"Cocktails," said Stover, resolved that Regan should be well punished. "Make it two for me, Louis, I'll have to catch up."
"I'll stick to a toby and a rabbit," said Regan, without a change of expression.
"Cocktail, Dopey?" continued Stover, with a millionaire gesture.
"I never refuse," said Dopey, who planned to go through life on that virtuous method.
With such a beginning, matters progressed with remarkable facility. Stover, taciturn and in an ugly mood, constantly hurried the rounds, matching drink for drink, secretly resolved to prove his supremacy here as elsewhere. Regan, after two tobies, withdrew from the contest, sitting silently puffing on his huge pipe, but without attempt at interference. Bob Story and Hungerford came in, and went away with a glance at Stover's clouded face and Regan's stolid, unfathomable expression. When midnight arrived, and Louis came in with apologies to announce the closing, there was quite a reckoning to be paid.
Stover was the best of the lot, doggedly resolved to show no effects of what he had taken. He felt a haziness in his vision, and words that were spoken seemed to be whirled away without record, but his legs stood firm, and his head was still under control. Buck Waters and a Sheff man took Tom Kelly home by a circuitous route to avoid either a wrestling match or a foot race with too zealous members of the New Haven police force; and Stover had the fierce pride of showing Regan that he could take charge of the hilarious but wabbly Dopey McNab, who, moved by the finest feelings of the brotherhood of man, was determined to scatter his superfluous change among his brother beings.
With great dignity and impressiveness, Stover, supporting one side, continued to give foggy directions to Regan on the other, until, come to McNab's quarters, they delivered that joyously exuberant person into his bed, propped up his head, opened the window, locked the door and left the key outside, to insure the termination of the night's adventure.
Stover went down the steep, endless stairs with great deliberation and minute pains.
"Dopey's got weak head—no good—stand nothing," he said seriously to Regan.
"Well, we've fixed him up for the night," said Regan cheerily. "You've got a wonderful top, old sport."