Page:Barbour--Joan of the ilsand.djvu/177

Rh a recollection of recent events. His sister greeted him a little coldly.

"Go on, say it, Joan!" he said. "I'm ten different kinds of an ass—I'm everything you could call me, and worse. The funny part of it is I haven't the faintest idea how it all happened. You probably think I went off for a jamboree. As a matter of fact, although that's what it seems to have developed into, I started out with perfectly virtuous intentions. Honestly, I don't know how I came to make an idiot of myself."

"It wasn't you, altogether," said Keith. "It was his liquor. That sort of stuff is called 'coffin polish' in the trade. It's more dangerous than nitroglycerine."

"Evidently, because I didn't take much of it—as far as I remember. But, Keith, I've a distinct recollection of Moniz drawing up an agreement, and we were having an argument about it when you butted in. I've been racking my brains ever since I awoke to recall whether I signed the thing or not."

"Do you remember what was in the agreement?" Keith asked.

"Perfectly. That shark was to keep us in grub and other stores until the crops begin. Then he was to go halves."

"Did you read it through?"

"Why no, maybe I didn't. Why?"