They had both been drinking. Slowly, surely, Travis was going down in the scale of degeneracy. Slowly the loose life he was leading was lowering him to the level of the common herd. A few years ago he would not have thought of drinking with his own mill hands. To-night he was there, the most reckless of them all. Analyzed, it was for the most part conceit with him; the low conceit of the superior intellect which would mingle in infamy with the lowest to gain its ignorant homage. For Intellect must have homage if it has to drag it from the slums.
Charley Biggers was short and boyish, with a fat, round face. When he laughed he showed a fine set of big, sensual teeth. His eyes were jolly, flighty, insincere. Weakness was written all over him, from a derby hat sitting back rakishly on his forehead to the small, effeminate boot that fitted so neatly his small effeminate foot. He had a small hand and his little sensual face had not a rough feature on it. It was set off by a pudgy, half-formed dab of a nose that let his breath in and out when his mouth happened to be shut. His eyes were the eyes of one who sees no wrong in anything.
They came in and pulled off their gloves, daintily. They threw their overcoats on a chair. Travis glanced around the circle of the four or five who were left and said pompously:
“Come up, gentlemen, and have something at my expense.” Then he walked up to the bar.
They came. They considered it both a pleasure and an honor, as Jud Carpenter expressed it, to drink with him.
“It is a good idea to mingle with them now and then,” whispered Travis to Charley. “It keeps me solid with them—health, gentlemen!”
Charley Biggers showed his good-natured teeth:
“Health, gentlemen,” he grinned.
Then he hiccoughed through his weak little nose.
“Joe Hopper can't rise, gentlemen, Joe is drunk, an'—an' a widderer, besides,” hiccoughed Joe from below.