At three o’clock in the morning they brought him back to his office, shorn and unconscious.  The sheriff, the sportive deputy, the county clerk, and the gay attorney carried him, the chalk-faced man “from the valley” acting as escort.

“On the table,” said one of them, and they deposited him there among the litter of his unprofitable books and papers.

“Yance thinks a lot of a pair of deuces when he’s liquored up,” sighed the sheriff reflectively.

“Too much,” said the gay attorney.  “A man has no business to play poker who drinks as much as he does.  I wonder how much he dropped to-night.”

“Close to two hundred.  What I wonder is whar he got it.  Yance ain’t had a cent fur over a month, I know.”

“Struck a client, maybe.  Well, let’s get home before daylight.  He’ll be all right when he wakes up, except for a sort of beehive about the cranium.”

The gang slipped away through the early morning twilight.  The next eye to gaze upon the miserable Goree was the orb of day.  He peered through the uncurtained window, first deluging the sleeper in a flood of faint gold, but soon pouring upon the mottled red of his flesh a searching, white, summer heat.  Goree stirred, half unconsciously, among the table’s debris, and turned his face from the window.  His movement dislodged a heavy law book, which crashed upon the floor.  Opening his eyes, he saw, bending over him, a man in a black frock coat.  Looking higher, he discovered a well-worn silk hat, and beneath it the kindly, smooth face of Colonel Abner Coltrane.

A little uncertain of the outcome, the colonel waited for the other to make some sign of recognition.  Not in twenty years had male members of these two families faced each other in peace.  Goree’s eyelids puckered as he strained his blurred sight toward this visitor, and then he smiled serenely.

“Have you brought Stella and Lucy over to play?” he said calmly.

“Do you know me, Yancey?” asked Coltrane.

“Of course I do.  You brought me a whip with a whistle in the end.”

So he had—­twenty-four years ago; when Yancey’s father was his best friend.

Goree’s eyes wandered about the room.  The colonel understood.  “Lie still, and I’ll bring you some,” said he.  There was a pump in the yard at the rear, and Goree closed his eyes, listening with rapture to the click of its handle, and the bubbling of the falling stream.  Coltrane brought a pitcher of the cool water, and held it for him to drink.  Presently Goree sat up—­a most forlorn object, his summer suit of flax soiled and crumpled, his discreditable head tousled and unsteady.  He tried to wave one of his hands toward the colonel.

“Ex-excuse—­everything, will you?” he said.  “I must have drunk too much whiskey last night, and gone to bed on the table.”  His brows knitted into a puzzled frown.

“Out with the boys awhile?” asked Coltrane kindly.