Besides, he had been drinking more heavily all day than was his custom.
So Quarrier talked, sparingly, about his new coach, about Billy Fleetwood's renowned string of hunters, about Ashley Spencer's new stable and his chances at Saratoga with Roy-a-neh, for which he had paid a fabulous sum--the sum and the story probably equally fabulous.
Mortimer's head was swimming with ideas; he was also talking a great deal, much more than he had intended; he was saying things he had not exactly intended to say, either, in just that way.

He realised it, but he went on, unable to stop his own tongue, the noise of which intoxicated him.
Once or twice he thought Quarrier looked at him rather strangely; but he would show Quarrier that he was nobody's fool; he'd show Quarrier that he was a friend, a good, staunch friend; and that Quarrier had long, long undervalued him.

Waves of sentiment spread through and through him; his affection for Quarrier dampened his eyes; and still he blabbed on and on, gazing with brimming eyes upon Quarrier, who sat back silent and attentive as Mortimer circled and blundered nearer and nearer to the crucial point of his destination.
Midway in one of his linguistic ellipses Quarrier leaned forward and caught his arm in a grip of steel.

Another man had entered the room.
Mortimer, made partly conscious by the pain of Quarrier's vise-like grip, was sober enough to recognise the impropriety of his continuing aloud the veiled story he had been constructing with what he supposed to be a cunning as matchless as it was impenetrable.
Later he found himself upstairs in a private card-room, facing Quarrier across a table, and still talking and quenching his increasing thirst.
He knew now what he was telling Quarrier; he was unveiling the parable; he was stripping metaphor from a carefully precise story.

He used Siward's name presently; presently he used Sylvia's name.