"Come on up to the corner and he'll tell you himself."
"I haven't got my hat."
"Take mine." The boss slipped his gray derby on Jim's head. It
descended to his ears. "You're a regular pinhead," exclaimed the big
fellow loudly, and they both laughed.
They walked up to the saloon, Connor's slippers flapping against the
pavement flags with every step.
The saloon welcomed Jim as if he had been a conquering hero. It was
light and warm and gay and full of men.
Carl Schroeder and Jim went into the private office and whispered
importantly together for half an hour. When they came out, Carl was
smiling and announced, clapping Jim on the back, "This old scout's
brought be the best news in a week. What'll you have, boys?"
Jim took lithia, explaining he was wagoning, and they congratulated him
and took whiskey themselves. He left reasonably early, half a dozen
rounds of lithia having given him a rather sloppy-weather sensation
within. Besides, the other fellows had got to feeling good and were
talking to beat the band, and he just sat there like a bump on a log
without a thing to say.
Not that the drinkers seemed particularly wise or witty, for some of
them began to sound increasingly foolish as he listened to them, cold
sober. But the liquor put them on a different plane from him, lower
perhaps, but also wilder, freer, less deliberate and restrained. Their
thoughts didn't follow the same sequence as his and he couldn't meet
their minds as they seemed able to meet each others. He was
self-conscious and glum and awkward, like a new millionaire in the
hands of his first valet. And he knew that one drink of whiskey would
alter all that and put him in right. But he didn't take it.
The big fellow saw him to the door, giving him a cap that he picked up
in the private office to go home in.
"You'll do what you can for the organization in your precinct?"
"Sure."
"And we won't forget you."
"Thanks, Ed, that's mighty fine of you."
They shook hands; then Jim felt his fingers closing over a ten-dollar
bill which had been pressed into his palm. It was easy money, he
thought, as he paddled home in his cap and slippers. All he'd have to
do to earn it would be to get around among the neighbors evenings for a
couple or three weeks.
When Georgia, who had been waiting up for him with a peculiar
fluttering of the heart each time that she heard a step on the stairs,
found that he was entirely sober, she kissed him of her own accord.