"We-ell, well," he said, holding up the glass and measuring the minim of water in it with his eye, "look who's with us, will yuh! Just in from keepin' the little date, hey?—he-ey, littul one? Work don't worry us none, does it? Well, little stranger, you're just in time for to have one, on me. Suddown!"
This last with a raise of his voice and a motion of his forefinger—his thick, blunt forefinger—toward one of the two chairs that stood by the table. Daisy, her dimples and twinkles leaping into place with a celerity that might have warned Harrison if he had known her better, sat down obediently and demurely in the chair.
Sir Thomas Harrison took another tumbler, put in it a small amount of water, brought it over to the table, and set it down alongside the other glass. Then he took a cut-glass decanter he had brought from a cabinet in the dining-room, unstoppered it, and filled each of the drinking vessels. Finally, wrinkling up his eyes until one was quite closed, and the other nearly so, he tilted his head on one side, pulled an empty chair close to and facing Daisy, and sat down in it.
"Well, chookie," he said, "here we are—just the two of us, hey? Everybody else in bed, but—we sh'd worry. Come on, now, an' have a little drink. C'm on!"
Daisy, as though she intended to drink, put out a hand and drew her glass toward her. In her eyes two vigilant and mischievous points of light danced keen as stars. Sir Thomas Harrison tipped his glass joltingly against hers, set it to the lips that bulged red and coarse-textured, below his clipped moustache; and tossed off his liquor. Then he smacked his glass down on the table, where Daisy's still stood untouched.
"Well," he said, "why don't y' drink? But don't if yuh don't wantah. Maybe 'taint good for little girls. Apt to make 'em fr-risky, hey? I know somethin' is better for 'em. O you baby, you sassy babee—come on to Poppa," and, with a sudden movement, Sir Thomas Harrison caught his new dining-room girl by the wrist and drew her upon his fleshy knee.
"There," he said,—in his voice the hoarse burr, and in his manner the incoherence, of a man fast nearing the irresponsible edge of passion, "how's that—better. Hey? Uh?" He slipped an arm around her waist.
Daisy caught her lip under her teeth to keep from laughing outright as she glanced around into his red, flaming face. She leaned a little away from him, one toe alertly on the floor, the other dangling.