 
 terialised 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 yore mitts and keep em up!"
 
 The Life of the Party 21 
 
 Matching the action of his hands everything in Mr. 
 Leary seemed to start skyward simultaneously. His 
 hair on his scalp straightened, his breath came up from 
 his lungs in a gasp, his heart lodged in his throat, 
 and his blood quit his feet, leaving them practically 
 devoid of circulation and ascended and drummed in 
 his temples. He had a horrid, emptied feeling in his 
 diaphragm, too, as though the organs customarily resi 
 dent there had caught the contagion of the example 
 and gone north. 
 
 "That s nice," spake the fearsome stranger. "Now 
 stay jest the way you are and don t make no peep or 
 I ll have to plug you wit this here gat." 
 
 His right hand maintained the sinister pressure of 
 the weapon against the victim s deflated chest, while 
 his left dexterously explored the side pockets of Mr. 
 Leary s overcoat. Then the same left hand jerked 
 the frogged fastenings of the garment asunder and 
 went pawing swiftly over Mr. Leary s quivering per 
 son, seeking the pockets which would have been there 
 had Mr. Leary been wearing garments bearing the 
 regulation and ordained number of pockets. But the 
 exploring fingers merely slid along a smooth and un 
 broken frontal surface. 
 
 "Wot fell? Wot fell?" 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 with places in 
 them for a watch or anything. And you ve already 
 taken what money I had it was all in my overcoat 
 packet."
 
 22 The Life of the Party 
 
 "Yep; a pinch of chicken feed and wot felt like 
 about four one-bone bills." The highwayman s ac 
 cent 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 marau 
 der. 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 . I ll jest take dat along wit me. 
 Letcher arms down easy and hold em straight out 
 from yore sides while I gits it offen you. And no 
 funny business!" 
 
 "Oh, please, please, don t take my overcoat," im 
 plored 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 the garment from Mr. Leary s helpless 
 form and was backing away into the darkness. 
 
 Out of impenetrable gloom came his farewell 
 warning: "Stay right where you are for fi minutes 
 wit out movin or makin a yelp. If you wiggle be 
 fore de time is up I gotta pal right yere watchin you, 
 and he ll sure plug you. He ain t no easy-goin guy 
 like wot I am. You re gittin off lucky it s me stuck 
 you up, stidder him."
 
 The Life of the Partv 23 
 
 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 by which Mr. 
 Leary might hope to identify himself before a wary 
 and incredulous world for what he was. He was 
 gone, leaving there in the protecting ledge of shadow 
 the straw-hatted, socked-and-slippered, leg-gartered 
 figure of a plump being, clad otherwise in a single 
 vestment which began at the line of a becomingly low 
 neckband and terminated in blousy outbulging bifur 
 cations just above the naked knees. Light stealing 
 into this obscured and sheltered spot would have re 
 vealed 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; the 
 whole constituting an enlarged but exceedingly accu 
 rate copy of what, descriptively, is known to the manu- 
 factured-garment trade as a one-piece suit of child s 
 rompers, self-trimmed, fastening behind; suitable for 
 nursery, playground and seashore, especially recom 
 mended as summer wear for 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 the nearest street lamp did reveal 
 unto itself as its downward-slanting beams fell upon 
 a furtive, fugitive shape, suggestive in that deficient 
 subradiance of a vastly overgrown forked parsnip, 
 miraculously endowed with powers of locomotion and
 
 24 The Life of the Party 
 
 bound for somewhere in a hurry; excepting of course 
 no forked parsnip, however remarkable in other re 
 spects, would be wearing a floppy straw hat in a 
 snowstorm; nor is it likely it would be adorned 
 lengthwise in its rear with a highly decorative design 
 of broad, smooth, polished disks which, even in that 
 poor illumination, gleamed and twinkled and wiggled 
 snakily in and out of alignment, in accord with the 
 movements of their wearer s spinal column. 
 
 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 over 
 powering predicaments conceivable to involve a rising 
 lawyer and a member of at least two good clubs ; and 
 had we but been there to watch him, knowing, as 
 we would know, the developments leading up to this 
 present situation, we might have guessed what was 
 the truth : That Mr. Leary was hot bent upon re 
 treating 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 pre 
 viously. 
 
 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. Being no 
 student of the psychic phenomena of human slumber 
 I do not know whether this is a subconscious harking-
 
 "THAT S NICE," SPAKE THE FEARSOME STRANGER. "NOW STAY JEST 
 THE WAY YOU ARE AND DON T MAKE NO PEEP 
 OR I LL HAVE TO PLUG YOU WIT THIS HERE GAT"
 
 The Life of the Party 25 
 
 back to the days of our infancy or whether it is merely 
 a manifestation to prove the inadvisability of partak 
 ing of Welsh rabbits and lobster salads immediately 
 before retiring. More than once Mr. Leary had be- 
 dreamed thus, but at this moment he realised how 
 much more dread and distressing may be a dire actu 
 ality 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 inopportune 
 ly 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. 
 For him pity is promptly engendered and volunteer 
 aid is enlisted. 
 
 But Mr. Leary had a profound conviction that, re 
 vealed in this ghastly plight before the eyes of his 
 fellows, his case would be regarded differently; that 
 instead of commiseration there would be for him 
 only the derision which is so humiliating to a sensi 
 tive nature. He felt so undignified, so glaringly con 
 spicuous, so well, so scandalously immature. If 
 only it had been an orthodox costume party which 
 Mrs. Carroway had given, why, then he might have 
 gone as a Roman senator or as a private chief or an 
 Indian brave or a cavalier. In doublet or jack boots 
 or war bonnet, in a toga, even, he might have mas 
 tered the dilemma and carried off a dubious situation. 
 But to be adrift in an alien quarter of a great and 
 heartless city round four o clock in the morning, so 
 picturesquely and so unseasonably garbed, and in im-
 
 26 The Life of the Party 
 
 minent peril of detection, was a prospect calculated to 
 fill one with the frenzied delirium 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 toward the west. Ahead of him he 
 could detect the clumped outlines of the taxicab, and 
 at the sight of it he quickened to a trot. Once safely 
 within it he could take stock of things; could map 
 out a campaign of future action; could think up ways 
 and means of extricating himself from his present 
 lamentable case with the least possible risk of undesir 
 able publicity. 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 be 
 fore dawn came, with its early-bird milkmen and its 
 before-day newspaper distributors and its others too 
 numerous to mention. 
 
 Without warning of any sort the cab started off, 
 seemingly of its own volition. Mr. Leary s gait be 
 came a desperate gallop, and as he galloped he gave 
 voice in entreaty. 
 
 "Hey there!" he shouted. "Wait, please. Here 
 I am here s your passenger!" 
 
 His straw hat blew off, but this was no time to 
 stop for a straw hat. For a few rods he gained upon 
 the vehicle, then as its motion increased he lost ground 
 and ran a losing race. Its actions disclosed that a 
 conscious if an uncertain hand guided its destinies.
 
 The Life of the Party 27 
 
 Wabbling this way and that it wheeled skiddingly 
 round a corner. When Mr. Leary, rowelled on to yet 
 greater speed by the spurs of a mounting misery, like 
 wise turned the corner it was irrevocably remote, be 
 yond all prospect of being overtaken by anything hu 
 man pursuing it afoot. The swaying black bulk of it 
 diminished and was swallowed up in the snow shower 
 and the darkness. The rattle of mishandled gears 
 died to a thin metallic clanking, then to a purring 
 whisper, and then the whisper expired, dead silence 
 ensuing. 
 
