For two hours they drank steadily.  Vandover was in a dreadful condition; the Dummy got so drunk that he could talk, a peculiarity which at times had been known to occur to him.  As will sometimes happen, Geary sobered up a little and at the “Grotto” bathed his head and face in the washroom.  After this he became pretty steady, he stopped drinking, and tried to assume the management of the party, ordering their drinks for them, and casting up the amount of the check.

About two o’clock they returned toward the Luxembourg, staggering and swaying.  The Luxembourg was a sort of German restaurant under a theatre where one could get some very good German dishes.  There Vandover had beer and sauerkraut, but Ellis took more whisky.  The Dummy continued to make peculiar sounds in his throat, half-noise, half-speech, and Geary gravely informed the waiter that cherries were ripe.

All at once Ellis was drunk, collapsing in a moment.  The skin around his eyes was purple and swollen, the pupils themselves were contracted, and their range of vision seemed to stop at about a yard in front of his face.  Suddenly he swept glasses, plates, castor, knives, forks, and all from off the table with a single movement of his arm.

They all jumped up, sober in a minute, knowing that a scene was at hand.  The waiter rushed at Ellis, but Ellis knocked him down and tried to stamp on his face.  Vandover and the Dummy tried to hold his arms and pull him off.  He turned on the Dummy in a silent frenzy of rage and brought his knuckles down upon his head again and again.  For the moment Ellis could neither hear, nor see, nor speak; he was blind, dumb, fighting drunk, and his fighting was not the fighting of Vandover.

“Get in here and help, will you?” panted Vandover to Geary, as he struggled with Ellis.  “He can kill people when he’s like this.  Oh, damn the whisky anyhow!  Look out—­don’t let him get that knife!  Grab his other arm, there! now, kick his feet from under him!  Oh, kick hard!  Sit on his legs; there now.  Ah!  Hell! he’s bitten me!  Look out! here comes the bouncer!”

The bouncer and three other waiters charged into them while they were struggling on the floor.  Vandover was twice knocked down and the Dummy had his lip split.  Ellis struggled to his feet again and, still silent, fought them all alike, a fine line of froth gathering at the corners of his lips.

When they were finally ejected, and pulled themselves together in the street outside, Geary had disappeared.  He had left them during the struggle with Ellis and had gone home.  Ah, you bet he wasn’t going to stay any longer with the crowd when they got like that.  If Ellis was fool enough to get as drunk as that it was his own lookout. He wasn’t going to stay and get thrown out of any saloon; ah, no, you bet he was too clever for that.  He was sober enough now and would go home to bed and get a good sleep.

The fight in the saloon had completely sobered the rest of them.  Ellis was tractable enough again, and very sorry for having got them into such a row.  Vandover was horribly sick at his stomach.