In my grasp his hand felt like a small boxing glove, but when I glanced at it I saw that it was not unusual.
The old duck pumped my arm solemnly and cast his eyes to the ceiling.
"Fa-are-we-e-ll, old f-friend!" he murmured in a husky tremolo, deflecting the corners of his mouth and wagging his bald pate. "If I don't see you again I'll have the river dragged!"
And then, instead of going, dash me if the old fool didn't flop down into Billings' favorite chair and reach for Billings' cigarettes that he had left on the tabouret.
He waved his hand at me. "Oh, you go on to bed, Lightnut," he said, puffing away with iron nerve. "All the sleep's out of me, dammit! I'll just sit here and read and smoke as long as I like, then I'll go in there and turn in." A jerk of his doddering head indicated Billings' room.
By Jove, I hardly knew what to do! I was regularly bowled over, don't you know. I was up against a crisis—that's what—a crisis.
"Oh, I say, you know—" I started remonstrating, and just then I gasped with relief at the welcome sight of Jenkins, peeking round the door-frame behind my visitor's back. His finger was on his lips and he beckoned me earnestly.
At the same moment old whiskers shoved his chair up to the table, switched on the reading-lamp and reached for a magazine.
"I'm on, sir," whispered Jenkins, as I joined him and we stepped aside. "Hadn't I better ring up the janitor on my house 'phone?"
"By Jove, the very thing!" I agreed. "For he'll know where this chap belongs. A fiver, tell him, if he gets a move on. Hurry!"