 IN the void of this silence stood Mr. Leary, shivering 
 now in the reaction that had succeeded the nerve jar 
 of being robbed at a pistol s point, and lacking the 
 fervour of the chase to sustain him. For him the in 
 conceivable disaster was complete and utter; upon 
 him despair descended as a patent swatter upon a lone 
 housefly. Miles away from home, penniless and 
 friendless the two terms being practically synony 
 mous in New York what asylum was there for him 
 now? Suppose daylight found him abroad thus? Sup 
 pose he succumbed to exposure and was discovered 
 stiffly frozen in a doorway? 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
 
 28 The Life of the Party 
 
 to its distressing total, he was taking cold. When Mr. 
 Leary took cold he took it thoroughly and throughout 
 his system. Very soon, as he knew by past experi 
 ence, his voice would be hoarse and wheezy and his 
 nose and his eyes would run. But the sneeze was de 
 layed in transit, and Mr. Leary took advantage of the 
 respite to cast a glance about him. Perhaps the ex 
 pedient had surged suddenly into his brain perhaps 
 there might be a hotel or a lodging house of sorts 
 hereabouts? If so, such an establishment would have 
 a night clerk on duty, and despite the baggageless and 
 cashless state of the suppliant it was possible the night 
 clerk might be won, by compassion or by argument or 
 by both, to furnish Mr. Leary shelter until after 
 breakfast time, when over the telephone he could reach 
 friends and from these friends procure an outfit of 
 funds and suitable clothing. 
 
 In sight, though, there was no structure which by 
 its outward appearance disclosed itself as a place of en 
 tertainment for the casual wayfarer. Howsomever, 
 lights w r ere shining through the frosted panes of a 
 row of windows stretching across the top floor of a 
 building immediately at hand, and even as he made 
 this discovery Mr. .Leary was aware of the dimmed 
 sounds of revelry and of orchestral music up there, 
 and also of an illuminated canvas triangle stuck above 
 the hallway entrance of the particular building in 
 question, this device bearing a lettered inscription upon 
 it to advertise that here the members of the Law 
 rence P. McGillicuddy Literary Association and Pleas 
 ure Club were holding their Grand Annual Civic Ball ; 
 admission One Dollar, including Hat Check; Ladies 
 Free when accompanied by Gents. Evidently the
 
 The Life of the Party 29 
 
 Lawrence P. McGillicuddys kept even later hours at 
 their roisterings than the Bohemian sets in Washing 
 ton Square kept. 
 
 Observing these evidences of adjacent life and 
 merry-makings Mr. Leary cogitated. Did he dare in 
 trude upon the festivities aloft there? And if he did 
 so dare should he enter cavortingly, trippingly, with 
 intent to deceive the assembled company into the as 
 sumption that he had come to their gathering in cos 
 tume; or should he throw himself upon their charity 
 and making open confession of his predicament seek 
 to enlist the friendly offices of some kindly soul in 
 extricating him from it? 
 
 While he canvassed the two propositions tentatively 
 he heard the thud of footsteps descending the stairs 
 from the dance hall, and governed by an uncon 
 trollable impulse he leaped for concealment behind a 
 pile of building material that was stacked handily upon 
 the sidewalk almost at his elbow. He might possibly 
 have driven himself to face a multitude indoors, but 
 somehow could not, just naturally could not, in his 
 present apparel, face one stranger outdoors or at 
 least not until he had opportunity to appraise the 
 stranger. 
 
 It was a man who emerged from the hallway en 
 trance; a stockily built man wearing his hat well over 
 one ear and with his ulster opened and flung back ex 
 posing 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 some 
 where in the top of Mr. Leary s head, and which that
 
 30 The Life of the Party 
 
 unhappy gentleman had been mechanically endeavour 1 
 ing to suppress, burst from captivity with a vast moist 
 report. At the explosion the passer-by spun about and 
 his whistle expired in a snort of angered surprise as 
 the bared head of Mr. Leary appeared above the top 
 most board of the pile, and Mr. Leary s abashed face 
 looked into his. 
 
 "Say," he demanded, "wotcher meanin , hidin 
 there and snortin in a guy s ear?" 
 
 His manner was truculent; indeed, verged almost 
 upon the menacing. Evidently the shock had ad 
 versely affected his temper, to the point where he 
 might make personal issues out of unavoidable trifles. 
 Instinctively Mr. Leary felt that the situation which 
 had arisen called for diplomacy of the very highest 
 order. He cleared his throat before replying. 
 
 "Good evening," he began, in what he vainly under 
 took to make a casual tone of voice. "I beg your par 
 don the sneeze ahem occurred when I wasn t ex 
 pecting it. Ahem I wonder if you would do me a 
 favour?" 
 
 "I would not! Come snortin in a guy s ear that- 
 a-way and then askin him would he do you a favour: 
 You got a crust for fair!" Here, though, a natural 
 curiosity triumphed over the rising tides of indigna 
 tion. "Wot favour do you want, anyway?" he in 
 quired shortly. 
 
 "Would you would you I wonder if you would 
 be willing to sell me that overcoat you re wearing?" 
 
 "I would not!" 
 
 "You see, the fact of the matter is I happened to 
 be needing an overcoat very badly at the moment,"
 
 The Life of the Party 31 
 
 pressed Mr. Leary. "I was hoping that you might be 
 induced to name a price for yours." 
 
 "I would not! M. J. Cassidy wears M. J. Cassidy s 
 clothes, and nobody else wears em, believe me ! Wot s 
 happened to your own coat ?" 
 
 "I lost it I mean it was stolen." 
 
 "Stole?" 
 
 "Yes, a robber with a revolver held me up a few 
 minutes ago just over here in the next cross street and 
 he took my coat away." 
 
 "Huh ! Well, did you lose your hat the same way?" 
 
 "Yes that is to say, no. I lost my hat running." 
 
 "Oh, you run, hey? Well, you look to me like a 
 guy wot would run. Well, did he take your clothes, 
 too? Is that why you re squattin behind them tim 
 bers?" The inquisitive one took a step nearer. 
 
 "No oh, no ! I m still wearing my my the cos 
 tume I was wearing," answered Mr. Leary, appre 
 hensively wedging his way still farther back between 
 the stack of boards and the wall behind. "But you 
 see " 
 
 "Well then, barrin the fact that you ain t got no 
 hat, ain t you jest as well off without no overcoat now 
 as I d be if I fell for any hard-luck spiel from you 
 and let you have mine?" 
 
 "I wouldn t go so far as to say that exactly," ten 
 dered Mr. Leary ingratiatingly. "I m afraid my 
 clothing isn t as suitable for outdoor wear as yours 
 is. You see, I d been to a sort of social function and 
 on my way home it it happened." 
 
 "Oh, it did, did it? Well, anyway, I should worry 
 about you and your clothes," stated the other. He 
 took a step onward, then halted; and now the gleam
 
 32 The Life of the Party 
 
 of speculative gain was in his eye. "Say, if I was 
 willin to sell not say in I would be, but if I was 
 wot would you be willin to give for an overcoat like 
 this here one ?" 
 
 "Any price within reason any price you felt like 
 asking," said Mr. Leary, his hopes of deliverance re 
 kindling. 
 
 "Well, maybe I d take twenty-five dollars for it just 
 as it stands and no questions ast. How d that strike 
 you?" 
 
 "I ll take it. That seems a most reasonable figure." 
 
 "Well, fork over the twenty-five then, and the deal s 
 closed." 
 
