“What are you goin’ to have to drink, gents? This one is on the house.”
“Thanks! Whisky for me, please,” answered Loring.
“Whisky? All right. I have some pretty good stuff here. No more kick to it than from a little lamb. Have some too, Jackie? I thought so.”
Hankins poured the golden fluid into three gray-looking glasses.
“Regards, gents!” he said in a businesslike tone of voice, raising his glass as he spoke.
“Regards,” echoed Loring, emptying his glass at a gulp.
The whisky sent a warm glow through his frame.
“That was good,” he said, in a judicial tone of voice. “Now won’t you gentlemen take something with me?”
“Well, I don’t care if I do,” answered Hankins.