“At any other time—oh, yes! But you’d better get Ralston himself to do it for you. I’m not in it with him to-day. He’s been giving me the life to come—hot—and Abraham and Isaac and Lazarus and the rich man, and the glass of water, all in a breath. Go and ask him for what you want.”
“Oh—then he is drunk, is he?” asked Crowdie, with a disagreeable sneer on his red lips.
“I suppose so,” answered Miner, quite carelessly. “At all events, he refused to drink—that’s always a bad sign with him.”
“Of course—that makes it a certainty. Gad, though! It doesn’t make him light on his feet, if he happens to tread on yours. It serves me right for coming to the club at this time of day! Perdition on the fellow! I’ve got on new shoes, too!”
“What are you two squabbling about?” enquired Hamilton Bright, coming suddenly upon them out of the cloak-room.
“We’re not squabbling—we’re cursing Ralston,” answered Miner.
“I wish you’d go and look after him, Ham,” said Crowdie to his brother-in-law. “He’s just gone off there. He’s as drunk as the dickens, and swearing against everybody and treading on their toes in the most insolent way imaginable. Get him out of this, can’t you? Take him home—you’re his friend. If you don’t he’ll be smashing things before long.”
“Is he as bad as that, Frank?” asked Bright, gravely. “Where is he?”
“At the telephone—I don’t know—he trod on Crowdie’s feet and Crowdie’s perfectly wild and exaggerates. But there’s something wrong, I know. I think he’s not exactly screwed—but he’s screwed up—well, several pegs, by the way he acts. They call drinks ‘pegs’ somewhere, don’t they? I wanted to make a joke. I thought it might do Crowdie good—”
“Well, it’s a very bad one,” said Bright. “He’s at the telephone, you say?”