“I don’t drink, thank you,” stammered Rex, conscious that he ought to look the other straight in the eye as he made this response, but dropping his handkerchief so that he might have an excuse to stoop down and pick it up instead.
“Oh, yes you do, when you are among gentlemen like us, Reggie.” Harrington came forward hastily to say this.
The others held their glasses half way to their lips and watched for the outcome with interest.
If Rex were the hero of this tale it would doubtless be my pleasant duty to record the fact that he lifted the glass from the table, poured the contents into the bowl, and said that he could not go back on his principles.
But Rex unfortunately is not of the stuff of which heroes are made. He felt that he would rather endure a headache than the jeers of those five fellows.
“Of course,” he said feebly, and drank off the glassful at one draft.
“And now for another,” said Stout, promptly filling it up again.
Rex had never signed the pledge, but he knew that his mother did not want him to touch liquor. And it had been no deprivation for him to refrain, as he did not like it. What he had just drunk burnt his throat like fire. It seemed as if he could not possibly swallow any more.
His misery showed itself in his face. Atkins, who was standing just opposite on the other side of the table on which the punch bowl had been placed, saw it.
“I say, Pell,” he called out softly, “come here a minute.”