Jim and Harry were too much elated by their success with Paddy in the "squared circle" to ask for much else. In fact, they were slightly hilarious. The intoxication of victory, on top of their efforts to "kape the night out," was a bit too much for them. In passing along they tipped over a table by the door, sending a shower of play-bills on the floor, and when a stout fellow remonstrated, Jim promptly "crowned" his derby hat with a blow that sent it down to his chin.
In the lobby the big wooden statue of Terpsichore, standing in scant attire, with one foot lifted for the dance, caught Harry's eye. He whispered to Jim and Paddy, and before I could interfere, they had torn her from her fastenings, and "stood the old girl on her head." As the muse was being balanced in this undignified position in the corner, there suddenly arose a cry of "Police!" "Police!" in high-pitched and nasal tones from the ticket office. It was Paddy's "ancient enemy" who had discovered us, with his face close to the aperture, secure in the protection of the window. He called lustily, until a huge fist swung through the hole, and landed on the Roman nose with a dull, sickening thud. Silence followed Paddy's skilful blow, but the mischief was done, for there suddenly appeared through the door behind us a knock-kneed bobby, club in hand. Tom called "'Ware the cop!" and by giving the promptest kind of leg bail they just escaped him, bolting out the door, and across the Bowery, the crooked-legged copper close after.
Harry, who was leading, swung down a dimly lighted alley, Jim and Paddy following in order. The policeman, who apparently had little confidence in his ability to catch such nimble-footed gentry, stopped at the corner, and commenced a devil's tattoo with his night club on the pavement as a signal for some compatriot to head off the fugitives. Tom and I, who were close up, dashed by him without a word, resolved to stick to our friends, no matter what the cost. Tom was chuckling with delight, gave me a look over his shoulder, and set a killing pace, with the laudable ambition of running me off my feet, as well as distancing our pursuers. Chasing and being chased is one of the primitive pleasures of man, and I doubt if we ever quite outgrow it. We cut through the darkness, with the cool night air in our faces, sprinting over the slippery cobble-stones of the pavement as if in the finals of a "hundred." There was a mad pleasure in it all, and the listening for sounds of pursuit and the looking sharply ahead for threatening danger added a double zest. It reminded me of a night in old Lancashire, when with some schoolmates I had raided a farmer's orchard, and with the spoils under our jackets we had led him a cross-country run of a couple of miles, knowing that a good thrashing was close behind as the punishment for a stumble or a temporary shortness of breath.
We were gaining on the three dark forms ahead, for we could see them more and more plainly as they bobbed against the lights at the end of the street. Occasionally some one would yell at us from a window or doorway, but the pounding of the knock-kneed bobby was growing more and more faint, and we heard no footsteps at all behind us. We had almost reached Paddy, whose boxing efforts had told on his endurance, and I was just about to call to Jim and Harry, when suddenly there emerged from the darkness a herculean figure in brass buttons.
It floated into the middle of the alley, like the ghost of Hamlet's father, silent, huge, portentous. A long arm reached for Harry as he dodged to one side of the alley, and gathered the little fellow in, while Jim slid by on the other side. Paddy sprang to Harry's assistance, and got a blow with the flat of the hand that sent him in a heap on the pavement. Jim was about to mix in the fracas, but Tom and I, who knew better than to assail the majesty of the law, caught and held him. For a moment neither of us spoke, watching Harry's futile struggles. He was being held firmly, but gently, like a fractious child, and a voice of a richness that cast Paddy's brogue quite in the shade said soothingly, "Arrah there, be aisy. It's hurtin' yesel' ye are. Be aisy, or I'll pull ye in."
I was glad to hear the figure speak, for the silence was quite uncanny. Tom advanced in that conciliatory way of his when he feels that he has a delicate task before him, and was about to make his little appeal, with one hand on the roll of bills in his pocket, when Paddy, who had sat up at the sound of the voice, and was looking fixedly at Harry's captor, gave a howl of mingled surprise and joy, and exclaimed, "Begorry, Dinny, ye Connemara divil, let the lad go, or I'll break yer face."
At these words Harry stopped his struggles and Jim abandoned his efforts to break away from me. Tom stood with his mouth wide open, uncertain what to do, and I waited as if I was watching a play, and the dramatic climax was about to be sprung on me.
Paddy rose slowly and unsteadily to his feet; and the big policeman took him by the collar with his unoccupied hand, and led him to the light of a little window, where he studied his face a moment in silence. Gradually over the big copper's face there spread a grin of recognition, his brown mustache drawing up at the corners, despite his efforts to look severe.