Craighill was silent for a moment, then he asked:
“How long was I gone this time, Joe?”
He addressed young Denny without condescension, in a tone of kindness that minimized the obvious differences between them.
“It was Wednesday night you broke loose, and this is Saturday all right.”
“I must have bumped some of the high places—my head feels like it. How about the newspapers?”
“Nothing doing! Walsh fixed that up all right. You see it was like this: you made a row on the steps of the Allequippa Club when I was trying to steer you home. I’d been waiting on the curb with a machine till about 1 A. M., and some of the gents followed you out of the Club and wanted you to come back and go to bed; and when a couple of cops came along, properly not seeing anything, and not letting on, you must up and jump on one of ’em and pound his head. Then the other cop broke into the fuss, and there was a good deal doing and I got you into the machine and slid for the Country Club and got a chauffeur’s bed in the garage and sat on you till you went to sleep.”
Wayne shrugged his shoulders.
“Was that all I did? It sounds pretty tame; I must be getting better—or worse.”
He drew a cigarette from his case and struck a match before he remembered a rule that forbade smoking in office hours; then he found a cigar and chewed it unlighted. Joe eyed the littered desk reflectively.
“Say, you’d better brush that off before the Colonel comes.”