“I’m out now,” he said to himself, “and old Danvers’ll never dream of sending me back again. Besides, I don’t half believe he can. Anyhow, I mean to make some kind of terms for myself before I tell him all I know. It’s the best card I’ve got and he must pay for it before he plays it.”
Another idea, and one against the evil of which Judge Danvers ought to have carefully guarded him, had been that he would go and poison himself with “just about five fingers of old rye,” before he went to the lawyer’s office.
Not that such a man could find anything like intoxication in a single drink of whiskey, however liberal, but that it supplied him with the very kind of wooden-headed obstinacy which he thought he needed, and which fools of his kind—all fools who drink whiskey—mistake for courage.
“I can face him down now,” he muttered, as he reached the door, “only I wish I’d put in just one more real good snifter.”
Another, most likely, would have been followed by “just one more,” for his prison fare had left him very “dry.”
There he was now, however, with the hard penetrating eyes of Judge Danvers looking him through and through as he asked him:
“Did you ever see that black valise before?”
“It’s the one Jack Chills stole from me the day he ran away,” said the Major, with a toss of his head.
“No nonsense, please,” calmly responded the lawyer. “Now, you’ve promised to tell me the history of it and what is in it. Perhaps the shortest way will be to open it at once.”
“That’s my property, Judge,” said the Major, in a voice which was getting louder and firmer. “It’s mine, and I’ll open it when and where I please. I’ll thank you to hand it right over to me.”