The idea that any human emotion can be blotted out with an intoxicating beverage is a fallacy. The mind can be drugged, for a time, but when it regains its normal state all its impressions are revived even more harrowingly than they were before.
As soon as the glasses had been emptied Merton produced several packages of cigarettes, and the air grew thick with the odor of burning "doctored" tobacco.
"What're we going to do with Motor Matt?" demanded Jimmie Hess. "Take it from me, you fellows, something has got to be done with him or the cup goes back to the Yaharas. He's a chap that does things, all right."
"And game as a hornet," struck in Andy Meigs. "Wish we could find out what he's doing to the Sprite."
"That's what's worryin' me," said Perry Jenkins. "If he can coax twenty miles an hour out of the Sprite he's got the cup nailed down."
"He don't know anything about the Dart," spoke up Rush Partington. "As long as he thinks he's only got the Wyandotte to beat, I guess we can hold him."
"Hold nothing!" growled Martin Rawlins. "You don't understand how much that chap knows. Where did he grab all that about Halloran? He gets to the bottom of things, he does, and it's a fool notion to try and pull the wool over his eyes by sending the Wyandotte over to Fourth Lake every day. If I——"
"Mr. Ollie," announced the butler, looking in at the door, "there's a little negro boy downstairs and he says he won't leave till he sees you."
"Kick him off the front steps, Peters," scowled Merton.
Peters would probably have carried out his orders had not the little negro quietly followed him up the stairs. As the butler turned away, the darky pushed past him and jumped into the study.