The old rascal gulped down his drink and slouched out of the bar chuckling. He was always an amiable villain—until roused.
As the door closed behind him O’Brien leaned on his bar, and looked over at the back view of the still recumbent figure of Charlie Bryant.
“I was thinkin’ of closin’ down, Charlie,” he said quietly.
Charlie looked around. Then, when he became aware that the room was entirely empty, he sprang up with a sudden start.
He looked dazed. But, after a moment, his confusion slowly faded out, and he looked into the grinning eyes of probably the shrewdest man in the valley.
“Feelin’ good?” suggested the saloonkeeper. “Have a ‘night-cap’?”
Charlie raised one delicate hand and passed it wearily across his forehead. As it passed once more that eager craving lit his eyes. His reply came almost roughly.
“Hell—yes,” he cried. Then he laughed idiotically.
O’Brien poured out a double drink and passed it across to him. He took a drink himself. He watched the other as he greedily swallowed the spirit. Then he drank his more slowly. It was only the second drink he had taken that day.
“Say, I’m runnin’ out of rye and brandy,” he said, setting his glass in the bucket under the counter, and picking up Charlie’s. “Guess I need 10 brandy and 20 rye—right away.”