The fair man reached forward and put down his empty glass on the bar counter. “Same again, Miss,” he said, and then: “We’ll all be more sick of the plague before we’ve finished with it. It’s a terror. If I was to tell you a few of the things I’ve seen in the past fortnight, I don’t suppose you’d believe me.”
“That’s all right; I’d believe you quick enough,” returned the young man. “Point is, what’s the good of getting yourself in a funk about it? Personally I don’t believe it’s coming to England. If it was it would have been here before this. What I say is ...”
His pronouncement of opinion ceased abruptly. The fair man’s behaviour riveted attention. He was gazing past the barmaid at the orderly rows of shining glasses and various shaped bottles behind her. His mouth was open. He gazed intensely, horribly.
The barmaid backed nervously and looked over her shoulder. The two young men hastily rose and pushed back their stools. The same thought was in all their minds. This neat, fair man was on the verge of delirium tremens.
In a moment the air of intercourse and joviality that had pervaded the little room was dissipated; in place of it had come shocked surprise and fear.
There was an interval of slow desolating silence, and then the convulsive grip of the fair man shattered the glass he held, and the fragments fell tinkling to the floor.
“I say, what’s up?” stammered the barmaid’s admirer, while the barmaid herself shrank back against the shelves and watched nervously. She had had experience.
The fair man’s head was being pulled slowly backwards by some invisible force. His eyes, staring straight before him, appeared to watch with fierce intensity some point that moved steadily up the wall of shelves behind the counter; up till it reached the ceiling and began to move over the ceiling toward him.
Then, quite suddenly, the horrible tension was relaxed; his head fell loosely forward and he clapped both hands to the nape of his neck. He was breathing loudly in short quick gasps.
“I say, do you think he’s ill?” asked the young man. At the suggestion Dicky made a step towards the sufferer; his knowledge of chemistry gave him a professional air.