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.
The same formula, “Regards,” was repeated.
Loring leaned in comfort against the bar. The attitude, unfortunately, was not strange to him. Time and time again, on Stephen’s invitation, the glasses were refilled, while every now and then Hankins insisted, “One on the house.” After the first two drinks, however, the latter and his partner drank only beer, while Loring continued to drink straight whisky. The other men had one by one departed, so that Loring and his companions were left alone.
Stephen’s face began to burn. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror that hung behind the bar. Somehow the dull-eyed, white face which looked back at him seemed to have no connection with the radiant creature that he felt himself to be.
At this juncture Jackson made a suggestion.
“What do you say to a little game, gents?”
“By—all—means,” exclaimed Loring, emphasizing each word as if it were the last of the sentence.
Hankins, stooping behind the bar, brought up a pack of cards.
“Here’s an unopened deck,” he said. With queer little side look at his partner, he went on. “I’ll get even with you for our last game, Jackie.”
Stephen, with footsteps that came down very hard, walked over to one of the tables. Then he stopped.
“I—haven’t—got—much—money—here,” he said. He enunciated with the heavy, precise diction of a man who knows, but will not believe that he is drunk.
“That’s all right,” said Jackson. “Your I. O. U. goes with us. We ain’t like a boardin’-house keeper I used to know in Los Angeles, who had a sign hung out over his place: ‘We only trust God.’”
Stephen and Jackson sat down at the table, and the latter began to shuffle the cards vigorously.
“Another whisky, please,” called Stephen to Hankins. He spoke as if a “whisky please” were a special sort of drink.
“A beer for me too,” called Jackson. Hankins brought the drinks on a little tin tray. Before taking each glass from it, he mechanically clicked the bottom against the edge of the tray.