“Well, it’s this way, captain.”
“Nix on the promotion stuff,” shot back Phelan, the consciousness returning that he was being kidded. “I’m patrolman and me name is Michael Phelan, and I’m onto me job––mind that!”
“No offense, officer,” Gladwin hurried on. “I’m sure you’re onto your job. No one could look at you and doubt that––but I’ll give you five hundred dollars if you’ll lend me your uniform for awhile.”
“Fi––fi––uni––say, what kind of a game are youse up to?”
Two big events in Phelan’s life had blazed their films upon his memory in a blinding flash. First there was Rose, and then there was that nightmare of a Coroner’s case, when he had fled hatless and coatless down the stairs of a reeking east side tenement, pursued by the yells of a shrieking “corpse.”
“It’s no game––it’s a joke,” replied Gladwin.
Whitney Barnes, who had been listening eagerly and had sensed Gladwin’s inspiration, chimed in:
“Yes, officer; it’s a joke.”
“Yez are offering me five hundred dollars for a joke?” said the flabbergasted Phelan.