t, I'll ask you two dozen times more, if I choose," retorted
Quest. "Why not?" And he gave him an ugly stare.

The man was just drunk enough to be quarrelsome. Duane paid him no
further attention; Grandcourt asked him very civilly if he could do
anything for him.

"Sure," sneered Quest. "You can tell Dysart that if I ever come across
him I'll shoot him on sight! Tell him that and be damned!"

"I've already told him that," said Grandcourt with a shrug of contempt.

The weak, vicious face of the other reddened:

"What do you mean by taking that tone with me?" he demanded loudly. "Do
you think I won't make good?" He fumbled around in his clothing for a
moment and presently jerked a pistol free--one of the automatic kind
with rubber butt and blued barrel.

"Unless you are drunker than I've ever seen you," said Grandcourt,
"you'll put up that pistol before I do."

Quest cursed him steadily for a minute: "Do you think I haven't got the
nerve to use it when m' honour's 'volved? I tell you," he said thickly,
"when m' honour's 'volved----"

"You get drunk, don't you?" observed Duane. "What a pitiful pup you are,
anyway. Go to bed."

Quest stood swaying slightly on his heels and considering Duane with the
inquiring solemnity of one who is in process of grasping and digesting
an abstruse proposition.

"B-bed?" he repeated; "me?"

"Certainly. A member of this club disgracefully drunk in the afternoon
will certainly hear from the governing board unless he keeps out of
sight until he's sane again."

"Thank you," said Quest with owlish condescension; "I'm indebted to you
for calling 'tention to m-matters which 'volve honour of m' own club
and----"

His voice rambled off into a mutter; he sat or rather fell into an
armchair and lay there twitching and mumbling to himself and inspecting
his automatic pistol with prominent watery eyes.

"You'd better leave that squirt-gun with me," said Grandcourt.

Quest refused with an oath, and, leaning forward and hammering the
padded chair-arm with his unhealthy looking fist, he broke out into a
violent arraignment of Dysart:

"Damn him!" he yelled, "I've written him, I've asked for an explanation,
I've 'm-manded t' know why his name's coupled with my sister's----"

Duane leaned over, slammed the door, and turned short on Quest:

"Shut up!" he said sharply. "Do you hear! Shut up!"

"No, I won't shut up! I'll say what I damn please----"

"Haven't you any decency at all----"