The two friends glanced across at each other and were silent. Blake went on again, in his hopeless, dreary monotone. "Down and out—down and out. Only son of his mother, and she a drunkard. Nothing like Scripture, Jimmy, for consoling texts."
He began to quote, with an added bitterness in his despair: "'Woe unto them that are mighty to drink, and men of strength to mingle strong drink … their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust—' 'Awake, ye drunkards, and weep and howl, all ye drinkers of wine.' 'For while they are drunken as drunkards, they shall be devoured as stubble fully dry.'—Dry? Good Lord! Ring up a can of suds, Grif. I've got ten miles of alkali desert down my throat!"
"All right, Tommy," said Griffith. "We'll soon fix that. I've sent in an order already."
"You have not!" rejoined Blake, in an incredulous growl. "Well, suppose you ring 'em up again. If that can doesn't get here mighty sudden, I'll save the fellow the trouble of bringing it."
"Hold on, young man," ordered Griffith, as Blake started to heave himself to his feet. "I'm running this soiree."
He stood up and shuffled out into the front room. Blake shifted around restlessly, and was again about to rise, when there came a sharp rapping at the outer door.
"That's the man now," said Lord James. "Hold tight. It will now be only a moment."
Blake restrained himself. But it was a very long moment before Griffith came in with a pitcher and three glasses upon a battered tray. At the tinkle of the glasses Blake looked up, his face aflame. He made a clutch at the pitcher.
[Illustration: He went on in a dreary monotone, "No, I'm done for this trip—down for the count. I'm all in.">[
Griffith gave him his shoulder, and cackled: "Don't play the hog, Tommy. I've been up in Canada enough to know that the nobility always get first helping. Eh, Lord Scarbridge?"