"Come, come, Officer 666," laughed Gladwin, "I'm only your ghost."
Phelan exhaled a tremendous sigh of relief.
"The Lord be praised if it ain't yez!" he exclaimed, delightedly. "But where did ye get that disguise?"
"At a hair store--Madam Flynn's on Avenue A--do you like it?" laughed the young man. "I didn't want any of my friends or neighbors to recognize me, you know."
"But fer the love o' heaven where have yez been all the time?" asked Phelan, sinking into a chair and breathing hard.
"Patrolling my beat--I mean your beat," returned the young man, "and keeping my eye out for my friend the burglar. Oh, I've had quite a party. When I got hungry I sent to the Plaza for lunch and sat on the park wall and ate it. And, by the way, I saw a friend of mine coming along in an automobile and I arrested him for speeding."
"What!" Phelan exploded, jumping to his feet and turning white as his boiled shirt.
"Yes, nabbed him for breaking the speed limit," Gladwin nodded, leaning back against a table and lighting a cigarette.
"Fer, fer, fer breakin' the speed limit; fer, fer--yez made an arrest?"
"Exactly! He was going so slow he deserved to be arrested, and what's more, he was making love to a pretty girl without shame. I got in and told him to drive me to the station."
"How could I?" chuckled Gladwin. "I didn't know where it was--that is, your station--so I told him most any would do. We rode about a bit and as he didn't seem anxious to be locked up, I compromised for fifty dollars. It was really quite simple, Phelan, and if I'd only had more time I might have got back that five hundred."
[Illustration: "GIVE ME ME UNIFORM AN' LET ME GIT OUT OF HERE."]
"You've lost me me job--that's what you've done!" moaned Phelan, while his brain reeled with pictures of police headquarters, trial rooms and ruthless commissioners. "Come, give me me uniform," he cried, with a sudden accession of passion.
"What's that?" asked the young man, quickly, his grin vanishing.
"Me uniform!" rasped Phelan, with a rush toward the young man. "Give me me uniform an' let me git out of here."
Gladwin dodged around the table, protesting:
"No, no--not yet. The burglar--that is, my friend--will be here any moment."
"Your friend?" Phelan stopped, again a prey to bewilderment.