Page:Caroline Lockhart--The Fighting Shepherdess.djvu/186

 That was the beginning. From the time the champagne and oysters arrived until long past midnight Mrs.Toomey experienced all the sensations that come to the woman who must sit passive and watch her husband pass through the several stages of intoxication. And in addition, she had the knowledge that he could, less afford the money he was spending than the waiter who served him.

In high spirits at first, with his natural drollness, stimulated to brilliancy, his sallies brought smiles from those at adjoining tables. Then he became in turn boastful, arrogant, argumentative, thick of speech, finally, and slow of comprehension, but obstinate always.

"Goin' back jail 'morra, Ol' Dear—goin' finish out my life sentence," when she reminded him of the lateness of the hour and her weariness, and he resented her interference so fiercely when she countermanded an order that she dared not repeat it.

"You lis'en me, waiter, thish my party. Might think I was town drunkard—village sot way my wife tryin' flag me." Mrs. Toomey colored painfully at the attention he attracted.

He turned to a late comer who had seated himself at a small table across the narrow aisle from them. "My wife's a great disappointment to me—no—sport never was, never will be. 'Morra," addressing himself to the stranger exclusively, "goin' back to hear the prairie dogs chatter—goin' listen to the sagebrush tick—back one thousan' miles from an oyster—"

"Jap!" Mrs. Toomey interrupted desperately, "we must be going. Everyone's leaving."

"We'll be closing shortly," the waiter hinted.

Toomey blinked at the check he placed before him.

"Can't see whether tha's twenty dollars, or two hundred dollars or two thousand dollars."