At this moment Mr. Leary having sneezed an uncountable number of times, regained the powers of coherent utterance.
"It is not my fault," he said. "I assure you of that, officer. I am being misjudged; I am the victim of circumstances over which I have no control. You see, officer, I went last evening to a fancy-dress party and——"
"Well, then, why didn't you go on home afterwards and behave yourself?"
"I did—I started, in a taxicab. But the taxicab driver was drunk and he went to sleep on the way and the taxicab stopped and I got out of it and started to walk across town looking for another taxicab and——"
"Started walkin', dressed like that?"
"Certainly not. I had an overcoat on, of course. But a highwayman held me up at the point of a revolver, and he took my overcoat and what money I had and my card case and——"
"Where did all this here happen—this here alleged robbery?"
"Not two blocks away from here, right over in the next street to this one."
"I don't believe nothin' of the kind!"
Patrolman Switzer spoke with enhanced severity; his professional honour had been touched in a delicate place. The bare suggestion that a footpad might dare operate in a district under his immediate personal supervision would have been to him deeply repugnant, and here was this weirdly attired wanderer making the charge direct.