He crossed the street and entered the saloon where Manley was still drinking heavily, his face crimson and blear-eyed and brutalized, his speech thickened disgustingly. He was sprawled in an armchair, waving an empty glass in an erratic attempt to mark the time of a college ditty six or seven years out of date, which he was trying to sing. He leered up at Kent.
“Wife 'sall righ',” he informed him solemnly. “Knew she would be—fine guards's got out there. 'Sall righ'—somebody shaid sho. Have a drink.”
Kent glowered down at him, made a swift, mental decision, and pipped him by the shoulder. “You come with me,” he commanded. “I've got something important I want to tell you. Come on—if you can walk.”
“'Course I c'n walk all righ'. Shertainly I can walk. Wha's makes you think I can't walk? Want to inshult me? 'Sall my friends here—no secrets from my friends. Wha's want tell me? Shay it here.”
Kent was a big man; that is to say, he was tall, well-muscled and active. But so was Manley. Kent tried the power of persuasion, leaving force as a last, doubtful result. In fifteen minutes or thereabouts he had succeeded in getting Manley outside the door, and there he balked.
“Wha's matter wish you?” he complained, pulling back. “C'm on back 'n' have drink. Wha's wanna tell me?”
“You wait. I'll tell you all about it in a minute. I've got something to show you, and I don't want the bunch to get next. Savvy?”
He had a sickening sense that the subterfuge would not have deceived a five-year-old child, but it was accepted without question.
He led Manley stumbling up the street, evading a direct statement as to his destination, pulled him off the board walk, and took him across a vacant lot well sprinkled with old shoes and tin cans. Here Manley fell down, and Kent's patience was well tested before he got him up and going again.
“Where y' goin'?” Manley inquired pettishly, as often as he could bring his tongue to the labor of articulation.