"This!" snapped Griffith. "Either Laffie Ashton is a dirty sneak thief, or he's a man that deserves my apologies. It's a question of fair play to me as well as to him. You're square, Tom. You'll come up to Michamac with me and settle this matter."
"Lord! Why can't you let me alone?" groaned Blake. But he took the sulphonal and washed it down with the quassia-flavored water.
Lord James went out into the office to phone his man at the hotel to fetch over clothes for a short trip. When he reentered the bedroom Blake was stretched out in bed, and Griffith was spreading a blanket for himself on the floor.
"Should I not run over to my hotel for the night?" remarked the
Englishman. "Don't want to put you out of your bed, y' know."
"No. I sleep as well, or better, on the floor. We want to be sure of an early start," said Griffith.
Blake rose on his elbow and blinked at them. His eyes were still bloodshot and his face haggard, but the change in his voice was unmistakably for the better. "Say, bos, it does pay to have friends—sometimes!"
"Forget it!" rejoined Griffith. "You go to snoozing. It's an early train, remember."
Blake sighed drowsily, and stretched out again on the flat of his back.
Within a minute he was fast asleep.