but Ellis took more whisky. The Dummy continued to
make peculiar sounds in his throat, half-noise, half-speech, and Geary
gravely informed the waiter that cherries were ripe.

All at once Ellis was drunk, collapsing in a moment. The skin around his
eyes was purple and swollen, the pupils themselves were contracted, and
their range of vision seemed to stop at about a yard in front of his
face. Suddenly he swept glasses, plates, castor, knives, forks, and all
from off the table with a single movement of his arm.

They all jumped up, sober in a minute, knowing that a scene was at hand.
The waiter rushed at Ellis, but Ellis knocked him down and tried to
stamp on his face. Vandover and the Dummy tried to hold his arms and
pull him off. He turned on the Dummy in a silent frenzy of rage and
brought his knuckles down upon his head again and again. For the moment
Ellis could neither hear, nor see, nor speak; he was blind, dumb,
fighting drunk, and his fighting was not the fighting of Vandover.

"Get in here and help, will you?" panted Vandover to Geary, as he
struggled with Ellis. "He can kill people when he's like this. Oh, damn
the whisky anyhow! Look out--don't let him get that knife! Grab his
other arm, there! now, kick his feet from under him! Oh, kick hard! Sit
on his legs; there now. Ah! Hell! he's bitten me! Look out! here comes
the bouncer!"

The bouncer and three other waiters charged into them while they were
struggling on the floor. Vandover was twice knocked down and the Dummy
had his lip split. Ellis struggled to his feet again and, still silent,
fought them all alike, a fine line of froth gathering at the corners of
his lips.

When they were finally ejected, and pulled themselves together in the
street outside, Geary had disappeared. He had left them during the
struggle with Ellis and had gone home. Ah, you bet he wasn't going to
stay any longer with the crowd when they got like that. If Ellis was
fool enough to get as drunk as that it was his own lookout. _He_ wasn't
going to stay and get thrown out of any saloon; ah, no, you bet he was
too clever for that. He was sober enough now and would go home to bed
and get a good sleep.

The fight in the saloon had completely sobered the rest of them. Ellis
was tractable enough again, and very sorry for having got them into such
a row. Vandover was horribly sick at his stomach.

The three locked arms and started slowly toward the Turkish baths. On
their way they st