Jim was pleased. "Did Carl say that, honest?"
"Come on up to the corner and he'll tell you himself."
"I haven't got my hat."
"Take mine." The boss slipped his gray derby on Jim's head. It descended to his ears. "You're a regular pinhead," exclaimed the big fellow loudly, and they both laughed.
They walked up to the saloon, Connor's slippers flapping against the pavement flags with every step.
The saloon welcomed Jim as if he had been a conquering hero. It was light and warm and gay and full of men.
Carl Schroeder and Jim went into the private office and whispered importantly together for half an hour. When they came out, Carl was smiling and announced, clapping Jim on the back, "This old scout's brought be the best news in a week. What'll you have, boys?"
Jim took lithia, explaining he was wagoning, and they congratulated him and took whiskey themselves. He left reasonably early, half a dozen rounds of lithia having given him a rather sloppy-weather sensation within. Besides, the other fellows had got to feeling good and were talking to beat the band, and he just sat there like a bump on a log without a thing to say.
Not that the drinkers seemed particularly wise or witty, for some of them began to sound increasingly foolish as he listened to them, cold sober. But the liquor put them on a different plane from him, lower perhaps, but also wilder, freer, less deliberate and restrained. Their thoughts didn't follow the same sequence as his and he couldn't meet their minds as they seemed able to meet each others. He was self-conscious and glum and awkward, like a new millionaire in the hands of his first valet. And he knew that one drink of whiskey would alter all that and put him in right. But he didn't take it.
The big fellow saw him to the door, giving him a cap that he picked up in the private office to go home in.