CHAPTER XXIII.
HIS LORDSHIP RETIRES It was the voice of Greenacre, unsteady with wrath, stripped utterly of its bland intonations.
"So here you are! What have you been up to, Gammon?
Are you drunk ?" Just as the cab drove up Greenacre was turning reluctantly from the house door, where he had held a warm parley with Mrs.Bubb; the landlady irritable at being disturbed in her first sleep, the untimely visitor much ruffled in temper by various causes.
"Drunk!" echoed Gammon, as he leapt to the pavement and clutched at Greenacre's arm.

"Drunk yourself, more likely! Where have you been since you sent that telegram?
Hold on a minute." He paid the cabman.
"Now then, give an account of yourself." "What the devil do you mean ?" cried the other.

"What account do I owe to you ?" "Well, I might answer that question," said Gammon with a grin, "if I took time to calculate." "We can't talk in the street at this time of night, with snow coming down.

Suppose we go up to your room ?" "As you please.

But I advise you to talk quietly; the walls and the floors are not over thick." The latch-key admitted them, and they went as softly as possible up the stairs, only one involuntary kick from Greenacre on sounding wood causing his host to mutter a malediction.