A few nights later he returned with a fund of new stories, and during the evening he confessed to a consuming thirst.

“Death Valley has nothing on this place,” he mourned.

Bob explained apologetically, “I’m sorry, but there’s nothing in the house wetter than Croton water.”

“I understand!  Will you object if I sweeten a glass of it with some Scottish rites?  I’m afraid of germs, and if water rots leather think what it must do to the sensitive lining of a human stomach?” Jim drew a flask from his pocket, then hesitated as if in doubt.

“Don’t mind me,” Bob assured him, hastily.  “I’m strapped in the driver’s seat.”  But he looked on with eager appreciation as his brother-in-law filled a long glass and sipped it.

Bob had never been a whisky-drinker, yet the faint odor of the liquor tantalized him.  When in the course of time he saw Jim preparing a second drink he stirred.

“Kind of itchy, eh?  Let’s whip across the street and have a game of pool,” suggested Jim; and Bob was glad to escape from the room.

An agreeable hour followed; but Bob played badly, and found that his eye had lost its sureness.  His hand was uncertain, too, and this lack of co-ordination disgusted him.  He was sure that with a steadying drink he could beat Jim, and eventually he proved it; but, mindful of his resolution, he compromised on beer, which, Jim agreed, could not reasonably be called an intoxicant.

On his way to the theater Bob chewed cinnamon bark, and when he kissed Lorelei he held his breath.

This was the first of several pool matches, and after a while Bob was gratified to find that beer in moderation left no disagreeable effect whatever upon him.  He rejoiced in his power of restraint.

There came a night when he failed to meet his wife.  After waiting nearly half an hour Lorelei went home, only to find the apartment deserted.  She nibbled at a lonely lunch, trying to assure herself that nothing was seriously amiss; but she could not make up her mind to go to bed.  She tried to read, and failed.  An hour passed, then another; a thousand apprehensions crowded in upon her, and she finally found herself walking the floor, but pulled herself together with a mirthless laugh.  So it had come, she reflected, with mingled bitterness and relief; her fight was over, her part of the bargain was ended, she was free to live her own life as she chose.  Certainly she had done her best, and above all question she was not the sort of wife who could wait patiently, night after night, for a drunken husband.

Bob, when he did arrive, entered with elaborate caution.  He paused in the little hall, then tossed his hat into the living-room, where his wife was waiting.  After a moment his head came slowly into view, and he said: 

“When the hat stays in, go in; when it comes out, beat it.”

Lorelei saw that he was quite drunk.