Raising his hat, and displaying a long and still angry-looking wound on the side of his head, from which the hair had been carefully cut away, he said—
"Do you see that?"
"I reckon I do."
"Well, that came very near doing the business for me."
"How did it happen?"
"I hardly know, myself. I was drunk, I suppose, and quarrelled with some one, or insulted some one in the street—and this was the consequence."
"Really, Graham, you have made a narrow escape."
"Havn't I? It kept me in bed for nearly three weeks, and now, I can just totter about. This is the first time I have been outside of the house since it happened."
"You certainly do look weak and feeble enough," replied his old friend and crony, who added, in a moment after,
"But come! take a drink with me at the tavern across here. You stand in need of something."