A Good Samaritan | Page 4

of getting Strong home. "Look here, Billy, this is tommy-rot.
You haven't any date with a girl, and if you had you couldn't keep it.
Come along home, man; that's the place for you."
But Billy was suddenly a Gibraltar of firmness. "Got date with lovely
blue-eyed girlie--couldn't dish'point her. Unmanly deed--Recky, d' you
want bes' fren' ev' had to do unmanly deed, and dish'point trustin'
female? Nev', Recky--nev', ol' man. Lesh be true to th' ladies till hell
runs dry--Oh, 'scuse me Recky--f'got you was parson--till well runs dry,
meant say. That all right? Come on t' Chris'pher Street." And in spite of
desperate attempts, of long argument and appeal on Rex's part, to
Christopher Street they went.

The ministering angel had no hankering to risk his charge in a street-car,
so, as the distance was not great, they walked.
Fairfax's dread was that, having saved his friend so far, he should
attract the attention of a policeman and be arrested. So he kept a sharp
lookout for bluecoats and passed them studiously on the other side.
What was his horror therefore, turning a corner, to turn squarely into
the majestic arm of the law, and what was his greater horror, to hear
Billy Strong suavely address him. Billy lifted his hat to the large, fat
officer as he might have lifted it to his sweetheart in her box at the
Horse Show.
"Would you have the g--goodness to tell me," he inquired, with
distinguished courtesy, "if this is"--Billy's articulation was improving,
but otherwise he was just as tipsy as ever--"if this is--Chris-to-pher
Street--or--or Wednesday?"
"Hey?" inquired the policeman, and stared. Repartee seemed not to be
his forte.
"Thank you--thank you very much"--Billy's gratitude spilled over
conventional limits--"very, very much--old rhinoceros," he finished,
and shot suddenly ahead, dragging Rex with him into the whirlpool of a
moving crowd, and it dawned on the policeman five minutes later that
the courtly gentleman was drunk.
[Illustration: "Thank you--thank you very much--very, very much--old
rhinoceros"]
The anxiety of this game was its unexpectedness. Strong, in the turn of
a hand grew playful, after the fashion of a mammoth kitten. He
bounded this way and that, knocking into somebody inevitably at every
leap, and at each contact he wheeled toward the injured and lifted his
hat and bowed low and brought out "I--beg--your--pardon" with a
drawl of sarcastic emphasis too insulting to be described.
"Billy," pleaded Rex, taking to pathos, "don't do that again. You'll get
arrested, and maybe they'll arrest me too, and you don't want to get me

into a hole, do you?"
Billy stopped short with a suddenness which came near to upsetting his
guide, and put both large hands on Rex's shoulders, and gazed into his
eyes with a world of blurred affection. "Reck, ol'fel'," and his voice
broke with a sob, "if I got you into hole, I'd jump in hole after you, and
I'd--and I'd--pull hole in after both of us, and then I'd--I'd tell hole you
was bes' fren' ev' had, and----"
"Come along and behave," cut in the victim of this devotion shortly.
"Don't be a fool."
Strong lifted a fatherly forefinger. "Naughty naughty! Shouldn' call
brother fool. Danger hell fire if you call brother fool. Nev' min',
Recky--we un'stand each other. Two fools. I'm go'n behave." He
knocked his derby in the back so it rested on his nose, stuck his chin up
to meet it, and started off in the most unmistakable semblance of a tipsy
man to be met anywhere. "See me behavin'?" he remarked sidewise,
with a gleam of rollicking deviltry out of his eyes.
Christopher Street ferry was reached safely by a miracle, and inside the
ferry-house Strong made a bee line for a truck and threw his great body
full length upon it with a loud yawn of joy. "So tired," he remarked.
"Go'n have good nap now," and he closed his eyes peacefully.
"See here, Billy, this won't do. You said you had to meet a girl--what
about that?"
[Illustration: "So tired" he remarked. "Go'n have good nap now"]
"Oh, tha's all right," Billy agreed easily. "You meet girl--tell her you
got me drunk," and he turned over and prepared for slumber. Strenuous
argument was necessary to rouse him even to half a sense of
responsibility. "Recky, dear, you--'noy me," he said with severity,
coming to a sitting position and contemplating Rex with mild
displeasure. "What kin' girl? Why, jes' girly-girl. Lovely blue-eyed
girly-girl--kind of girl--colored hair,"--he swept his hand descriptively
over his own black locks. "Wears sort of--skirts, you know--you

'member the kind. All of 'em same thing--well, she wears 'em too. Tha's
all," and he dropped heavily back to the truck and retired into his coat
collar.
Rex shook him. "That won't do, Billy. I can't pick out a