"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 I stood there listening, but could hear no sound within the room, for the street below was already heralding the clamor of the coming day.