Barnard was trying to pierce the future as he sat in his sitting-room, the cold, gray dawn creeping through the window blinds, and he smoked innumerable cigarettes with nervous rapidity. His roving eyes restlessly examining each familiar piece of furniture, finally lighted on the huge antique sofa near by. Instead of having legs, the base of the sofa was a carved sphinx, a sadly battered sphinx, whose two breasts had been cut off because Barnard’s spinster aunts had deemed them immodest!
Just as Barnard lighted another cigarette, a man, lying on the sofa, rolled over and viewed him in stupid wonder.
“Feeling better, Cooper?” inquired Barnard politely.
“How’d I get here?” asked Joe, ignoring the other’s question. “And where am I, anyhow?”
“These are my diggings, and I brought you over here because you were so hopelessly pickled I judged your sister had better be spared a glimpse of you.”
Slowly memory of the night returned to Joe’s befuddled brain, and he sat bolt upright.
“Washington isn’t so slow,” he volunteered, after due reflection.
“There are plenty of people to help you go to the devil, here as elsewhere,” retorted Barnard. “Better pull up, Cooper, it doesn’t pay.”
“Nothing pays,” Joe growled disconsolately. “D—mn it, man, I don’t want to listen to a temperance lecture,” and he rose a trifle unsteadily.
“Sit down, Cooper,” Barnard scanned him contemptuously, and Joe sulkily resumed his seat. “I’ve said my say.”