"No man drinks with you in my house! Not as long as I live. And...."
Bruce Standing drew a wallet from his pocket.
"About twenty men here," he said, in the same slow, steady voice. "As it's a night of celebration, we'll make it a dollar a drink. That's twenty bucks, easy money, Young Gallup," he wound up with a sneer in his voice. For all men knew Gallup's cupidity, which clutched at small as well as large amounts.
But Gallup, shaken with rage, only shouted back at him:
"To hell with your twenty dollars! And with you, Bruce Standing!"
"So? Well, twenty dollars isn't much, after all, is it? Gents, we drink to-night and damn the cost! Two bones for every glass of whiskey; that's forty of the iron men, Gallup. Call Ricky with the bottles."
A couple of men laughed at that. Gallup, however, seeing himself baited, roared out:
"I tell you, no! And out you go. You are not wanted here."
"Low bid loses, high bid wins," said Standing. Now he opened his wallet and disclosed a tight pad of bills. "Three dollars for each and every glass of imitation hootch! God, what a pirate you are, Gallup! Now, trot it out."
"Sixty dollars, clean-cut velvet, Gal," said a man at his elbow, willing to drink with the devil so the drink came paid for.