He had to pause and pump air, he was so winded.
"Jove!" I said absently. Fact is, I was getting jolly tired standing so long—never had stood so long that I could remember. Wondered if the housekeeper wasn't getting tired, too, wherever she was watching from! Better give her a few minutes more, though; so I shifted to the other leg, but yawned comfortably and openly. As for Jenkins, he had just frozen up like a jolly image, his eyes getting filmier and duller as O'Keefe proceeded, his chin gradually working higher and his mouth corners lower, until now they almost pointed to the ground. He was impressive and devilish correct, but somehow the whole dashed thing seemed lost on O'Keefe.
He even asked Jenkins for a match—but of course received no attention. "Gone off in a trance!" he said to me, with a vulgar jerk of his fat thumb. And then he touched Jenkins with his stick—fact; touched him!—and winked!
"But it woulder tickled you," he resumed, using one of the vestas I extended and puffing the cigar until it almost flamed, "if you coulder seen the grand-stand play this guy put up before the sergeant! But the old man just let him blow it all off; just sat there calm behind the desk, chewing away and jabbing a pen through the blotter, while this stiff fumed and spouted—oh, something scandalous—bringing in the names of mighty near all the important people in New York; his friends, he said! Oh, yes, he mentioned you in particular, sir!"—and his face expanded in a relishing grin.
"Dashed impudence!" I murmured feebly.
"Oh, yes," carelessly, "but the sarge quieted him—just purty near soothed him to sleep before he got through, you know—it's one of his ways!"—his glance lifted solemnly.
"Fine, you know!" I murmured admiringly. I reflected approvingly upon what a dashed good thing it was to have a man in that position—whatever it was—who was of such a devilish mild and gentle temperament: the quiet word—the soft answer—the kindly remonstrance—all that sort of thing, you know.
"We're a leetle crowded now," the big cop pursued, reflectively gouging into the mortar with the long blade of his knife, "and we had to put him in the cell with a gorilla what's always wandering back to the jungle for too much strong-arm work—maybe you read about him? He scragged a whole family th' other night and threw 'em down the fire-escape."
"Oh!" I said uneasily. "But isn't he—er—rather dangerous?"
"Naw!" A careless but vigorous head shake. "Only in his sleep, you know—it's his dreams leads him off—or unless some one touches or crowds him; then he gets peevish and—oh, well he might, of course—" Mr. O'Keefe's expressive shrug finished out the idea. But I wouldn't have heard it anyhow, I was in such a yawn.