couldn't ride a horse. The inventive cells of his usually fertile
brain lay passive. "Now," went on the officer, mounting his own nag,
"will ye go quietly? If ye don't I'll plug ye in th' leg with a chunk
o' lead. I won't stan' no nonsense."

"What are you going to do with me?" asked Warburton, with a desperate
effort to collect his energies.

"Lock ye up; mebbe throw a pail of water on that overheated cocoanut
of yours."

"But if you'll only let me explain to you! It's all a joke; I got the
wrong carriage--"

"Marines, marines! D' ye think I was born yestiddy? Ye wanted th'
ladies' sparklers, or I'm a doughhead." The police are the same all
over the world; the original idea sticks to them, and truth in voice
or presence is but sign of deeper cunning and villainy. "Anyhow, ye
can't run around Washington like ye do in England, me cockney. Ye
can't drive more'n a hundred miles an hour on these pavements."

"But, I tell you--" Warburton, realizing where his escapade was about
to lead him, grew desperate. The ignominy of it! He would be the
laughing-stock of all the town on the morrow. The papers would teem
with it. "You'll find that you are making a great mistake. If you
will only take me to--Scott Circle--"

"Where ye have a pal with a gun, eh? Git ahead!" And the two made off
toward the west.