cal uttered a roar and tried to get at me.

"You cold-blooded scoundrel!" he bellowed. "So this is why--"

But here a jab of the night stick took him in the side with a sound like
a blow on a punching bag. Words left the old man and he gasped
desperately for breath. O'Keefe tried to shake him.

"Did you get those pajamas in here?" he demanded fiercely, and he drew
back his stick as though for another jab. But the old geezer nodded
quickly, glaring at me and trying to wheeze something.

"That's enough," said the officer. He turned to me. "You recognize them,
do you, sir?"

"I--I think so," I stammered, looking at Jenkins, who nodded. "They
belong to a friend of mine who--a--must have left them here."

"I see." He fished out a note-book. "Mind giving me the name, sir? Just
a matter of form, you know--" He licked his pencil expectantly.

"Oh, I say, you know--" I gasped at Jenkins. "I don't think she--I--"

"Certainly not, sir," affirmed Jenkins, solemnly looking upward.

"She?" The note-book slowly closed, then with the pencil went back into
the officer's pocket. "Excuse _me_, sir. H'm!"

"H'm!" echoed Tim apologetically. Then they both glared at Foxy.

The old man just snarled at them. He was like a dog at bay.

"All right!" he hissed. "You just try to take them off--I'll kill
somebody, that's all. Think I'm going to make a spectacle of myself?"

Jenkins whispered to me.

"To be sure," I said aloud. "He might as well wear them now to the
station. Just so he returns them when he gets his clothes."

"Very good, sir," said O'Keefe, relieved. "We'll see he does that. Come
along now, Braxton--_shut_ up, I tell you!"

And with all four of them behind the charge, they managed to rush the
loudly protesting old man to the door.

"I _won't_ go without my clothes, I tell you," he raged.

But he did. Fighting, swearing and protesting, the jolly old vagabond
was roughly bundled into the elevator.

"Good night, sir," called O'Keefe as the four of them dropped downward.
"We'll let you know if it seems necessary to trouble you."

Once again inside, Jenkins and I just stared at each other without a
word, we were that tired and disgusted. To me, the only dashed crumb of
comfort in the whole business was the wonderful fact that Billings
seemed to have slept like a jolly Rip through the whole beastly row.

Very softly I opened his door again, so that the breeze flowed through
once more. Jenkins put out the lights, and