“You’ll have to ask my father—if you know where he is,” laughed Howard Milmarsh. “He bought it.”
“Good for the old man!” squealed Andrew Lampton. “I say it’s durned good booze! I wish I never had to drink anything worse! Whee! Come on, old top! We’ll find the elevator!”
He lurched over to Louden Powers, and the two worthies reeled out of the room, and across the hall to the elevator, which was operated by an electric button by the passenger.
“I doubt whether they will be able to get upstairs in that,” muttered Chick. “I wish we could sail in and knock their heads together!”
“Why?”
“We’d make such a racket that somebody might tell the actual truth in the confusion. I can’t believe that fellow sitting at the table is the real Howard Milmarsh.”
“Neither can I, Chick. But he has possession, and he could not have got that if he had not convinced the lawyers. And Johnson, Robertson & Judkins are not easily convinced.”
“That guy down there at the table is a blackguard. The real Howard Milmarsh never behaved that way, did he?”
Nick was thoughtful for a few moments, and he did not answer until he saw the man in the dining room reach down into the pail on the floor at his side, in which was still an unopened bottle of champagne, and take out a large piece of ice, which he pressed to his forehead.