n there!" spluttered Mucluc Charley, whose tongue was beginning to
wag loosely and trip over itself. "As your father confessor--there I
go--as your brother--O hell!" He paused and collected himself for
another start. "As your frien'--business frien', I should say, I would
suggest, rather--I would take the liberty, as it was, to mention--I mean,
suggest, that there may be more ostriches . . . O hell!" He downed
another glass, and went on more carefully. "What I'm drivin' at is . . .
what am I drivin' at?" He smote the side of his head sharply half a
dozen times with the heel of his palm to shake up his ideas. "I got it!"
he cried jubilantly. "Supposen there's slathers more'n ten thousand
dollars in that hole!"

O'Brien, who apparently was all ready to close the bargain, switched
about.

"Great!" he cried. "Splen'd idea. Never thought of it all by myself."
He took Mucluc Charley warmly by the hand. "Good frien'! Good
's'ciate!" He turned belligerently on Curly Jim. "Maybe hundred
thousand dollars in that hole. You wouldn't rob your old frien', would
you, Curly? Course you wouldn't. I know you--better'n yourself,
better'n yourself. Le's have another: We're good frien's, all of us, I
say, all of us."

And so it went, and so went the whisky, and so went Curly Jim's hopes up
and down. Now Leclaire argued in favour of immediate sale, and almost
won the reluctant O'Brien over, only to lose him to the more brilliant
counter-argument of Mucluc Charley. And again, it was Mucluc Charley who
presented convincing reasons for the sale and Percy Leclaire who held
stubbornly back. A little later it was O'Brien himself who insisted on
selling, while both friends, with tears and curses, strove to dissuade
him. The more whiskey they downed, the more fertile of imagination they
became. For one sober pro or con they found a score of drunken ones; and
they convinced one another so readily that they were perpetually changing
sides in the argument.

The time came when both Mucluc Charley and Leclaire were firmly set upon
the sale, and they gleefully obliterated O'Brien's objections as fast as
he entered them. O'Brien grew desperate. He exhausted his last argument
and sat speechless. He looked pleadingly at the friends who had deserted
him. He kicked Mucluc Charley's shins under the table, but that
graceless hero immediately unfolded a new and most logical reason for the
sale. Curly Jim got pen and ink and paper a