"You mean nothing happened?"
"Nothing much.... No, damn it, nothing—I spilled at the gates. I think maybe I didn't really wish to go. Mr. Shawn——"
Reuben's words raced and ran together: "Well, the devil fly off with your friend Shawn, and couldn't the son of a bitch stand by you and you so drunk? Do you know you was stepping direct for that quicksand?"
"I—was?"
"We might have gone down in it."
"Well—wait, Ru! It was no fault of Shawn. I left him at the house. He was still with his wench when I was ready to go, and some-way I didn't wish to see him then, so I came off alone."
"Oh." His face still averted, his thin hands motionless on the books, Reuben muttered: "Sorry, Ben. The cork popped out of the bottle and I spattered. My regrets." He started getting dressed, and Ben knew his chatter was mainly for his own benefit: "Beware the lightning after breakfast—Pontifex is not wholly pleased with our Benjamin, and will be summoning the cohorts of Ovid, his Tristia; Ramus, his Logic; Cicero, his honorificabilitudinitatibus."
"Ow-ooh!"
"What—coach wheels?"
"I thought that was my head."