 "I d have to send you the money to-morrow I 
 mean to-day. You see, the thief took all my cash 
 when he took my overcoat." 
 
 "Did, huh?" 
 
 "Yes, that s the present condition of things. Very 
 annoying, isn t it? But I ll take your address. I m 
 a lawyer in business in Broad Street, and as soon as I 
 reach my office I ll send the amount by messenger." 
 
 "Aw, to hell with you and your troubles! I might 
 a-knowed you was some new kind of a panhandler 
 when you come a-snortin in my ear that-a-way. Bet 
 ter beat it while the goin s good. You re in the wrong 
 neighbourhood to be springin such a gag as this one 
 you jest now sprang on me. Anyhow, I ve wasted 
 enough time on the likes of you." 
 
 He was ten feet away when Mr. Leary, his wits 
 sharpened by his extremity, clutched at the last 
 straw. 
 
 "One moment," he nervously begged. "Did I 
 understand you to say your name was Cassidy?"
 
 MR. LEAHY S GAIT BECAME A DESPERATE GALLOP, AND AS 
 HE GALLOPED HE SHOUTED: "WAIT, PLEASE. 
 HERE i AM HERE S YOUR PASSENGER!"
 
 The Life of the Party 33 
 
 "You did. Wot of it?" 
 
 "Well, curious coincidence and all that but my 
 name happens to be Leary. And I thought that be 
 cause of that you might " 
 
 The stranger broke in on him. "Your name hap 
 pens to be Leary, does it? Wot s your other name 
 then?" 
 
 "Algernon." 
 
 Stepping lightly on the balls of his feet Mr. Cassidy 
 turned back, and his mien for some reason was po 
 tentially that of a belligerent. 
 
 "Say," he declared threateningly, "you know wot I 
 think about you? Well, I think you re a liar. 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. I wouldn t be surprised but 
 wot you was an A. P. A. on the top of that. And 
 wot s all this here talk about goin to a sociable func- 
 ture and comin away not suitably dressed ? Come on 
 out of that now and let s have a look at you." 
 
 "Really, I d much rather not if you don t mind," 
 protested the miserable Mr. Leary. "I I have rea 
 sons." 
 
 "The same here. Will you come out from behind 
 there peaceable or will I fetch you out ?" 
 
 So Mr. Leary came, endeavouring while coming to 
 wear a manner combining an atmosphere of dignified 
 aloofness and a sentiment of frank indifference to the 
 opinion of this loutish busybody, with just a touch, 
 a mere trace, as it were, of nonchalance thrown in. 
 In short, coming out he sought to deport himself as
 
 34 The Life of the Party 
 
 though it were the properest thing in the world for 
 a man of years and discretion to be wearing a bright 
 pink one-piece article of apparel on a public highway 
 at four A. M. or thereabouts. Undoubtedly, consid 
 ering everything, it was the hardest individual 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 forth fully and comprehensively revealed by 
 the light of the adjacent transparency, Mr. Cassidy s 
 squint of suspicion widened into a pop-eyed stare of 
 temporary stupefaction. 
 
 "Well, for the love of In the name of Did 
 
 any wan ever see the likes of !" 
 
 He murmured the broken sentences as he circled 
 about the form of the martyr. Completing the cir 
 cuit, laughter of a particularly boisterous and con- 
 cussive 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 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? 
 Or wot 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 a person of moods, changeable and 
 tempersome.
 
 The Life of the Party 35 
 
 "Ain t you ashamed of yourself, and you a large, 
 grown man, to be skihootin round with them kind of 
 foolish duds on, and your own country at war this 
 minute for decency and democracy?" From this it 
 also was evident that Mr. Cassidy read the editorials in 
 the papers. "You should take shame to yourself that 
 you ain t in uniform instid of baby clothes." 
 
 It was the part of discretion, so Mr. Leary inwardly 
 decided, to ignore the fact that the interrogator him 
 self appeared to be well within the military 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 ll say this for you you make a pic 
 ture that d make a horse laugh." 
 
 Laughing like a horse, or as a horse would laugh 
 if a horse ever laughed, he rocked to and fro on his 
 heels. 
 
 "Sh-sh ; not so loud, please," importuned Mr. Leary, 
 casting an uneasy glance toward the lighted windows 
 above. "Somebody might hear you!" 
 
 "I hope somebody does hear me," gurgled the 
 temperamental Mr. Cassidy, now once more thorough 
 ly beset by his mirth. "I need somebody to help me 
 laugh. By cripes, I need a whole crowd to help me; 
 and I know a way to get 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 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
 
 36 The Life of the Party 
 
 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. 
 His manner was drolly that of a showman exhibiting 
 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 com 
 bined volume of their glad, amazed outbursts might 
 be heard for a distance of furlongs. On prankish im 
 pulse then they locked hands and with skippings and 
 prancings and impromptu jig steps they circled about 
 him; and he, had he sought to speak, could not well 
 have been heard; and, anyway, he was for the mo 
 ment past speech, because of being entirely engaged 
 in giving vent to one vehement sneeze after another. 
 And next, above the chorus of joyous whooping 
 might be heard individual comments, each shrieked 
 out shrilly and each punctuated by a sneeze from Mr. 
 Leary s convulsed frame; or lacking that by a simu 
 lated sneeze from one of the revellers one with a 
 fine humorous flare for mimicry. And these com 
 ments 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 !"
 
 The Life of the Party 37 
 
 "Oh, you candy kid!" 
 
 "And say, git onto the cunnin elbow sleeves our 
 little playmate s sportin ." 
 
 "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 t you? 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 answer came in a giggle, from a gay. 
 youthful creature of the opposite sex as she 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 s busy 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 skirt broke free from the cavort 
 ing ring, and behind Mr. Leary s back the nimble 
 fingers of the madcap tapped his spinal ornamenta 
 tions as an instrumentalist taps the stops of an organ ; 
 and she chanted a familiar counting game of child 
 hood : 
 
 "Rich man poor man beggar man thief 
 doctor loiryer " 
 
 "Sure, he said he was a loiryer." It was Mr. Cas- 
 sidy breaking in. "And he said his name was Alger 
 non. Well, I believe the Algernon part the big 
 A. P. A." 
 
 "Oh, you Algy!"
 
 38 The Life of the Party 
 
 "Algernon, does your mother know you re out?" 
 "T ree cheers for Algy, the walkin comic valen 
 tine!" 
 
 "Algy, Algy Oh, you cutey Algy!" These jolly 
 Greenwich Villagers were going to make a song of his 
 name. They did make a song of it, and it was a 
 frolicsome song and pitched to a rollicksome key. Con 
 genial newcomers arrived, pelting down from upstairs 
 whence they had been drawn by the happy rocketing 
 clamour; and they caught spirit and step and tune 
 with the rest and helped manfully to sing it. As one 
 poet hath said, "And now reigned high carnival." 
 And as another has so aptly phrased it, "There was 
 sound of revelry by night." And, as the second poet 
 once put it, or might have put it so if so be he didn t, 
 "And all went merry as a marriage bell." But when 
 we, adapting the line to our own descriptive usages, 
 now say all went merry we should save out one ex 
 ception one whose form alternately was racked by 
 hot flushes of a terrific self-consciousness and by hu 
 mid gusts of. an equally terrific sneezing fit. 
 
 VI 
 
 "HERE, here, here ! Cut out the yellin ! D you want 
 the whole block up out of their beds?" The voice 
 of the personified law, gruff and authoritative, broke 
 in upon the clamour, and the majesty of the law, typi 
 fied in bulk, with galoshes, ear muffs and woollen 
 gloves on, not to mention the customary uniform of 
 blue and brass, ploughed a path toward the centre of 
 the group. 
 
