“Hell!” cried Soapy. And while we blame him for the intemperate ejaculation, we must in fairness admit that the situation seemed to call for some such remark. He stood goggling, a chill like the stroke of an icy finger running down his spine.
“’Evening, sir,” said the policeman. “Mr. Shotter?”
Soapy’s breath returned.
“That’s me,” he said huskily. This thing, coming so soon after his unrehearsed impersonation of Hash Todhunter, made him feel the sort of dizzy feeling which a small-part actor must experience who has to open a play as Jervis, a footman, and then rush up to his dressing room, make a complete change and return five minutes later as Lord George Spelvin, one of Lady Hemmingway’s guests at The Towers.
The policeman fumbled in the recesses of his costume.
“Noo resident, sir, I think?”
“Yes.”
“Then you will doubtless be glad,” said the policeman, shutting his eyes and beginning to speak with great rapidity, as if he were giving evidence in court, “of the opportunity to support a charitibulorganization which is not only most deserving in itself but is connected with a body of men to ’oom you as a house-’older will be the first to admit that you owe the safety of your person and the tranquillity of your home—the police,” explained the officer, opening his eyes.
Mr. Molloy did not look on the force in quite this light, but he could not hurt the man’s feelings by saying so.
“This charitibulorganizationtowhichIallude,” resumed the constable, shutting his eyes again, “is the Policeman’s Orphanage, for which I have been told of—one of several others—to sell tickets for the annual concert of, to be ’eld at the Oddfellows ‘All in Ogilvy Street on the coming sixteenth prox. Tickets, which may be purchased in any quantity or number, consist of the five-shilling ticket, the half-crown ticket, the two-shilling ticket, the shilling ticket and the sixpenny ticket.” He opened his eyes. “May I have the pleasure of selling you and your good lady a couple of the five-shilling?”