cream of the jest--the very cream--to end the evening in combat with a
large blue policeman after having all you wanted in life break under you
suddenly like new ice.

He had been walking for a very long time. He ought to go to bed. He
had a hotel somewhere if he could only think where. The policeman might
know.

The policeman saw a young man with staring eyes coming toward him,
remarked "hophead" internally and played with his nightstick a little
more. The nearer Oliver came the larger and more unsympathetic the
policeman seemed to him. Still, if you couldn't remember what your hotel
was yourself it was only sensible to ask guidance on the question. His
mind reacted suddenly toward grotesqueness. One had to be very polite
to large policemen. The politeness should, naturally, increase as the
square of the policeman.

"I wonder if you could tell me where my hotel is, officer?" Oliver
began. "What hotel?" said the policeman uninterestedly. Oliver noticed
with an inane distinctness that he had started to swirl his nightstick
as a large blue cat might switch its tail. He wondered if it would be
tactful to ask him if he had ever been a drum major. Then he realized
that the policeman had asked him a question--courtesy demanded a prompt
response.

"What?" said Oliver.

"I said 'What hotel?'" The policeman was beginning to be annoyed.

Oliver started to think of his hotel. It was imbecile not to remember
the name of your own hotel--even when your own particular material and
immaterial cosmos had been telescoped like a toy train in the last three
hours. The Rossiter was all that he could think of.

"The Rossiter," he said firmly.

"No hotel Rossiter in _this_ town." The policeman's nightstick was
getting more and more irritated. "Rossiter's a lotta flats. You live
there?"

"No. I live in a hotel."

"Well, what hotel?"

"Oh, I tell you I don't remember," said Oliver vaguely. "A big one with
a lot of electric lights."

The policeman's face became suddenly very red.

"Well, you move on, buddy!" he said in a tone of hoarse displeasure.
"You move right on! You don't come around me with any of your funny
cracks--I know whatsa matter with you, all right, all right. I know
whatsa matter with you."

"So do I." Oliver was smiling a little now, the whole scene was so
arabesque. "I want to go to my hotel."

"You move on. You move on _quick_!" said the policeman vastly. "It's a
long walk down to the hoosegow and _I_ do