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“Well, for the love of—- In the name of—- Did anywan ever see the likes of—-!”

He murmured the broken sentences as he circled about the form of the martyr. Completing the circuit, laughter of a particularly boisterous and concussive 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.

“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 himself 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 picture 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 thoroughly 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 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 combined volume of their glad, amazed outbursts might be heard for a distance of furlongs. On prankish impulse 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 moment 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 simulated sneeze from one of the revellers–one with a fine humorous flare for mimicry. And these comments 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!”

“Oh, you candy kid!”

“And say, git onto the cunnin’ elbow sleeves our little playmate’s sportin’.”