 " S all right, Switzer," gaily replied a hoydenish las-
 
 The Life of the Party 39 
 
 sie; she, the same who had begged Mr. Leary for a 
 sea-pearl souvenir. "But just see wot Morrie Cas- 
 sidy went and found here on the street !" 
 
 Patrolman Switzer looked then where she pointed, 
 and could scarce believe his eyes. In his case gleeful- 
 ness took on a rumbling thunderous form, which shook 
 his being as with an ague and made him to beat him 
 self violently upon his ribs. 
 
 "D ye blame us for carryin on, Switzer, when we 
 seen it ourselves?" 
 
 "I don t and that s a fact," Switzer confessed be 
 tween gurgles. "I wouldn t a blamed you much if 
 you d fell down and had a fit." And then he rocked 
 on his heels, filled with joviality clear down to his 
 rubber soles. Anon, though, he remembered the re 
 sponsibilities of his position. "Still, at that, and even 
 so," said he, sobering himself, "enough of a good 
 thing s enough." He glared accusingly, yea, con- 
 demningly, at the unwitting cause of the quelled com 
 motion. 
 
 "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, any 
 how?" 
 
 At this moment Mr. Leary having sneezed an un 
 countable number of times, regained the powers of 
 coherent utterance. 
 
 "It is not my fault," he said. "I assure you of that,
 
 40 The Life of the Party 
 
 officer. I am being misjudged; I am the victim of cir 
 cumstances 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 re 
 volver, 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 deli 
 cate place. The bare suggestion that a footpad might 
 dare operate in a district under his immediate per 
 sonal supervision would have been to him deeply re 
 pugnant, 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.
 
 The Life of the Party 41 
 
 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 you get in bed 
 and take a good night s sleep and you ll feel better. 
 Because if you don t it s goin to be necessary for me 
 to run you in for a public nuisance. I ain t askin you 
 I m tellin you, now. If you don t want to be locked 
 up, start movin that s my last word to you." 
 
 The recent merrymakers, who had fallen silent the 
 better to hear the dialogue, grouped themselves ex 
 pectantly, hoping and waiting for a yet more exciting 
 and humorous sequel to what had gone before if 
 such a miracle might be possible. Nor were they to 
 be disappointed. The denouement came quickly upon 
 the heels of the admonition. 
 
 For into Mr. 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? Per 
 force 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 ridi 
 cule; and surely among the functionaries in any sta 
 tion house would be one who would know a gentle 
 man in distress, however startlingly the gentleman 
 might be garbed. Surely, too, somebody once that 
 somebody s amazement had abated would be willing 
 to do some telephoning for him. Perhaps, even, a 
 policeman off duty might be induced to take his word 
 for it that he was what he really was, and not what 
 he seemed to be, and loan him a change of clothing.
 
 42 The Life of the Party 
 
 Hot upon the inspiration Mr. Leary decided on his 
 course of action. He would get himself safely and ex- 
 peditiously removed from the hateful company and the 
 ribald comments of the Lawrence P. McGillicuddys 
 and their friends. He would get himself locked up 
 that was it. He would now take 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 Pa 
 trolman 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 his answer. "I m not going home 
 and you can t make me go home, either." He re 
 joiced 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 Pa 
 trolman Switzer s fleshy midriff and gave him a violent 
 shove. An outraged grunt went up from Switzer, 
 a delighted whoop from the audience. Swept off his 
 balance by the prospect of fruition for his design the 
 plotter had technically been guilty before witnesses of 
 a violent assault upon the person of an officer in the 
 sworn discharge of his duty. 
 
 He felt himself slung violently about. One mitted 
 hand fixed itself in Mr. Leary s collar yoke at the rear; 
 the other closed upon a handful of slack material in 
 the lower breadth of Mr. Leary s principal habiliment 
 just below where his buttons left off. 
 
 "So you won t come, won t you? Well, then, I ll 
 show you you pink strawberry drop!"
 
 The Life of the Party 43 
 
 Enraged at having been flaunted before a jeering 
 audience the patrolman pushed his prisoner ten feet 
 along the sidewalk, imparting to the offender s move 
 ments an involuntary gliding gait, with backward jerks 
 between forward shoves; this method of propulsion 
 being known in the vernacular 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, cheered the sug 
 gestion, seeing in it prospect of a prolonging of this 
 delectable sport which providence without charge had 
 so graciously deigned to provide. 
 
 "Never mind about the wagon. Us two ll walk, me 
 and him," announced the patrolman. " Taint so far 
 where we re goin , and the walk ll do this fresh guy a 
 little good maybe ll sober him up. And never mind 
 about any of the rest of you taggin along behind us 
 neither. This is a pinch not a free street parade. Go 
 on home now, the lot of youse, before you wake up 
 the whole Lower West Side." 
 
 Loath to be cheated out of the last act of a comedy 
 so unique and so rich the whimsical McGillicuddys and 
 their chosen mates fell reluctantly away, with yells 
 and gibes and quips and farewell bursts of laughter. 
 
 VII 
 
 CLOSELY hyphenated together the deep blue figure 
 and the bright pink one rounded the corner and were 
 alone. It was time to open the overtures which would 
 establish Patrolman Switzer upon the basis of a better 
 understanding of things. Mr. Leary, craning his neck
 
 44 The Life of the Party 
 
 in order to look rearward into the face of his cus 
 todian, spoke in a key very different from the one he 
 had last employed. 
 
 "I really didn t intend, you know, to resist you, 
 officer. I had a private 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 people 
 away." 
 
 "Is that so ?" The inflection was grimly and heavily 
 sarcastic. 
 
 "Yes. I am a lawyer by profession, and generally 
 speaking I know what your duties are. I merely made 
 a show a pretence, as it were of resisting you, in 
 order to get away from that mob. It was ahem it 
 was a 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 souse or 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 desire most earnestly to go with you." 
 
 "You re havin your wish, ain t you? Well, then, 
 the both of us should oughter be satisfied." 
 
 "I feel sure," continued the wheedling and design 
 ing Mr. Leary, "that as soon as we reach the station 
 house I can make satisfactory atonement to you for 
 my behaviour just now and can explain everything to 
 your superiors 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
 
 The Life of the Party 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 
 arraingecl you over to Jefferson Market." 
 
 "Jeff Jefferson Market!" 
 
 "Sure, tis to Jefferson Market night court you re 
 headin this minute. Where else? They re settin late 
 over there to-night; the magistrate is expectin some 
 raids somewheres about daylight, I dope it. Anyhow, 
 they re open yet; I know that. So it ll be me and you 
 for Jefferson Market inside of five minutes; and I m 
 thinkin you ll get quite a reception." 
 
 Jefferson Market! Mr. Leary could picture the 
 rows upon rows of gloating eyes. He heard the in 
 credulous shout that would mark his entrance, the 
 swell of unholy glee from the benches that would in 
 terrupt the proceedings. He saw stretched upon the 
 front pages of the early editions of the afternoon yel 
 lows the glaring black-faced headlines : 
 
 WELL-KNOWN LAWYER 
 CLAD IN PINK ROMPERS 
 HALED TO NIGHT COURT
 
 46 The Life of the Party 
 
 He saw but Switzer s next remark sent a fresh 
 shudder of apprehension through him, caught all again, 
 as he was, in the coils of accursed circumstance. 
 
