“No; I’ll go.”
“All right; I’ll show you the way out. There ain’t nobody else up in the house yet. It’s early.”
She ran down the stair ahead of him and snapped the night latch on the front door to let him out. As he passed her she patted him softly on the shoulder. “Good-by, honey, dear. You’ll come back again, won’t you? And next time, for Pete’s sake, don’t get so parboiled that you won’t know me.”
When he reached the sidewalk he turned to look back at the place. He knew the house. It was one that Middleton had pointed out to him a year in the past as one of the few places of the sort where, as the fat-faced tonnage clerk had phrased it, “a man needn’t carry a burglar-proof safe with him to be sure of finding his wallet when he wakes up in the morning.”
Philip looked at his watch. It had run down and he swore at it under his breath. The aftermath of the single gluttonous drink was still with him in the shape of a parched throat, a dry tongue, a fiercely aching head and a set of jangled nerves. At first, he thought he would go to his rooms and take a cold bath; but after he had gone a block or two in that direction he changed his mind and once more sought the saloon in the rear of the Tabor Building. The night bartender was still on duty and he grinned when Philip came in.
“Want a little of the hair o’ the dog that bit you, I reckon?” he said, setting out the bottle and glasses.
Philip poured a drink, a small one, this time, and since the mere smell of the liquor gagged him, he held his nose as he drank. The stimulant steadied the twittering nerves; and it did more—it cleared his brain and brought the desolating revelation of the night back with a vividness that hurt like the stabbing of needles. He set his watch by the bar-room clock. As the girl in the other street had said, it was quite early. Bromley would not be up yet. Suddenly it came to him that he could not face Bromley; not yet, at any rate. He must eat breakfast first; and he went around to Charpiot’s for the meal.
The breakfast, a light one, for his stomach was still in revolt, was hastily despatched; and as he was leaving the table the play-boy came in.
“Hello, there!” he exclaimed. “You are still in town? I looked into your room and saw your bed hadn’t been slept in, so I concluded you’d taken a night train to somewhere.”
“No,” Philip replied soberly; “I haven’t been out of town.”