GUY LEFT the bowling alley shortly after Mr. Jones went out, and avoiding all the principal thoroughfares, and taking all the back streets in his way, finally reached Dutch Jake’s saloon. He had ample time to think over his situation, and was fast giving way to that feeling of desperation which all criminals are said to experience. He was ruined beyond all hope of redemption, he told himself, and he might as well go on. He must go on, for it was too late to turn back.
Guy remained at Dutch Jake’s saloon three hours, apparently the gayest of the gay, and driven by this spirit of recklessness and desperation that had taken possession of him to commit excesses that astonished everybody present. About one o’clock he got into an altercation with somebody, which threatened for a time to end in a free fight, but Dutch Jake promptly put a stop to the trouble by dragging Guy out of the saloon by the collar, throwing him headlong upon the pavement, and then slamming and locking the door to prevent his return.
The boy’s pockets were empty. The last cent of his ill-gotten gains had found its way into Jake’s money-drawer, and all Guy had got for it in return was more alcohol than he could carry and an appellation which, in his maudlin condition, tickled his fancy wonderfully. Some one had called him “the prince of good fellows,” and during the last hour his fuddled companions had dropped his name and addressed him entirely as “Prince.”
“But if I’m a prince,” stammered Guy, holding fast to a lamp-post and looking in an uncertain sort of way toward the door that had just been closed behind him, “wha’s ye use lockin’ m’ out? Do zey want to (hic) ’sult me? Zey’d bet-better mind zer eyes!”
That is the way with saloon-keepers, Guy. It is a part of their business. They have no respect or friendship for you—it is your money they want, and when they have emptied your pockets of the last cent, and the accursed stuff they have sold to you mounts to your brain and steals away your wits, and the Evil One has taken full possession of you, they thrust you into the street, leaving you to shift for yourself.
The next few hours were an utter blank to Guy. He did not know how he got home, but that he got there in some way was evident, for when he came to himself (about daylight) he was lying across the foot of his bed with all his clothes on, and the door of his room was standing wide open.
The instant his eyes were unclosed the events of the night came back to him, accompanied by a splitting headache and a feeling of nervousness and prostration that was almost unbearable.
With scarcely energy enough to move, he staggered to his feet and closed the door; as he did so he caught a glimpse of his face in the mirror. He could scarcely recognize himself. Was that pale, haggard countenance, set off with blood-shot eyes and a black and blue spot on his left cheek, which he had received by coming in contact with some lamp-post on his way home—was that face the face of Guy Harris? Without the beauty spot he looked for all the world as Flint looked on the morning he came creeping out of the forecastle of the Santa Maria, after sleeping off the effects of the drug that had been administered to him.
Sick at heart and so dizzy that he could not stand without holding fast to something, Guy turned and was about to throw himself upon the bed again, when he heard a light step in the hall and a tap at his door.