Clifford!” he cried, giving Clifford a slender, soft hand. “How’s the old boy?”

[15]

“Same as always. And how’s Jackie Morton? You’ve been missing for months.”

“I’ve a wonderful tale to unfold—but no time to unfold it now.”

There was that about him which begot an instant liking, though his face was not as strong as it might have been.

“Say—you won’t believe it—but listen. I’ve been on the wagon for seventeen weeks!”

“No!”

“Give you my word! Not a drop in seventeen ages! Had to, you know. My old man—say, he’s one old battleship!—steamed into New York and shut off supplies, and said unless I cut it all out and took a brace, there’d be no more shipments of munitions. Get the situation, don’t you?—case of a sixteen-inch gun shoved into my face and bein’ told it would go off if I didn’t reform. So look and behold and observe what’s happened—I’m reformed! Been off where milk’s all they shove ’cross the bar—isolated, and all that kind of thing—and been behavin’ in a way to make the Ten Commandments jealous. Honest to God, Clifford—”

Abruptly he checked this effervescence. “Say, seen Peter Loveman about here?”

“He’s just gone.”

“Alone?”

[16]“I believe there was a young lady with him,” Clifford replied discreetly—wondering a little what young Morton’s business, if any, could be with the pair that had left.

[16]

Morton hesitated; then again was effervescent. “Was to have met him here—but there’s no tellin’ where he is. Come on—let’s have a drink.”

“But you are on the wagon.”

“I am. But I want to give you the grand sight of watchin’ me fall off.”

“You sit tight right where you are,” advised Clifford.

 Prev. P 10/234 next