"Two-thirty," said Respectability brusquely over his shoulder.

The man behind him growled affirmation: "Two-thirty--don't worry: I'll be on the job."

"And take care of that boy."

"Grab it from me, boss, when he wakes up, he won't know where he's been."

"Good-night, then," said Respectability grudgingly.

"G'd-night."

The door closed, and with an ineradicable manner of weight and consequence Respectability turned toward the waiting taxicab: a man of, say, well-preserved sixty, with a blowsy plump face and fat white side-whiskers, a fleshy nose and arrogant eyes, a double chin and a heavy paunch; one who, in brief, had no business in that galley at that or any other hour of day or night, and who knew it and knew that others (worse luck!) would know it at sight.

All this P. Sybarite comprehended in a glance and, comprehending, bristled like a truculent game-c.o.c.k or the faithful hound in the ghost-story. The aspect of Respectability seemed to have upon him the effect of a violent irritant; his eyes took on a hot, hard look, his lips narrowed to a thin, inflexible crease, and his hands unconsciously closed.

And as Respectability strode across the sidewalk, obviously intending to bury himself in the body of his waiting cab as quickly as possible, P. Sybarite--with the impudence of a tug blocking the fairway for an ocean liner--stepped in his path, dropped a shoulder, and planted both feet firmly.

Immediately the two came together; the shoulder of P. Sybarite in the paunch of Respectability, evoking a deep grunt of choleric surprise and bringing the gentleman to an abrupt standstill.

Upon this, P. Sybarite's mouth relaxed; he smiled faintly, almost placatingly.

"Well, old top!" he cried with malicious cordiality. "Who'd think to meet _you_ here! What's the matter? Has high finance turned too risky for your stomach? Or are you dabbling in low-life for the sheer fun of it--to t.i.tillate your jaded senses?"

Respectability's cheeks puffed out like red toy balloons; so likewise his chest.

"Sir!" he snorted--"you are drunk!"

"Sir!" retorted P. Sybarite, none too meekly--"you lie."

The ebony-and-gold cane of Respectability quivered in mid-air.

"Out of my way!"

"Put down that cane, Mr. Brian Shaynon," said P. Sybarite peaceably, "unless you want me to play horse with you in a way to let all New York know how you spend the wee sma' hours!"

At the mention of his name Respectability stiffened in dismay.

"d.a.m.nation!" he cried hoa.r.s.ely. "Who are you?"

"Why, have you forgotten me? Careless of you, Mr. Shaynon. I'm the little guy that put the speck in Respectability: I'm the noisy little skeleton in the cupboard of your conscience. Don't you know me now?"

With a gasp (prudently lowering his stick) Mr. Shaynon bent to peer into the face exposed as P. Sybarite pushed back his hat; stared an instant, goggling; wheeled about, and flung heavily toward his taxicab.

"The Bizarre!" wheezed he to the chauffeur; and dodging in, banged the door.

As for P. Sybarite, he watched the vehicle swing away and round the corner of Seventh Avenue, a doubtful glimmer in eyes that had burned hot with hostility, a slight ironic smile wreathing lips that had shown hatred.

"But what's the good of that?" he said in self-disgust, as the taxicab disappeared.

With a sigh, shaking himself together, he went into Dutch House.

XIV

WHERE ANGELS FEAR TO TREAD

From street door to restaurant entrance, the hallway of Dutch House was some twenty-five feet long, floored with grimy linoleum in imitation of tiling, greasy as to its walls and ceiling, and boasting an atmosphere rank with a reek compounded of a dozen elements, in their number alcohol, cheap perfumery, cooked meats, the sweat of unclean humanity, and stale tobacco smoke.

Save for this unsavoury composite wraith, the hall was empty when P.

Sybarite entered it. But it echoed with sounds of rowdy revelry from the room in back: mechanical clatter of galled and spavined piano, despondent growling of a broken-winded 'cello, nervous giggling and moaning of an excoriated violin--the three wringing from the score of _O You Beautiful Doll_ an entirely adequate accompaniment to the perfunctory performance of a husky contralto.

Though by no means squeamish, on the testimony of his nose and ears P.

Sybarite then and there concluded that he would have to have become exceedingly blase indeed to find Dutch House amusing.

And when he had gone on into the restaurant itself, slipping his modest person inconspicuously into a chair at the nearest unoccupied table, the testimony of his other senses as to the character of his company served to confirm this impression.

"It's no use," he sighed: "I'm too old a dog.... Be it ever so typical, there's _no_ place like one's own hash-foundry." ...

This room was broad and deep, and boasted, at its far end, a miniature stage supporting the orchestra and, temporarily, the gyrations of a lady in a vivacious scarlet costume--mistress of the shopworn contralto--who was "vamping with the feet" the interval between two verses of her ballad.

The main floor was strewn with tables round which sat a motley gathering of gangsters, fools, pretty iniquities and others by no stretch of the imagination to be termed pretty, confidence men, gambling touts, and the sprinkling of drunkards--plain, common, transient, periodical, suburban, habitual, and unconscious--for and by whom the place was, and is, maintained. In and out among these circulated several able-bodied waiters with soiled shirt-bosoms, iron jaws and, not infrequently, cauliflower ears.

Spying out P. Sybarite, one of these bore down upon him with an air of the most flattering camaraderie.

It was true that the little man, in a dark coat and hat alike too large for him, with his shabby shoes and trousers and apologetic demeanour, promised no very profitable plucking; but the rule of Dutch House is to neglect none, however lowly.

"Well, bo'," grunted the waiter cheerfully, polishing off the top of the table with a saturated towel, "yuh don't come round's often as y'

uster."

"That's a fact," P. Sybarite agreed. "I've been a long time away--haven't I?"

"Yuh said somethin' _then_. Mus' be months sinst I seen yuh last.

What's the trouble? Y' ain't soured on the old joint, huh?"

"No," P. Sybarite apologised. "I've been--away. Where's Red?"

"MacMa.n.u.s--?" asked the waiter, beginning to believe that this strange little creature must in fact be a "regular" of the "bunch"--one whose name and face had somehow, unaccountably, slipped from his memory.

"November," P. Sybarite corrected.

"Oh, he's stickin' round--pretty busy to-night. Wouldn't fuss him, 'f I was yuh, 'less it's somethin' extra."

"I make you," said the little man. "But this is his business. Tell him I have a message for him, will you?"

"Just as yuh say, bo'," returned the other cautiously. "What's it goin' to be? Bucket of grape or a tub of suds?"