“Well, you move on, buddy!” he said in a tone of hoarse displeasure. “You move right on! You don't come around me with any of your funny cracks—I know whatsa matter with you, all right, all right. I know whatsa matter with you.”
“So do I.” Oliver was smiling a little now, the whole scene was so arabesque. “I want to go to my hotel.”
“You move on. You move on quick!” said the policeman vastly. “It's a long walk down to the hoosegow and I don't want to take you there.”
“I don't want to go there,” said Oliver. “But my hotel—”
“Quit arguin'”! said the policeman in a bark like a teased bulldog.
Oliver turned and walked two steps away. Then he turned again. After all why not? The important part of his life was over anyhow—and before the rest of it finished he might be able to tell one large policeman just what he thought of him.
“Why, you big blue boob,” he began abruptly with a sense of pleasant refreshment better than drink, “You great heaving purple ice wagon—” and then he was stopped abruptly for the policeman was taking the necessary breath away.
XVII
About which time Nancy had finished crying—raging at herself all the time, she hated to cry so—and was sitting up straight on the couch looking at the door which Oliver had shut as if by looking it very hard indeed she could make it turn into Oliver.