It lasted until the policeman on that beat called out the reserves to clear the street; and when these turned their attention to the cause of the disorder, a solitary gasoline torch, above the ballyhoo platform, shone on the deserted wreck of the “Alhambra” front. The boosters had made their escape by the back way. “Butts” had deserted his piano, and was sitting in the New England Kitchen greedily inhaling the smoke of a cigarette. The Beauties of the Harem were whispering together in their dressing-room; and one of them had an air of inward apprehension natural to a young woman who had swallowed her chewing gum.
Mrs. Simpson was in the back room, bathing her husband’s face. “Shine,” alone in the Hall of Mystic Marvels, dressed in his own trousers and a coat and cap that belonged to “Butts,” received the police with a battered grin.
“’S all right,” he said. “A gang o’ strong arms tried to rush the ticket office. I guess they got away with ev’rythin’ but this.” He showed a torn five-dollar bill. “The boss’s in the back.”
He pointed the way to them. When they came out again, with another version of the trouble, he had disappeared.
XXII
LATE that night he returned to the pierhouse of the Hudson limping, with his arm in a sling, his face bruised and an eye blackened. “Turk” Sturton, whose watch it was, received him without sympathy. “Cap’n wants to see yuh,” he said sternly. “Where’ve yuh been?”
“Shine’s” face expressed all the bitterness of a soul that had found no relief in its curses. “Wait!” he said. “Jus’ you wait!”
He went into Keighley’s office. The captain put aside a newspaper that he had been reading, and looked him over. “Well?”