The green shaded lamp was burning on the table before him. "The last time--by God," he said, and lifting his fist he drove it through the shattering glass, reeled, and stretched insensible on the floor. On the following night, a Saturday, Kelly, Buck Waters, and McNab at Mory's set up a shout of welcome as Stover came in quietly: "Good old Dink!" "Hard old head." "What is it, old boy?--get in the game." "A toby of musty, Louis," he said, quietly sitting down. McNab glanced at him, aware of something new in the sharp, businesslike movements, and the old determined lines of the lips. "My round," said Buck Waters presently. "Another toby for me," said Stover. A little later Kelly rang on the table: "Bring 'em in all over again." "Not for me," said Stover. "I guess two'll be my limit from now on." There was no protest. McNab surreptitiously, while the others were in an argument, leaned over and patted him on the knee. CHAPTER XXII What Stover in his fuddled consciousness had said to little Wookey on that last wild night returned to him with doubled force in the white of the day. He had given his opponents the right to destroy all he had stood for by pointing to his own example. He had been a deserter from the cause, but the sound of the enemy's bugle had recalled him to the battle. He took the first occasion to stop Le Baron, for he wanted the latter to make no mistake about him. "Hugh, I was rude as the devil to you the other night," he said directly. "I was drunk--more than you had any idea. What I want you to know is this. You put the question right up to me. You've forced me to take my stand, and I've done it. You're all wrong on the argument, but I don't blame you. Only after this you'll never have the chance to fling that at me again. You and I'll never agree on things here, we're bound to be enemies, but I want to thank you for opening my eyes, putting it squarely up to me." He left without waiting for an answer, having said what he wished to. For several days he kept by himself, taking long walks, disciplining the ship that had sailed so long in mutiny. Then he turned up in Regan's room, and holding out his hand, said: "Well, Tom, it's over. How in blazes did you keep from telling me what you thought about me all this time?" Regan, unruffled and undemonstrative, said through the cloud of his pipe: "Well, I've seen men go through it before. You never were very bad." "What?" said Stover, who felt rather annoyed at this tame estimate. "It's not a bad thing when you've licked the devil four ways to election," said Regan. "You know what you can do, and that's something." "Ever been through it?" said Stover, still a little piqued. "Ye-es." "Really, Tom?" said Dink amazed. "Ran about six months," said Regan, crossing his legs and dreaming. "I wasn't nice and polite like you--used to clean up the place--rather ugly time, but I pulled out." "You've never told me about yourself," said Stover tentatively.