"Yes, or why should you have described it as minutely as you did the other night?"
"Did I?"
"Undoubtedly; I can even recall your words. You said the fellow was pretty well shaken up for a man of his size and appearance, and after handing you the blouse he caught it back and took something out of one of the pockets. It looked like one of those phials the homœopaths use. You see, you were inclined to be more dramatic on that occasion than on this. Indeed, I have been a little disappointed in you to-night."
"Oh, well! a fellow cannot always cut a figure. I'll try to remember the bottle next time I tell the story."
Sam did not answer; I heard him yawn instead. But I did not yawn; that word "phial," had effectually roused me.
"As you say, it is a small matter," Underhill finally drawled. "So is the straw that turns the current. He was a philosopher who said, 'The little rift within the lute,' etc., etc." Then suddenly, and with a wide-awake air which evidently startled his companion: "Do you suppose, Yox, that Mother Merry runs an opium-joint in those upper rooms?"
The answer he received evidently startled him.
"She may. I hadn't thought of it before, but I remember, now, that when those women were brought down there was amongst them one who certainly was under the influence of something worse than liquor. Faugh! I see her yet. But it wasn't opium he had in that bottle; that is, not the opium which is used for smoking. The firelight shone full upon it as he passed it from one pocket to another, and I saw distinctly the sparkle of some dark liquid."
Sam Underhill, who seemed to have fallen back into his old condition of sleepy interest, mumbled something about his having been able to see a good deal, considering the darkness of the place. To which his now possibly suspicious visitor replied:
"I would have seen more if I had known so much was to be got out of it. Can you give me a point or two as to how I'm to get that extra hundred?"