I at
once became conscience-stricken at the thought of Mrs. Effie's
feelings when she should discover him to be in this state, and was on
the point of suggesting that he seek another apartment for the night,
when the cab pulled up in front of our own hotel.
Though I protest that I was now entirely recovered from any effect
that the alcohol might have had upon me, it was not until this moment
that I most horribly discovered myself to be in the full cow-person's
regalia I had donned in the studio in a spirit of pure frolic. I mean
to say, I had never intended to wear the things beyond the door and
could not have been hired to do so. What was my amazement then to find
my companions laboriously lifting me from the cab in this impossible
tenue. I objected vehemently, but little good it did me.
"Get a policeman if he starts any of that rough stuff," said the
Tuttle person, and in sheer horror of a scandal I subsided, while one
on either side they hustled me through the hotel lounge--happily
vacant of every one but a tariff manager--and into the lift. And now I
perceived that they were once more pretending to themselves that I was
in a bad way from drink, though I could not at once suspect the full
iniquity of their design.
As we reached our own floor, one of them still seeming to support me
on either side, they began loud and excited admonitions to me to be
still, to come along as quickly as possible, to stop singing, and not
to shoot.
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