“The night breeze which made the trees almost talk, the water of the fountain arching under the colored lights, the scent of the flowering bushes—­Tommie and Cogan after their five weeks at sea just sat there till long after the music had stopped and everybody gone home.  Then Tommie fell asleep, full length under a tree.  Cogan tried to stand watch but he was tired, too, and after a while, with his back against the same tree, and the water-play of the fountain still tinkling in his ears, he fell asleep alongside Tommie.

“Cogan had a dream of somebody trying to pull his leg off and it woke him.  He looked down and saw that the lace of one of his shoes was untied.  He retied it and looked at his chum.  He was still asleep, snoring, but there was something missing.  In half a minute, his brain clearing, he saw that Tommie’s shoes were gone, and also his hat, and his pockets turned inside out.  Cogan then noticed that his own trousers pockets were turned inside out.  He stood up and caught sight of two fellows just dropping over the tall iron fence surrounding the park.  The gates of the park were closed, and locked, too, or so Cogan guessed, and wasted no time in trying them.  The fence was pretty high and had iron spikes on top, and he felt somewhat stiff in his joints, but a hot temper is good as a bath and a rub-down any time—­Cogan vaulted the fence, and the two natives just then turned and saw him.  He was coming on pretty fast and they threw up their hands, dropped the shoes and hat, and went tearing away.  Cogan had only to stoop down and pick up the stuff, but it wasn’t property he was after.  To steal the shoes off of a shipwrecked sailor!  Even if they weren’t told he was shipwrecked, they ought to have guessed, or so he thought, and he held on after them, and Cogan could run pretty well in those days.  But so could one of those fellows.  Cogan could soon have caught the slow one, but he kept always after the fast fellow and was feeling sure of his man when he took to turning corners.  They had come to a part of the city where the streets were narrow and the blocks short.  It seemed to Cogan there was a corner every twenty feet, and it was up hill.  His man turned one corner and four seconds later Cogan turned it, and, his man not being in sight, Cogan kept on and turned the next corner.  Another twenty yards and he ran up against a high wall.  ‘Wow,’ says Cogan, but with a running high jump, he got his fingers on top of the wall and hauled himself up.  There was nobody in sight on the other side.  ‘Trimmed!’ says Cogan, and, sitting on the wall, began to fan himself.