But, in attaching himself to the lamp-post, he had detached himself from the critical right of the phalanx, which now floundered dismally and then incontinently disintegrated. The officer of the peace secured Ravant and Gast and anchored them to McGill—and “Annie Laurie” went terribly on.
It would have been hard enough to endure if it had not been mixed with liquors. But since it was so mixed it was not wonderful that anathema was belched at them from the windows of that halcyon neighborhood, and that they were then slammed violently shut.
But they were hardly prepared for a gun-shot in their direction.
“That’s right,” complained McGill; “if you can’t reform ’em, shoot ’em!”
“Mac, that man’s a pil-os-per,” argued Gast. “For, lo! these many years the sover-eign people have sought a cure for the drink evil. Well, he has found it. Shoot ’em. Eh, Ravey?”
Ravant said nothing. And now they awoke to the understanding that he had grown heavy between them.
A cab passed. The driver, an experienced nighthawker, drew up to them.
“Right this time,” said Gast. “This jag is going home imperially in a cab. It’ll be about all I’ll be able to do to walk my own to my happy home.”
The officer assisted in getting Ravant into the cab.
But suddenly his manner changed to savagery. They were under the direct light of the corner electric.