 "Magistrate Voris will be gettin sleepy what with 
 waitin for them raids to be pulled off, and I make 
 no doubt the sight of you will put him in a good hu 
 mour." 
 
 And Magistrate Voris was his rival for the favours 
 of Miss Milly Hollister! And Magistrate Voris was 
 a person with a deformed sense of humour! And 
 Magistrate Voris was sitting in judgment this mo 
 ment at Jefferson Market night court. And now des 
 peration, thrice compounded, rent the soul of the 
 trapped victim of his own misaimed subterfuge. 
 
 "I won t be taken to any night court!" he shouted, 
 wresting himself toward the edge of the sidewalk and 
 dragging his companion along with him. "I won t 
 go there! I demand to be taken to a station house. 
 I m a sick man and I require the services of a doctor." 
 
 "Startin to be rough-house all over again, huh? * 
 grunted Switzer vindictively. "Well, we ll see about 
 that part of it, too right now !" 
 
 Surrendering his lowermost clutch, the one in the 
 silken seat of the suit of his writhing prisoner, he 
 fumbled beneath the tails of his overcoat for the dis 
 ciplinary nippers that were in his righthand rear 
 trousers pocket. 
 
 With a convulsive twist of his body Mr. Leary 
 jerked himself free of the mittened grip upon his 
 neckband, and as, released, he gave a deerlike lunge 
 forward for liberty he caromed against a burdened 
 ash can upon the curbstone and sent it spinning back 
 ward; then recovering sprang onward and outward
 
 The Life of the Party 47 
 
 across the gutter in flight. In the same instant he 
 heard behind him a crash of metal and a solid thud, 
 heard a sound as of a scrambling solid body cast 
 abruptly prone, heard the name of Deity profaned, 
 and divined without looking back that the ash can, 
 conveniently rolling between the plump legs of the 
 personified Arm of the Law, had been Officer Switzer s 
 undoing, and might be his salvation. 
 
 VIII 
 
 WITH never a backward glance he ran on, not doub 
 ling as a hare before the beagle, but following a straight 
 course, like unto a hunted roebuck. He did not know 
 he could run so fast, and he could not have run so 
 fast any other time than this. Beyond was a crossing. 
 It was blind instinct that made him double round the 
 turn. And it was instinct, quickened and guided by 
 desperation, that made him dart like a rose-tinted 
 flash up the steps to the stoop of an old-fashioned resi 
 dence standing just beyond the corner, spring inside 
 the storm doors, draw them to behind him, and crouch 
 there, hidden, as pursuit went lumbering by. 
 
 Through a chink between the door halves he 
 watched breathlessly while Switzer, who moved with 
 a pronounced limp and rubbed his knees as he limped, 
 hobbled halfway up the block, slowed down, halted, 
 glared about him for sight or sign of the vanished 
 fugitive, and then misled by a false trail departed, 
 padding heavily with a galoshed tread, round the next 
 turn. 
 
 With his body still drawn well back within the 
 shadow line of the overhanging cornice Mr. Leary 
 coyly protruded his head and took visual inventory
 
 48 The Life of the Party 
 
 of the neighbourhood. So far as any plan whatsoever 
 had formed in the mind of our diffident adventurer 
 he meant to bide where he was for the moment. Here, 
 where he had shelter of a sort, he would recapture his 
 breath and reassemble his wits. Even so, the respite 
 from those elements which Mr. Leary dreaded most 
 of all publicity, observation, cruel jibes, the harsh 
 raucous laughter of the populace could be at best but 
 a woefully transient one. He was not resigned by 
 no means was he resigned to his fate; but he was 
 helpless. For what ailed him there was no conceivable 
 remedy. 
 
 Anon jocund day would stand tiptoe on something 
 or other; Greenwich Village would awaken and bestir 
 itself. Discovery would come, and forth he would be 
 drawn like a shy, unwilling periwinkle from its shell, 
 once more to play his abased and bashful role of free 
 entertainer to guffawing mixed audiences. For all 
 others in the great city there were havens and homes. 
 But for a poor, lorn, unguided vagrant, enmeshed 
 in the burlesque garnitures of a three-year-old male 
 child, what haven was there? By night the part had 
 been hard enough as the unresponsive heavens above 
 might have testified. By the stark unmerciful sun 
 light; by the rude, revealing glow of the impending 
 day how much more scandalous would it be ! 
 
 His haggard gaze swept this way and that, seeking 
 possible succour where reason told him there could be 
 no succour; and then as his vision pieced together 
 this outjutting architectural feature and that into a 
 coherent picture of his immediate surroundings he 
 knew where he was. The one bit of chancy luck in a 
 sequence of direful catastrophes had brought him here
 
 The Life of the Party 49 
 
 to this very spot. Why, this must be West Ninth 
 Street; it had to be, it was oh joy, it was! And Bob 
 Slack, his partner, lived in this identical block on this 
 same side of the street. 
 
 With his throat throbbing to the impulse of new 
 born hope he emerged completely from behind the 
 refuge of the storm doors, backed himself out and 
 down upon the top step, and by means of a dubious 
 illumination percolating through the fanlight above 
 the inner door he made out the figures upon the lintel. 
 This was such and such a number; therefore Bob 
 Slack s number must be the second number to the east 
 ward, at the next door but one. 
 
 IX 
 
 FIVE seconds later a fleet apparition of a prevalent 
 pinkish tone gave a ranging house cat the fright of its 
 life as former darted past latter to vault nimbly up the 
 stone steps of a certain weatherbeaten four-story-and- 
 basement domicile. Set in the door jamb here was a 
 vertical row of mail-slots, and likewise a vertical row 
 of electric push buttons; these objects attesting to the 
 fact that this house, once upon a time the home of a 
 single family, had eventually undergone the trans 
 formation which in lower New York befalls so many 
 of its kind, and had become a layer-like succession of 
 light-housekeeping apartments, one apartment to a 
 floor, and the caretaker in the basement. 
 
 Since Bob Slack s bachelor quarters were on the 
 topmost floor Bob Slack s push button would be the 
 next to the lowermost of the battery of buttons. A 
 chilled tremulous finger found that particular button 
 and pressed it long and hard, released it, pressed it
 
 50 The Life of the Party 
 
 again and yet again. And in the interval following 
 each period of pressing the finger s owner hearkened, 
 all ears,, for the answering click-click that would tell 
 him the sleeper having been roused by the ringing had 
 risen and pressed the master button that released the 
 mechanism of the street door s lock. 
 
 But no welcome clicking rewarded the expectant 
 ringer. Assuredly Bob Slack must be the soundest 
 sleeper in the known world. He who waited rang and 
 rang and rerang. There was no response. 
 
 Eventually conviction was forced upon Mr. 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 him 
 self he would bring the slumberous Slack to conscious 
 ness if he had to beat down that individual s door do 
 ing it. He centred his attack upon the bottom push 
 button of all. Directly, from almost beneath his feet, 
 came the sound of an areaway window being un 
 latched, and a drowsy female somewhat crossly in 
 quired to know who might be there and what might be 
 wanted. 
 
 "It s a gentleman calling on Mr. Slack," wheezed 
 Mr. Leary with his head over the balusters. He was 
 getting so very, very hoarse. "I ve been ringing his 
 bell, but I can t seem to get any answer." 
 
 "A gentleman at this time o night!" The tone 
 was purely incredulous. 
 
