Roger was lying on the couch reading Flaubert’s “La Tentation de la Saint Antoine,” and Don was sitting in an easy chair reading Flaubert’s “Bouvard et Pecuchet.” They looked up, bade him come in, and went on calmly with their reading. Felix took down a book from the shelf—one of the later works of Henry James—and yawned over it.... Perhaps he had better go to bed after all. At that moment there was a stumbling up the stairs, and a loud banging at the door. “That’s Eddie Silver,” said Roger, in a resigned tone. Felix jumped up and opened the door, and Eddie Silver entered, shouting, “Hello!”—at the same time playfully thrusting against Felix’s stomach an automatic revolver made of tin. But Felix did not know that it was a toy. He stepped back hastily, with a queer feeling in the pit of his stomach. “The fool’s got a revolver!” said Roger. “Here, give me that,” said Don, going over and trying to snatch it. “Let him alone——he’s drunk,” said Roger. “No——not drunk!” protested Eddie Silver. “Don’t say I’m drunk!” He tearfully extended his hands in pleading, with the revolver dangling from a finger. “But—” and he beamed at them suddenly——“going to _get_ drunk! Going——” He noticed the revolver, put it carefully in one overcoat pocket, and took out of the other a quart bottle. “Get some glasses, Rojjie!” And taking off his overcoat, with the revolver still in its pocket, he bundled it up and tossed it over into the corner of the room. There was a moment in which everybody—except Eddie—held himself tense in expectation of a bullet. Then Don started across the room toward the overcoat. “No, Don—no!——You le’ tha’ o’co’ ’lone. ’S my bes’ o’co’!” And then, very clearly enunciated, “Hurry up with those glasses!” Felix followed Roger over behind the screen which masked their simple culinary arrangements. “We’ve got to get him drunk enough to get that gun away from him,” whispered Roger. It took another bottle of whiskey, procured by Don and paid for by Felix, and four hours of time, to kill Eddie Silver’s jealous watchfulness of that overcoat in the corner. Eddie, with a maudlin efficiency, divided his attention between the overcoat and the whiskey. His conversation for the last three of the four hours consisted of a promise to tell them something. “Wo’n’ tell ’nybo’ ’n worl’ ’cep’ you,” he kept saying. It appeared to have to do with himself and some girl——but whether it was in the nature of a crime or a joke they could not tell, because sometimes he laughed and again he cried about it. But as often as he started to tell what it was, he became diverted, and told instead about somebody else and somebody else’s girl. He confessed many follies that night, but not his own.