Page:Wilson - Merton of the Movies (1922).djvu/201

 have some more coffee." A dread load was off his mind. He did not dream this thing. He ate the orange, and ate wonderful toast to the accompaniment of another cup of coffee. The latter half of this he managed with but one hand, though it was not yet wholly under control. The three eggs seemed like but one. He thought they must have been small eggs. More toast was commanded and more coffee.

"Easy, easy!" cautioned his watchful hostess from time to time. "Don't wolf it—you'll feel better afterwards."

"I feel better already," he announced.

"Well," the girl eyed him critically, "you certainly got the main chandelier lighted up once more."

A strange exhilaration flooded all his being. His own thoughts babbled to him, and he presently began to babble to his new friend.

"You remind me so much of Tessie Kearns," he said as he scraped the sides of the egg cup.

"Who's she?"

"Oh, she's a scenario writer I know. You're just like her." He was now drunk—maudlin drunk—from the coffee. Sober, he would have known that no human beings could be less alike than Tessie Kearns and the Montague girl. Other walls of his reserve went down.

"Of course I could have written to Gashwiler and got some money to go back there"

"Gashwiler, Gashwiler?" The girl seemed to search her memory. "I thought I knew all the tank towns, but that's a new one. Where is it?"

"It isn't a town; it's a gentleman I had a position with, and he said he'd keep it open for me." He flew to another thought with the inconsequence of the drunken. "Say, Kid"—He had even caught that form of address from her—"I'll tell you. You can keep this watch of mine till I pay you back this money." He drew it out. "It's a good solid-gold watch and everything. My uncle Sylvester gave it to me for not smoking, on my eighteenth birthday.