"Come on, boys, we'd better dig out!"
We straggled along in silent, rolling clusters, like bees smoked out, down the road ... we heard the rumble of a waggon ... when we recognised that it was our teetotaler coming back for us....
"God, if my old man hears of this I'm done for at Laurel."
"So'm I!"
"If we only lay low and don't go spouting off about it, things will be all O.K."
"We'll send Travers back with a little collection, to fix it up with the farmer, and blarney him out of taking any action."
In the morning I had a roaring headache ... as long as I lay quiet there was only the slow, deep regular pulse of pain driving through my head, but when I made an effort to get up, my eyeballs throbbed with such torment that they seemed to be starting out of my head....
I fell asleep in the broad day again, waking to find Jack Travers standing by my bed, pale and cynical, dusting off the ashes from the end of his eternal cigarette.