"McCooey," I said, "there's a night prowler going around this park of yours. He's doing it for about the one hundred and tenth time. And I wish you'd find out what in heaven he means by it." "Been disturbin' yuh?" casually asked the law incarnate. Yet he put the question as an indulgent physician might to a patient. McCooey was of that type which it is both a joy and a temptation to mystify. "He's assaulted my curiosity," I solemnly complained. "D' yuh mean he's been interferin' wid yuh?" demanded my literal friend. "I mean he's invaded my peace of mind." "Then I'll see what he's afther," was the other's answer. And a moment later he was swinging negligently out across the pavement at a line which would converge with the path of the nervously pacing stranger. I could see the two round the corner almost together. I could see McCooey draw nearer and nearer. I could even see that he had turned and spoken to the night walker as they went down the square together past the lights of the Players. I could see that this night-walker showed neither resentment nor alarm at being so accosted. And I could also see that the meeting of the two was a source of much mystification to the third man, the man who still kept a discreet watch from the street corner on my right. McCooey swung back to where I stood. He swung back resentfully, like a retriever who had been sent on a blind trail. "What's he after, anyway?" I irritably inquired. "He says he's afther sleep!" "After what?" I demanded. McCooey blinked up at a sky suddenly reddened by an East River gas-flare. Then he took a deep and disinterested breath. "He says he's afther sleep," repeated the patrolman. "Unless he gets her, says he, he's goin to walk into the East River." "What's the matter with the man, anyway?" I asked, for that confession had brought the pacing stranger into something very close and kindred to me. "'Tis nothin' much," was the big man's answer. "Like as not he's been over-eatin' and havin' a bad night or two." And with that my friend the patrolman, turning on his heel, pursued his way through the quiet canyons of the streets where a thousand happy sleepers knew nothing of his coming and saw nothing of his going. I stood there, looking after him as he went. Then I crossed to the northwest corner of that iron-fenced enclosure and waited for that youth whom the arm of wakefulness was swinging about like a stone in a sling. I deliberately blocked his way as he tried to edge irritably about me. "Pardon me," I began. He looked up, like a somnambulist suddenly awakened. "Pardon me, but I think I ought to warn you that you are being followed." "Am I?" "Yes; and I think you ought to know it." "Oh, I know it," was his apathetic response. "I'm even beginning to get used to it."