ink stronger than root beer. He kept that up for a night
and a day and well into another night. Very well, gather round and look at
the remains, and if there's a moral, you are welcome, I am sure.

Casey awoke just before noon, and went out and held his head under Bill's
garage hydrant, with the water running full stream. He looked up and found
Bill standing there with his hands in his pockets, gazing at Casey
sorrowfully. Casey grinned. You can't down the Irish for very long.

"How's she comin', Bill?"

Bill grunted and spat. "She ain't. Not if you mean that car them folks
wished on to you. Well, the tail light's pretty fair, too. And in their
hurry the lady went off and left a pink silk stockin' in the back seat.
The toe's out of it though. Casey, if you wait till you overhaul 'em with
that thing they wheeled in here under the name of a car--"

"Oh, that's all right, Bill," Casey grunted gamely. "I was goin' to git me
a new car, anyway. Mine wasn't so much. They're welcome."

Bill grunted and spat again, but he did not say anything.

"I'll go see Dwyer and see how much I got left," Casey said presently, and
his voice, whether you believe it or not, was cheerful. "I'm going to
ketch that evenin' train to Los." And he added kindly, "C'm on and eat
with me, Bill. I'm hungry."

Bill shook his head and gave another grunt, and Casey went off without
him.

After awhile Casey returned. He was grinning, but the grin was, to a
careful observer, a bit sickish. "Say, Bill, talk about poker--I'm off it
fer life. Now look what it done to me, Bill! I puts twenty-five thousand
dollars into the bank--minus two hundred I took in money--and I takes a
check book, and I goes over to The Club and gits into a game. I wears the
check book down to the stubs. I goes back and asks Dwyer how much I got in
the bank, and he looks me over like I was a sick horse he had doubts about
being worth doctorin', and as if he thought he mebby might better take me
out an' shoot me an' put me outa my misery.

"'Jest one dollar an' sixty-seven cents, Casey,' he says to me, 'if the
checks is all in, which I trust they air!'" Casey got out his plug of
chewing tobacco and pried off a blunted corner. "An' hell Bill! I had that
much in the bank when I started," he finished plaintively.

"Hell!" repeated Bill in brief, eloquent sympathy.

Casey set his teeth together and extracted comfort from the tobacco. He
expectorated ruminatively.

"Well, anyway, I