"Do something and you'll damn quick find out! It's the police station."
"M-m-m-m! You wouldn't be likely to find out if you didn't, I suppose," he laughed, as he continued on his way.
During Sidney Wyeth's bachelor life on the Rosebud, he had been a victim of the habit of going to town, and loafing the night through, occasionally. There had, in the beginning, been a great deal of gambling there, and to watch this was an absorbing pastime. It served, also, as he then felt, as a diversion to break the monotony of his lonesome life.
Now there were places—if not gambling dens—in Attalia also, where one could loaf at night. When his correspondence was completed that evening, he felt a "Call of the Wild" in his blood, and went forth on a pilgrimage of this kind. In company with a chauffeur, he left for his room about one thirty A.M. the following morning. They had not, however, gone far before the clouds had gathered. They didn't see the clouds—at first—but the clouds saw them. They happened to be a pair of meddlesome bull-cops. It has been stated that the hour was about one thirty, but the cops said two. Moreover, they wished to know what business occasioned two young men to be out at such an hour.
Sidney felt slightly insulted, and stepped aside to let them by, thereby wishing to avoid any argument. The cops stepped aside also, but to see that they did not get too far out of the way. Said one—and he was the burliest—"Well, boys, where have you been?" "Where have we been?" said Wyeth, to himself. "Now wouldn't that frost you!" What business of these men was it? They had positively not been acting suspicious, nor were they seen fighting, and neither were they drunk. So, then, what right had two burley cops to get in the way, and ask such impertinent questions. Sidney felt like making an indignant reply, he felt like fighting; then he did some quick thinking, and decided to be patient, answering the questions in an offhand way, and so be on his way, for he felt sleepy. And then, again, he observed that they wore great big sticks, with which they toyed idly, as they waited for reply.
"Aw, knocking around." It was Wyeth who made this reply.
"Aw, knockin' 'roun'," said the big cop, who had now grown ugly in the sight of Wyeth, and he repeated this mockingly. And now spoke the chauffeur, who had grown up in those parts. He was diplomatic. Said he:
"I'm jes' gettin' off frum we'k, cap'n," and despite his look of truth and sincerity, he trembled perceptibly.
Sidney observed him with a touch of disgust.
"Is that so-o?" said the cop, more sneeringly now than ever. Sidney had enough, and started to go by, but the blue-coat blocked his way roughly, and cried out, with club grasped: "Where yu' been, nigger?"