The two tramps wobbled over to the heavy oak sideboard in the dining room, opened the door at the bottom, and lifted from there a bottle. Instead of pouring the liquor into glasses they lifted the bottle to their lips and drank long and heartily.
As one finished and handed the bottle to the other he smacked his lips and wiped them with his shirt sleeve, the other drinking and doing likewise. To all appearances they drained the bottle to the last drop.
“Well,” said Snadder, the tall one, “if they left that bottle here for medicinal purposes, it sure has done the trick! I feel just as well as can be. How about it?”
“I feel better’n you do,” said Blinky.
“What you mean you feel better’n I do?”
“Jesh whosh I shay,” Blinky stammered back at the other. “That’s right kind liquor. Makes me feel like the time I trained with Fighting Bob.”
Frank and Lanky exchanged glances. It was plain these two fellows had imbibed enough of the liquor to make them drunk.
Smash! As the two boys turned their eyes again to the room, they saw Snadder reach for the bottle and hurl it at Blinky—missing him by a small margin, but striking the opposite wall of the room where the bottle fell in bits.
Blinky made a rush for the huge mantel over the fireplace of the front room, and grabbed down a knife that hung there. Then he turned on the slim one.
For a moment they stood glaring at each other, neither making any further move toward combat.