At the bottom, he discovers he has swallowed the rose, thorns and all, and is no longer in the hallway. There are Oriental carpets now on the floor where he sprawls, bulky leather chairs and sofas nearby, pedestal ashtrays and classical statuary. Perhaps he has somersaulted on through another doorway. Instead of staircases, bookcases: it seems to be some kind of library. He burps, crosses his eyes, coughs up a rose petal. A chandelier with milky hemispheres like bowls of soup hangs from the molded ceiling above him, casting a shimmery glow on the rows of leather bindings, the thickly draped windows and arched doorways, the large dark paintings in their gilt frames, the blank faces of the room's multitudinous clocks. Over by the fireplace, at a two-tiered ebony trolley, stands an old man with a long white goatee, dressed in a formal black suit, pince-nez, and silk top hat, drinking alone. Charlie, plucking a thorny stem from between his teeth, considers the drinks trolley wistfully, all aglitter with its rich array of glasses and bottles. He feels the top of his head, looks around for his hat, finds he is sitting on it. He pops it out, retrieves his cane and gloves, withdraws a bent cigar from his watch-fob pocket. He tucks the cigar in his mouth and, flicking specks of dust off his shabby jacket and baggy pants, swaggers over and joins the old rnan at the bottles as though invited. The old man has finished his drink and is pouring himself another. Charlie simpers, dips, doffs his derby, hangs it on his cane over his shoulder, holds a glass out hopefully, but the old man, his pale face desolated by some inconsolable sorrow, ignores it. He tips back his own glass, sets it down heavily for another refill. Charlie bobs his eyebrows, purses his lips, directs the old man's attention up to the chandelier, switches glasses on him. The old man picks up the empty glass, Charlie the full one, Charlie toasts the old man, tosses down his drink. The old man studies his empty glass, sets it down, fills it up again. He glances up at Charlie over his pince-nez, and Charlie switches glasses again. He toasts the old man, flops down on the arm of the overstuffed sofa, gulps down his drink. He reshapes his bent cigar, the old man pours out another drink, Charlie switches, reaches at the same time into the old man's pocket for a box of matches. He toasts the old man, strikes a match on the seat of the old man's tuxedo trousers, tosses down his drink, lights up the cigar, drops the match into his freshly emptied glass, switches, blows a smoke ring. The old man stares dismally at the empty glass with the sodden matchstick at the bottom, as Charlie returns the matchbox to the pocket, flicking his ash in after it. The old man, sighing heavily, picks out a clean glass and fills it, Charlie making a quick exchange, loosening his tie, stretching his legs out. His big toe pokes out from a hole in the sole of his shoe: Charlie wiggles it about contentedly and, switching glasses once more, falls back into the cushions of the sofa in bleary self-satisfaction. This time, however, the old man does not stop pouring. He gazes down at Charlie through his pince-nez, his old eyes adroop with rheum and misery, and continues to empty the bottle. Charlie stumbles to his feet, grabs up another glass and holds it under the flow, drinks down the full one just in time to thrust it back under as the new glass brims over. The old man, as though transfixed, continues to pour. Charlie thrusts more glasses under the gurgling bottle, drinks off some, pours others into the old man's pockets, some into his own, empties still others over his shoulders, into the ashtrays, the fireplace, his hat, the old man's hat — but he cannot keep pace, the liquor is bubbling out of the bottle onto the trolley, the sofa, dripping down his pant legs, the old man's pant legs, puddling here and there, staining the pillows and the Oriental carpets, and all the while the old man gapes at Charlie, his frail shoulders bent, his lower lip thrust out mournfully, his eyes slowly filming over like clouded lenses. The bottle falls from his hand. Charlie, awash inside and out, grimaces confusedly. He picks up his soggy cigar, tips his hat which is not there. He locates it, after turning around two or three times, on the end of his cane. He clutches at it but he cannot reach it. He staggers about, pitching and weaving, puffing futilely on his wet cigar, trying to reach the elusive hat on the far end of his bamboo cane. Vases fall and smash, statues tip, their heads falling, paintings tilt. Drunkenly, Charlie grabs a bookcase for support, pulls the whole thing down on him. He climbs out, hauling himself hand over hand up the cane until he reaches the hat. He struggles with the cane as though the hat were snagged by it. The old man is standing at the trolley, emptying out another bottle. Charlie frees the hat at last and claps it sideways onto his head. He lurches through the room on all fours, smirking foolishly, the hat bobbing loosely on his uncombed curls, trying to make it back to the old man and the drinks trolley, but the floor keeps tipping him in the other direction. Finally, it tips him backwards right out the door, the old man in his top hat and pince-nez receding like a forlorn leave-taker on a train platform, Charlie rising to his feet and waving his wet cigar at him in befuddled farewell.
