"
"For my part," went on Jimmy seriously, "my potations were moderate.
After trying the first oyster, I was sober enough to let the others
alone. Then came on the alleged mussel-soup. I tried it and laid
down my spoon. . . . Do you happen to know, Otty, which develops the
quicker typhoid or ptomaine? and if they are, by any chance, mutually
exclusive? Farrell will like to know.
"He swallowed it all. But when he had done he looked full in the
eyes and said in a loud, unfaltering voice, 'This restarong is no
longer what it was.'
"'The champagne is, and better,' I consoled him.
"'Well, what do you say now,' he asked,' to a pig's trotter farced
with pimento? _That_ sounds appetising, at any rate.'
"I think it was at this point, accurately, that I began to suspect
him of having exceeded or of being on the verge of excess. But the
suspicion no sooner crossed my mind than he set it at rest by getting
up and walking across the room to his great-coat, on the rack by the
door. His gait was perfectly steady. He drew certain articles from
the pockets, returned with them, and laid them on the table:
a cigar-case, a mysterious round box of white metal--sort of box you
buy 'Blanco' in--and another round object concealed in a crushed
paper-bag.
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