 "Yes; a close friend of Mr. Slack s," assured Mr. 
 Leary, striving to put stress of urgency into his ac 
 cents, and only succeeding in imparting an added
 
 The Life of the Party 51 
 
 hoarseness to his fast-failing vocal cords. "I m his 
 law partner, in fact. I must see him at once, please 
 it s very important, very pressing indeed." 
 "Well, you can t be seein him." 
 "C-can t see him? What do you mean?" 
 "I mean he ain t here, that s what. He s out. He s 
 went out for the night. He s ginerally always out on 
 Friday nights playin cards at his club, I think. And 
 sometimes he don t come in till it s near breakfast 
 time. If you re a friend of his I sh d think it d be 
 likely you d know that same." 
 
 "Oh, I do I do," assented Mr. Leary earnestly; 
 "only I had forgotten it. I ve had so many other things 
 on my mind. But surely he ll be coming in quite soon 
 now it s pretty late, you know." 
 
 "Don t I know that for myself without bein told?" 
 
 "Yes, quite so, of course; naturally so." Mr. Leary 
 
 was growing more and more nervous, and more and 
 
 more chilled, too. "But if you ll only be so very kind 
 
 as to let me in I ll wait for him in his apartment." 
 
 "Let you in without seein you or knowin what 
 your business is? I should guess not! Besides, you 
 couldn t be gettin inside his flat anyways. 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." 
 
 "No doubt, no doubt you would all of that." The 
 tone of the unseen female was drily suspicious. "But 
 is it likely I d be lettin a stranger into the place, that
 
 52 The Life of the Party 
 
 I never seen before, and ain t seen yet for that mat 
 ter, just on the strength of his own word? And him 
 comin unbeknownst, at this hour of the mornin ? A 
 fat chancet!" 
 
 "But surely, though, you must recall me Mr. 
 Leary, his partner. I ve been here before. I ve spoken 
 to you." 
 
 "That voice don t sound to me like no voice I ever 
 heard." 
 
 "I ve taken cold that s why it s altered." 
 
 "So? Then why don t you come down here where 
 I can have a look at you and make sure?" inquired 
 this careful chatelaine. 
 
 "I m leaning with my head over the rail of the steps 
 right above you," said Mr. Leary. "Can t you poke 
 your head out and see my face? I m quite sure you 
 would recall me then." 
 
 "With this here iron gratin acrost me window how 
 could I poke me head out? Besides, it s dark. Say, 
 mister, if you re on the level what s the matter with 
 you comin down here and not be standin there palav- 
 erin all the night?" 
 
 "I I well, you see, I d rather not come for just 
 a minute until I ve explained to you that that my 
 appearance may strike you as being a trifle unusual, in 
 fact, I might say, queer," pleaded Mr. Leary, seeking 
 by subtle methods of indirection to prepare her for 
 what must surely follow. 
 
 "Never mind explainin gimme a look !" The sus 
 picious tenseness in her voice increased. "I tell you 
 this ayther you come down here right this secont or 
 I shut the window and you can be off or you can 
 go to the divil or go anywheres you please for all
 
 The Life of the Party 53 
 
 of me, because I m an overworked woman and I need 
 me rest and I ve no more time to waste on you." 
 
 "Wait, please; I m coming immediately," called out 
 Mr. Leary. 
 
 He forced his legs to carry him down the steps and 
 reluctantly, yet briskly, he propelled his pink-hued 
 person toward the ray of light that streamed out 
 through the grated window-opening and fell across the 
 areaway. 
 
 "You mustn t judge by first appearances," he was 
 explaining with a false and transparent attempt at 
 matter-of-factness as he came into the zone of illumina 
 tion. "I m not what I seem, exactly. You see, I 
 
 "Mushiful Evans!" The exclamation was half 
 shrieked, half gasped out; and on the words the win 
 dow was slammed to, the light within flipped out, and 
 through the glass from within came a vehement warn 
 ing. 
 
 "Get away, you you lunatic ! Get away from here 
 now or I ll have the cops on you." 
 
 "But please, please listen," he entreated, with his 
 face close against the bars. "I assure you, madam, 
 that I can explain everything if you will only listen." 
 
 There was no mercy, no suggestion of relenting in 
 the threatening message that came back to him. 
 
 "If you ain t gone from here in ten seconts I ll ring 
 for the night watchman on the block, and I ll blow a 
 whistle for the police. I ve got me hand on the alarm 
 hook right now. Will you go or will I rouse the 
 whole block?" 
 
 "Pray be calm, madam, I ll go. In fact, I m going 
 now."
 
 54 The Life of the Party 
 
 He fell back out of the areaway. Fresh uproar at 
 this critical juncture would be doubly direful. It 
 would almost certainly bring the vengeful Switzer, 
 with his bruised shanks. It would inevitably bring 
 some one. 
 
 x 
 
 MR. LEARY retreated to the sidewalk, figuratively 
 casting from him the shards and potsherds of his re 
 awakened anticipations, now all so rudely shattered 
 again. He was doomed. It would inevitably be his 
 fate to cower in these cold and drafty purlieus until 
 
 No, it wouldn t either ! 
 
 Like a golden rift in a sable sky a brand-new ray of 
 cheer opened before him. Who were those married 
 friends of Slack s, who lived on the third floor 
 friends with whom once upon a time he and Slack 
 had shared a chafing-dish supper? What was the 
 name? Brady? No, Braydon. That was it Mr. 
 and Mrs. Edward Braydon. He would slip back again, 
 on noiseless feet, to the doorway where the bells were. 
 He would bide there until the startled caretaker had 
 gone back to her sleep, or at least to her bed. Then 
 he would play a solo on the Braydons bell until he 
 roused them. They would let him in, and beyond the 
 peradventure of a doubt, they would understand what 
 seemed to be beyond the ken of flighty and excitable 
 underlings. He would make them understand, once he 
 was in and once the first shock of beholding him had 
 abated within them. They were a kindly, hospitable 
 couple, the Braydons were. They would be only too 
 glad to give him shelter from the elements until Bob
 
 The Life of the Party 55 
 
 Slack returned from his session at bridge. He was 
 saved ! 
 
 Within the coping of the stoop he crouched and 
 waited waited for five long palpitating minutes which 
 seemed to him as hours. Then he applied an eager 
 and quivering finger to the Braydons button. Sweet 
 boon of vouchsafed mercy! Almost instantly the 
 latch clicked. And now in another instant Mr. Leary 
 was within solid walls, with the world and the weather 
 shut out behind him. 
 
 He stood a moment, palpitant with mute thanks 
 giving, in the hallway, which was made obscure rather 
 than bright by a tiny pinprick of gaslight ; and as thus 
 he stood, fortifying himself with resolution for the 
 embarrassing necessity of presenting himself, in all 
 his show of quaint frivolity, before these comparative 
 strangers, there came floating down the stair well to 
 him in a sharp half-whisper a woman s voice. 
 
 "Is that you?" it asked. 
 
 "Yes," answered Mr. Leary, truthfully. It was 
 indeed he, Algernon Leary, even though someone else 
 seemingly was expected. But the explanation could 
 wait until he was safely upstairs. Indeed, it must 
 wait. Attempted at a distance it would take on rather 
 a complicated aspect ; besides, the caretaker just below 
 might overhear, and by untoward interruptions com 
 plicate a position already sufficiently delicate and diffi 
 cult. 
 
 Down from above came the response, "All right 
 then. I ve been worried, you were so late coming 
 in, Edward. Please slip in quietly and take the front 
 room. I m going on back to bed." 
 
 "All right !" grunted Mr. Leary.
 
 56 The Life of the Party 
 
 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 ar 
 rival. 
 