He strikes something as he pitches backwards, his feet fly higher than his head, his derby hovering in midair momentarily before following its owner into what proves to be an empty bathtub. Charlie struggles boozily to right himself, slipping and sliding in the enameled tub. He clutches a soap dish, but it breaks away. He hauls himself up by the plug chain, grabs the edge like a man clinging to a cliff, finally heaves himself over and onto the floor, gasping for breath. But where is his hat? He peers tipsily into the tub: there it is, sitting on its crown as though inviting the toss of pennies. He shrugs, takes a grip on the edge, and dips forward into the tub headfirst. His feet arc up, kick frantically at space, his baggy pant legs wrinkling to his knees, exposing bare sockless ankles. His toe waggles out the hole in the sole as though seeking something to grab on to. At last his feet come back down, his head up: the derby is mashed down over his nose. He staggers about blindly, wrestling with the hat, bumps into somebody. He apologizes, backing away, and nearly tumbles into the tub again. His hand touches something, feels its length: a toilet plunger. He holds it over his head, brings the rubber suction cup down with a blow that makes his knees buckle, lifts: it sucks the hat from his head, lifting his feet a few inches off the floor as it does so. He blinks, gazes woozily around him: the person he has bumped into, he now sees, is a burly helmeted policeman with a large handlebar moustache and a gleaming five-pointed star on his chest. The policeman is sitting on a little stool in his stocking feet, fishing with a bamboo pole in the toilet bowl. Charlie recognizes the pole: it is his own cane. He tries to take it back, but the policeman resists, puffing his cheeks out. As they struggle for possession of the cane, the line comes up out of the toilet bowclass="underline" there is a huge crab on the end of it. The crab whirls around the room on the end of the fishing line, gnashing its pincers, sweeping medicine bottles off the glass shelves, cracking the bathroom mirror, batting the dangling overhead bulb and setting it swinging, causing shadows in the room to reel and leap. Charlie and the policeman are still fighting for the cane, but they are also trying to avoid the flying crab. To no avaiclass="underline" with one pincer it captures the policeman's nose, with the other Charlie's. Round and round they go, frowning cross-eyed at the crab, their mouths puckered up under their moustaches, their startled faces falling in and out of the wheeling shadows. Charlie finally lets go of the cane, using both hands to pry the pincer loose from his nose. He looks for something else to attach it to, finally lifts up one of the policeman's stockinged feet and clamps the pincer to the big toe. The policeman hops about now on one foot, helplessly hooked by the other to his nose, surrendering the cane so as to hold his foot up and save his nose from being torn away. Charlie twirls the cane victoriously, brushes himself off and straightens his hat and tie, primps drunkenly in the broken mirror, struggling to find himself in the multiple images and whirling shadows. As, burping, he turns to leave, he spies the toilet plunger. He picks it up and with a tender inebriated smile shows it to the hapless policeman. Perhaps the policeman hopes for a rescue. He seems to nod, his foot bobbing with his head. Charlie lifts the policeman's helmet off, raps him on the head with the plunger handle, sets the helmet back in place but over the policeman's eyes. He stamps on the hopping foot and tickles the other, then lifts the policeman's flopping coattails and whops the plunger onto his backside, where it sticks fast, wagging about like a stiff wooden tail, signaling Charlie, smugly chewing on his wet cigar, toward his exit.