Joe nodded. “Yeah, he deserves the breaks for once,” he agreed, yawning. “I’m goin’ home. Gee! It’s late. Comin’?”
Slug shook his head. “I guess not,” he said. “I wantta kill this bottle.”
Joe patted his arm. “Don’t worry about the dough I advanced you. You can pay that back easy from time to time. I ain’t goin’ to rush you.”
Slug nodded absently. He was thinking of other things.
“Well, I’ll be blowin’. ’Night, pal,” and Joe went off with a slight roll in his walk.
Slug sat for some time drinking steadily, thinking about Rose and her husband. The fumes of the whisky mounted to his brain. The longer he sat there brooding the more convinced he became that he had to do something. At last he crawled off the stool and nodded to the barman.
“That’s three bucks, pal,” the barman said hastily.
Slug squinted at him. Everybody seemed to want money out of him, he thought. “Put it on the slate,” he said, “I ain’t got it now.”
The barman hesitated, then, knowing that he often saw Slug, nodded. He thought it would be wiser to tackle him when he was sober, as, right now, Slug looked very mean.
Slug went out into the street and began to walk back towards the barber’s shop. “I gotta see that dame, and fix this waiter guy up,” he told himself. “He was pretty good to me, an’ I don’t like the way she’s treated him. Yeah, I’ll go right up an’ see her, an’ fix it.”