 On tiptoe then, flight by flight, he ascended toward 
 the top of the house. He was noiselessly progressing 
 along the hallway of the third floor; he was about mid 
 way of it when under his tread a loose plank gave off 
 an agonized squeak, and, as involuntarily he crouched, 
 right at his side a door was flung open. 
 
 What the discomfited refugee saw, at a distance 
 from him to be measured by inches rather than by 
 feet, was the face of a woman; and not the face of 
 young Mrs. Edward Braydon, either, but the face of 
 a middle-aged lady with startled eyes widely staring, 
 with a mouth just dropping ajar as sudden horror re 
 laxed her jaw muscles, and with a head of grey hair 
 haloed about by a sort of nimbus effect of curl papers. 
 What the strange lady saw well, what the strange 
 lady saw may best perhaps be gauged by what she did, 
 and that was instantly to slam and bolt the door and 
 then to utter a succession of calliopelike shrieks, which 
 echoed through the house and which immediately were 
 answered back by a somewhat similar series of out 
 cries from the direction of the basement.
 
 The Life of the Party 57 
 
 XI 
 
 UP the one remaining flight of stairs darted the in 
 truder. He flung himself with all his weight and all 
 his force against Bob Slack s door. It wheezed from 
 the impact, but its stout oaken panels held fast. Who 
 says the impossible is really impossible? The accumu 
 lated testimony of the ages shows that given the emer 
 gency a man can do anything he just naturally has to 
 do. Neither by training nor by habit of life nor yet 
 by figure was Mr. Leary athletically inclined, but a 
 trained gymnast might well have envied the magnifi 
 cent agility with which he put a foot upon the door 
 knob and sprang upward, poising himself there upon 
 a slippered toe, with one set of fingers clutching fast 
 to the minute projections of the door frame while 
 with his free hand he thrust recklessly against the 
 transom. 
 
 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 re 
 mained there, his legs kicking wildly as though for a 
 purchase against something more solid than air. Then 
 convulsive desperation triumphed over physical limita 
 tions. There was a rending, tearing sound as of some 
 silken fabric being parted biaswise of its fibres, and 
 Mr. Leary s droll after sections vanished inside; and 
 practically coincidentally therewith, Mr. Leary 
 descended upon the rugged floor with a thump which 
 any other time would have stunned him into tempo-
 
 58 The Life of the Party 
 
 rary helplessness, but which now had the effect merely 
 of stimulating him onward to fresh exertion. 
 
 In a fever of activity he sprang up. Pawing a path 
 through the encompassing darkness, stumbling into 
 and over various sharp-cornered objects, barking his 
 limbs with contusions and knowing it not, he found 
 the door of the inner room Bob Slack s bedroom 
 and once within that sanctuary he, feeling along the 
 walls, discovered a push bulb and switched on the 
 electric lights. 
 
 What matter though the whole house grew clamor 
 ous now with a mounting and increasing tumult ? What 
 mattered it though he could hear more and more 
 startled voices commingled with the shattering shrieks 
 emanating from the Braydon apartment beneath his 
 feet? He, the hard-pressed and sore-beset and the 
 long-suffering, was at last beyond the sight of mortal 
 eyes. He was locked in, with two rooms and a bath 
 to himself, and he meant to maintain his present 
 refuge, meant to hold this fort against all comers, until 
 Bob Slack came home. He would barricade himself in 
 if need be. He would pile furniture against the doors. 
 If they took him at all it would be by direct assault 
 and overpowering numbers. 
 
 And while he withstood siege and awaited attack 
 he would rid himself of these unlucky caparisons that 
 had been his mortification and his undoing. When 
 they broke in on him if they did break in on him 
 he would be found wearing some of Bob Slack s 
 clothes. Better far to be mistaken for a burglar than 
 to be dragged forth lamentably yet fancifully attired 
 as Himself at the Age of Three. The one thing might 
 be explained and in time would be; but the other?
 
 The Life of the Party 59 
 
 He felt that he was near the breaking point; that he 
 could no more endure. 
 
 XII 
 
 HE stopped where he was, in the middle of the room, 
 with his eyes and his hands seeking for the seams of 
 the closing of his main garment. Then he remem-. 
 bered what in his stress he had forgotten the open 
 ing or perhaps one should say the closing was at the 
 back. He twisted his arms rearward, his fingers grop 
 ing along his spine. 
 
 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 disloca 
 tion, for the subjugation of a back-latching frock. 
 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 adapta 
 bility. 
 
 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. 
 He twisted and contorted his body; he stretched his 
 arms in their sockets until twin pangs of agony met 
 and crossed between his shoulder blades, and with his 
 two exploring hands he pulled and fumbled and pawed
 
 60 The Life of the Party 
 
 and wrenched and wrested, to make further headway 
 at his task. But the sewing-on had been done with 
 stout thread; the buttonholes were taut and snug and 
 well made. Those slippery flat surfaces amply re 
 sisted him. They eluded him ; defied him ; outmastered 
 him. Thanks be to, or curses be upon, the passionate 
 zeal of Miss Rowena Skiff for exactitudes, he, lack 
 ing the offices of an assistant undresser, was now as 
 definitely and finally inclosed in this distressful pink 
 garment as though it had been his own skin. Speedily 
 he recognised this fact in all its bitter and abominable 
 truth, but mechanically, he continued to wrestle with 
 the obdurate fastenings. 
 
 While he thus vainly contended, events in which he 
 directly was concerned were occurring beneath that 
 roof. From within his refuge he heard the sounds 
 of slamming doors, of hurrying footsteps, of excited 
 voices merging into a distracted chorus ; but above all 
 else, and from the rest, two of these voices stood out 
 by reason of their augmented shrillness, and Mr. Leary 
 marked them both, for since he had just heard them he 
 therefore might identify their respective unseen 
 owners. 
 
 "There s something there s somebody in the 
 house!" At the top of its register one voice was re 
 peating the warning over and over again, and judging 
 by direction this alarmist was shrieking her words 
 through a keyhole on the floor below him. "I saw it 
 him whatever it was. I opened my door to look 
 out in the hall and it he was right there. Oh, I could 
 have touched him! And then it ran and I didn t see 
 him any more and I slammed the door and began 
 screaming."
 
 The Life of the Party 611 
 
 "You seen what?" 
 
 The strident question seemed to come from far be 
 low, down in the depths of the house, where the care 
 taker abided. 
 
 "Whatever it was. I opened the door and he was 
 right in the hall there glaring at me. I could have 
 touched it. And then he ran and I " 
 
 "What was he like? I ast what was he like it s 
 that I m astin you!" The janitress was the one who 
 pressed for an answer. 
 
 For the moment the question, pointed though it 
 was, went unanswered. The main speaker shrieker, 
 rather was plainly a person with a mania for details, 
 and even in this emergency she intended, as now de 
 veloped, to present all the principal facts in the case, 
 and likewise all the incidental facts so far as these 
 fell within her scope of knowledge. 
 
