WHEREIN THE PACE SLACKENS--BUT ONLY FOR A FEW HOURS "Say, old man," muttered Devar, gazing fixedly at Brodie's broad shoulders as Broadway unrolled its even width before the car on the uptown journey, "are we the same couple of blighters who met in a bathroom gangway, 'B' Deck, near staterooms 51 and 52, on board the Cunard steamship _Lusitania_, about twenty-one hours since; or have we become dematerialized ?" Curtis knew that the boy was quivering with excitement, but it was useless to advise a slackening of the tension, so he merely said: "Do you feel like a Mahatma ?" "If a Mahatma is a fellow with a head like a balloon, not in size, but in contents, yes.

Have you ever had a real jag on you, not the big dinner, big bottle, big cigar sort of imitation, but the wild-eyed, imp-seeing, genuine rip-snorter ?" "No.

Neither have you." "I should have denied the charge before to-night.

But I know now what it means.

It is a brain-storm induced by rum.