The man spun two glasses across the bar, and set out a black bottle of dubious aspect. Knowing his own stock in trade, he drew himself a glass of Apollinaris water.
Jeffard sniffed at the black bottle and christened his glass sparingly. The bouquet of the liquor was an entire round of dissipation with the subsequent headache thrown in. Garvin tilted the bottle with trembling hand, and filled his glass to the brim. The object-lesson was not thrown away upon the epicure.
"Here's to the derned old hole with a cold million in it," said the miner, naming the toast and draining his glass in the same breath. And then: "Come again, barkeep'; drink water yourself, if you want to, but the red likker's good enough for us. What do ye say, pardner? We're in it at last, plum up to the neck, and all on account o' that derned old hole 'at I've cussed out a mil— Here's lookin' at ye."
Jeffard merely moistened his lips the second time, and the object-lesson exemplified itself. Garvin had brimmed his glass again, and the contents of the black bottle were adulterant poisons. Wherefore he cut in quickly when Garvin would have ordered again.
"That'll do, old man; a little at a time and often, if you must, but not on an empty stomach. Let's get the money before we spend it."
The latter part of the warning had special significance for the bartender, who scowled ominously.
"Lemme see the color o' yer money," he commanded. "If youse fellies are runnin' futures on me"—
Now Garvin had been living the life of an anchoret for many weeks, and the fumes of the fiery liquor were already mounting to his brain. For which cause the bartender's insinuation was as spark to tow.
"Futures?" he yelled, throwing down a ten-dollar bill with a mighty buffet on the bar; "them's the kind o' futures we're drinkin' on right now! Why, you thick-lipped, mealy-mouthed white nigger, you, I'll come down here some day and buy the floor out from in under your feet; see? Come on, pardner; let's mog along out o' here 'fore I'm tempted to mop up his greasy floor with this here"—
There was hot wrath in the bartender's eyes, and Jeffard hustled the abusive one out of the place lest a worse thing should follow. On the sidewalk he remembered what Garvin had already forgotten, and went back for the change out of the ten-dollar bill, dropping it into his pocket and rejoining his companion before the latter had missed him. Thereupon ensued a war of words. The newly belted knight of fortune was for making a night of it; and when Jeffard would by no means consent to this, Garvin insisted upon going to the best hotel in the city, where they might live at large as prospective millionaires should.