“Please, please stop! I am silly. I am afraid of the words. I’m afraid of him. I—Oh, why didn’t you put him out of the way when I asked you?”
“Sorry,” I said, meaning it.
“Do you think he—?”
“I don’t know,” I told her, “and I reckon you’re right. There’s no use talking about it. The thing to do is drink, though there doesn’t seem to be much body to this gin.”
“That’s you, not the gin. Do you want an honest to God rear?”
“I’d drink nitroglycerine tonight.”
“That’s just about what you’re going to get,” she promised me.
She rattled bottles in the kitchen and brought me in a glass of what looked like the stuff we had been drinking. I sniffed at it and said:
“Some of Dan’s laudanum, huh? He still in the hospital?”
“Yes. I think his skull is fractured. There’s your kick, mister, if that’s what you want.”
I put the doped gin down my throat. Presently I felt more comfortable. Time went by as we drank and talked in a world that was rosy, cheerful, and full of fellowship and peace on earth.
Dinah stuck to gin. I tried that for a while too, and then had another gin and laudanum.
For a while after that I played a game, trying to hold my eyes open as if I were awake, even though I couldn’t see anything out of them. When the trick wouldn’t fool her any more I gave it up.