He went down the stairs, loose-jointed, pallid, and bare-headed. He went through the downstairs dining- room to the street and out to the curb, where he vomited. When he had vomited, he went to a taxicab that stood a dozen feet away, climbed into it, and gave the driver an address in Greenwich Village.
Ned Beaumont left the taxicab in front of a house whose open basement-door, under brown stone steps, let noise and light out into a dark street. He went through the basement-doorway into a narrow room where two white-coated bar-tenders served a dozen men and women at a twenty-foot bar and two waiters moved among tables at which other people sat.
The balder bar-tender said, 'For Christ's sake, Ned!' put down the pink mixture he was shaking in a tall glass, and stuck a wet hand out across the bar.
Ned Beaumont said, ''Lo, Mack,' and shook the wet hand.
One of the waiters came up to shake Ned Beaumont's hand and then a round and florid Italian whom Ned Beaumont called Tony. When these greetings were over Ned Beaumont said he would buy a drink.
'Like hell you will,' Tony said. He turned to the bar and rapped on it with an empty cocktail-glass. 'This guy can't buy so much as a glass of water tonight,' he said when he had the bar-tenders' attention. 'What he wants is on the house.'
Ned Beaumont said: 'That's all right for me, so I get it. Double Scotch.'
Two girls at a table in the other end of the room stood up and called together: 'Yoo-hoo, Ned!'
He told Tony, 'Be back in a minute,' and went to the girls' table. They embraced him, asked him questions, introduced him to the men with them, and made a place for him at their table.
He sat down and replied to their questions that he was back in New York only for a short visit and not to stay and that his was double Scotch.
At a little before three o'clock they rose from their table, left Tony's establishment, and went to another almost exactly like it three blocks away, where they sat at a table that could hardly have been told from the first and drank the same sort of liquor they had been drinking.
One of the men went away at half past three. He did not say good-by to the others, nor they to him. Ten minutes later Ned Beaumont, the other man, and the two girls left. They got into a taxicab at the corner and went to a hotel near Washington Square, where the other man and one of the girls got out.
The remaining girl took Ned Beaumont, who called her Fedink, to an apartment in Seventy-third Street. The apartment was very warm. When she opened the door warm air came out to meet them. When she was three steps inside the living-room she sighed and fell down on the floor.
Ned Beaumont shut the door and tried to awaken her, but she would not wake. He carried and dragged her difficultly into the next room and put her on a chintz-covered day-bed. He took off part of her clothing, found some blankets to spread over her, and opened a window. Then he went into the bathroom and was sick. After that he returned to the living-room, lay down on the sofa in all his clothes, and went to sleep.
A telephone-bell, ringing close to Ned Beaumont's head, awakened him. He opened his eyes, put his feet down on the floor, turned on his side, and looked around the room. When he saw the telephone he shut his eyes and relaxed.
The bell continued to ring. He groaned, opened his eyes again, and squirmed until he had freed his left arm from beneath his body. He put his wrist close to his eves and looked at his watch, squinting. The watch's crystal was gone and its hands had stopped at twelve minutes to twelve.
Ned Beaumont squirmed again on the sofa until he was leaning on his left elbow, holding his head up on his left hand. The telephone-bell was still ringing. He looked around the room with miserably dull eyes. The lights were burning. Through an open doorway he could see Fedink's blanket-covered feet on an end of the day-bed.
He groaned again and sat up, running fingers through his tousled dark hair, squeezing his temples between the heels of his palms. His lips were dry and brownly encrusted. He ran his tongue over them and made a distasteful face. Then he rose, coughing a little, took off his gloves and overcoat, dropped them on the sofa, and went into the bathroom.
When he came out he went to the day-bed and looked down at Fedink. She was sleeping heavily, face down, one blue-sleeved arm crooked above her head. The telephone-bell had stopped ringing. He pulled his tie straight and returned to the living-room.
Three Murad cigarettes were in an open box on the table between two chairs. He picked up one of the cigarettes, muttered, 'Nonchalant,' without humor, found a paper of matches, lit the cigarette, and went into the kitchen. He squeezed the juice of four oranges into a tall glass and drank it. He made and drank two cups of coffee.
As he came out of the kitchen Fedink asked in a woefully flat voice: 'Where's Ted?' Her one visible eye was partially open.
Ned Beaumont went over to her. 'Who's Ted?' he asked.
'That fellow I was with.'
'Were you with somebody? How do I know?'
She opened her mouth and made an unpleasant clucking sound shutting it. 'What time is it?'
'I don't know that either. Somewhere around daylight.'
She rubbed her face into the chintz cushion under it and said: 'A swell guy I turned out to be, promising to marry him yesterday and then leaving him to take the first tramp I run into home with me.' She opened and shut the hand that was above her head. 'Or am I home?'
'You had a key to the place, anyway,' Ned Beaumont told her. 'Want some orange-juice and coffee?'
'I don't want a damned thing except to die. Will you go away, Ned, and not ever come back?'
'It's going to be hard on me,' he said ill-naturedly, 'but I'll try.'
He put on his overcoat and gloves, took a dark wrinkled cap from one overcoat-pocket, put the cap on, and left the house.
Half an hour later Ned Beaumont was knocking on the door of room 734 at his hotel. Presently Jack's voice, drowsy, can-me through the door: 'Who's that?'
'Beaumont.'
'Oh,' without enthusiasm, 'all right.'
Jack opened the door and turned on the lights. He was in green-spotted pajamas. His feet were bare. His eyes were dull, his face flushed, with sleepiness. He yawned, nodded, and went back to bed, where he stretched himself out on his back and stared at the ceiling. Then he asked, with not much interest: 'How are you this morning?'
Ned Beaumont had shut the door. He stood between door and bed looking sullenly at the man in the bed. He asked: 'What happened after I left?'
'Nothing happened.' Jack yawned again. 'Or do you mean what did I do?' He did not wait for a reply. 'I went out and took a plant across the street till they came out. Despain and the girl and the guy that slugged you came out. They went to the Buckman, Forty-eighth Street. That's where Despain's holing up—apartment 938— name of Barton Dewey. I hung around there till after three and then knocked off. They were all still in there unless they were fooling me.' He jerked his head slightly in the direction of a corner of the room. 'Your hat's on the chair there. I thought I might as well save it for you.'
Ned Beaumont went over to the chair and picked up the hat that did not quite fit him. He stuffed the wrinkled dark cap in his overcoat pocket and put the hat on his head.
Jack said: 'There's some gin on the table if you want a shot.'
Ned Beaumont said: 'No, thanks. Have you got a gun?'
Jack stopped staring at the ceiling. He sat up in bed, stretched his arms out wide, yawned for the third time, and asked: 'What are you figuring on doing?' His voice held nothing beyond polite curiosity.
'I'm going to see Despain.'
Jack had drawn his knees up, had clasped his hands around them, and was sitting hunched forward a little staring at the foot of the bed. He said slowly: 'I don't think you ought to, not right now.'
'I've got to, right now,' Ned Beaumont said.
His voice made Jack look at him. Ned Beaumont's face was an unhealthy yellowish grey. His eyes were