 "I was awake," she clarioned through the keyhole, 
 speaking much faster than any one following this nar 
 rative can possibly hope to read the words. "I could 
 n t sleep. I never do sleep well when I m in a strange 
 house. And anyhow, I was all alone. My nephew by 
 marriage Mr. Edward Braydon, you know had 
 gone out with the gentleman who lives on the floor 
 above to play cards, and he said he was going to be 
 gone nearly all night, and my niece I m Mrs. Bray- 
 don s unmarried aunt from Poughkeepsie and I m 
 down here visiting them my niece was called to Long 
 Island yesterday by illness it s her sister who s ill 
 with something like the bronchitis. And he was gone 
 and so she was gone, and so here I was all alone and he 
 told me not to stay up for him, but I couldn t sleep well 
 I never can sleep in a strange house and just a few
 
 62 The Life of the Party 
 
 minutes ago I heard the bell ring and I supposed he 
 had forgotten to take his latchkey with him, and so I 
 got up to let him in. And I called down the stairs and 
 asked him if it was him and he answered back. But it 
 didn t sound like his voice. But I didn t think any 
 thing of that. But, of course, it was out of the ordi 
 nary for him to have a voice like that. But all the 
 same I went back to bed. But he didn t come in and I 
 was just getting up again to see what detained him 
 his voice really sounded so strange I thought then he 
 might have been taken sick or something. But just as 
 I got to the door a plank creaked and I opened the door 
 and there it was right where I could have touched him. 
 And then it ran and oh, what if " 
 
 "I m astin you once more what it was like?" 
 
 "How should I know except that " 
 
 "Was it a big, fat, wild, bare-headed, scary, awful- 
 lookin scoundroi dressed in some kind of funny pink 
 clothes?" 
 
 "Yes, that s it ! That s him he was all sort of pink. 
 Oh, did you see him too? Oh, is it a burglar?" 
 
 "Burglar nothin ! It s a ravin , rampagin lunatic 
 that s what it is !" 
 
 "Oh, my heavens, a lunatic !" 
 
 "Sure it is. He tried to git me to let him in 
 and " 
 
 "Oh, whatever shall we do !" 
 
 XIII 
 
 "HEY, what s all the excitement about?" 
 A new and deeper voice here broke into the babel, 
 and Mr. Leary recognising it at a distance, where he 
 stood listening but not failing, even while he listened,
 
 The Life of the Party 63 
 
 to strive unavailingly with his problem of buttons 
 knew he was saved. Knowing this he nevertheless re 
 treated still deeper into the inner room. The thought 
 of spectators in numbers remained very abhorrent to 
 him. So he did not hear all that happened next, except 
 in broken snatches. 
 
 He gathered though, from what he did hear, that 
 Bob Slack and Mr. Edward Braydon were coming up 
 the stairs, and that a third male whom they called Offi 
 cer was coming with them, and that the janitress was 
 coming likewise, and that divers lower-floor tenants 
 were joining in the march, and that as they came the 
 janitress was explaining to all and sundry how the 
 weird miscreant had sought to inveigle her into admit 
 ting him to Mr. Slack s rooms, and how she had re 
 fused, and how with maniacal craft or words to that 
 effect he had, nevertheless, managed to secure admit 
 tance to the house, and how he must still be in the 
 house. And through all her discourse there were ques 
 tions from this one or that, crossing its flow but in no 
 wise interrupting it ; and through it all percolated hoot- 
 ingly the terrorised outcries of Mr. Braydon s maiden_ 
 aunt-in-law, issuing through the keyhole of the door 
 behind which she cowered. Only now she was inter 
 jecting a new harassment into the already complicated 
 mystery by pleading that someone repair straightway to 
 her and render assistance, as she felt herself to be on 
 the verge of fainting dead away. 
 
 With searches into closets and close scrutiny of all 
 dark corners passed en route, the procession advanced 
 to the top floor, mainly guided in its oncoming by the 
 clew deduced from the circumstances of the mad in 
 truder having betrayed a desire to secure access to Mr.
 
 64 The Life of the Party 
 
 Slack s apartment, with the intention, as the caretaker 
 more than once suggested on her way up, of murdering 
 Mr. Slack in his bed. Before the ascent had been com 
 pleted she was quite certain this was the correct deduc 
 tion, and so continued to state with all the emphasis of 
 which she was capable. 
 
 "He couldn t possibly have got downstairs again," 
 somebody hazarded; "so he must be upstairs here still 
 must be right round here somewhere." 
 
 "Didn t I tell you he was lookin for Mr. Slack to lay 
 in wait for him and destroy the poor man in his bed?" 
 shrilled the caretaker. 
 
 "Watch carefully now, everybody. He might rush 
 out of some corner at us." 
 
 "Say, my transom s halfway open!" Mr. Bob Slack 
 exclaimed. "And, by Jove, there s a light shining 
 through it yonder from the bedroom. He s inside 
 we ve got him cornered, whoever he is." 
 
 Boldly Mr. Slack stepped forward and rapped hard 
 on the door. 
 
 "Better step on out peaceably," he called, "because 
 there s an officer here with us and we ve got you 
 trapped." 
 
 "It s me, Bob, it s me," came in a wheezy, plaintive 
 wail from somewhere well back in the apartment. 
 
 "Who s me?" demanded Mr. Slack, likewise forget 
 ting his grammar in the thrill of this culminating mo 
 ment. 
 
 "Algy Algernon Leary." 
 
 "Not with that voice, it isn t. But I ll know in a 
 minute who it is !" Mr. Slack reached pocketward for 
 his keys.
 
 The Life of the Party 65 
 
 "Better be careful. He might have a gun or some 
 thing on him." 
 
 "Nonsense!" retorted Mr. Slack, feeling very val 
 iant. "I m not afraid of any gun. But you ladies 
 might stand aside if you re frightened. All ready, offi 
 cer ? Now then !" 
 
 "Please come in by yourself, Bob. Don t don t let 
 anybody else come with you !" 
 
 XIV 
 
 IF he heard the faint and agonised appeal from with 
 in Mr. Slack chose not to heed it. He found the right 
 key on his key ring, applied it to the lock, turned the 
 bolt and shoved the door wide open, giving back then 
 in case of an attack. The front room was empty. Mr. 
 Slack crossed cautiously to the inner room and peered 
 across the threshold into it, Mr. Braydon and a grey- 
 coated private watchman and a procession of half-clad 
 figures following along after him. 
 
 Where was the mysterious intruder? Ah, there he 
 was, huddled up in a far corner alongside the bed as 
 though he sought to hide himself away from their glar 
 ing eyes. And at the sight of what he beheld Mr. Bob 
 Slack gave one great shocked snort of surprise, and 
 then one of recognition. 
 
 For all that the cowering wretch wore a quaint gar 
 ment of a bright and watermelonish hue, except where 
 it was streaked with transom dust and marked with 
 ash-can grit; for all that his head was bare, and his 
 knees, and a considerable section of his legs as well; 
 for all that he had white socks and low slippers, now 
 soaking wet, upon his feet ; for all his elbow sleeves and 
 his pink garters and his low neck; and finally for all
 
 66 The Life of the Party 
 
 that his face was now beginning, as they stared upon it, 
 to wear the blank wan look of one who is about to suc 
 cumb to a swoon of exhaustion induced by intense 
 physical exertion or by acutely prolonged mental strain 
 or by both together Mr. Bob Slack detected in this 
 fabulous oddity a resemblance to his associate in the 
 practice of law at Number Thirty-two Broad Street. 
 
 "In the name of heaven, Leary " he began. 
 
 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 ? And 
 where on earth have you been?" Mr. Slack shot the 
 questions forth as he sprang to his partner s side and 
 knelt alongside the slumped pink shape. 
 
 Languidly Mr. Leary opened one comatose eye. 
 Then he closed it again and the wraith of a smile 
 formed about his lips, and just as he went sound 
 asleep upon the floor Mr. Slack caught from Mr. Leary 
 the softly whispered words, "I ve been the life of the 
 party!"
 
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