"I'm not drunk," Reggie said indignantly. "That man has been following me like a conga partner all afternoon."
The tall young man patted Reggie patiently on the shoulder.
"Sleep and rest will make a new man of you," he said. "Go home. Go to bed. You've got hallucinations."
"Hallucinations!" Reggie cried over the din of the orchestra. "What do you mean? Don't you see the man I mean? Right between the fat old man and the girl with the red hair?"
The tweedish young man shook his head.
"The stool between the fat old man and the red-haired girl is completely unoccupied," he said in the patient voice of a man instructing a very young child.
Reggie shook his head bewilderedly. There was a sudden cold hollow in the pit of his stomach. He opened and closed his mouth several times without producing a sound.
"Are you serious?" he finally managed to gasp.
"Certainly," the young man answered. "There's no one on the bar stool you left. You're just seeing things. Take my advice and go home. You've had too much giggle water."
Reggie set his drink down hastily. For a long deliberate moment he studied the back of the dark little man at the bar. Then he shook his head dazedly. Maybe this was all some wild product of his imagination. Maybe he was having hallucinations....