"If I had been in condition to expect anything, I should naturally have expected to find myself, on coming to my senses, in the low groggery where I received the blows."
"That is very easily accounted for. I happened to be at the house when you were struck down. I was in the lower room, and heard the row. With others I went up to see what the matter was. I had a carriage in the street, and when I recognized you, the captain of the coaster, at my request, took you up in his arms like a baby, carried you down into the street, and put you into the vehicle, and you were brought here. I presume this will fill up the entire gap in your recollection."
"It is all as clear as mud now," laughed Somers. "Mr. Pillgrim, I am very grateful to you for the kind offices you rendered me."
"Don't mention it, my dear fellow. I should have been worse than a brute if I had done any less than I did."
"That may be; but my gratitude is none the less earnest on that account. Those are villainous people in that house, and I might have been butchered and cut up, if I had been left there."
"I think not. The captain of the coaster is evidently an honest man; at any rate he is very sorry for what he did. But, Somers, my dear fellow,—you will pardon me if I seem impertinent,—how did you happen to be in such a place?" continued Mr. Pillgrim, with a certain affectation of slyness in his look, as though he had caught the exemplary young man in a house where he would not have been willing to be seen.
"How did you happen to be there?" demanded Somers.
"I don't profess to be a very proper person. I take my whiskey when I want it."
"So do I; and the only difference between us is, that I never happen to want it."
"I did not go into that house for my whiskey, though. It is rather strange that we should both happen into such a place at the same time."