"Whiskey?" suggested Blake, with bitter self-derision.
"Tom!" protested Lord James.
"What's the use of lying about it?" muttered Blake.
"You've no whiskey in you now," rejoined Griffith. "I'm talking about what you are now,—what you've got in your head. It's brains."
"Pickled in alcohol!" added Blake, more bitterly than before.
"That's a lie, and you know it, Tommy. You're not yet on the shelf—not by a long sight."
Blake grinned sardonically at Lord James. "Hear that, Jimmy? Never take the guess of an engineer. They're no good at guessing. It's not in the business."
"Chuck it. You know you've got something worth fighting for now."
"Lots of chance I'll have to win out against you!" Blake's teeth ground together on his unlighted cigar. He jerked it from his mouth and flung it savagely into the wastebasket. But the violent movement discharged the tension of his black humor.
"Lord! what a grouch I am!" he mumbled. "Guess I'm in for a go at the same old thing."