CHAPTER XXVI.
IKE ANDERSON Ike Anderson was drunk--calmly, magnificently, satisfactorily drunk.
It had taken time, but it was a fact accomplished.

The actual state of affairs was best known to Ike Anderson himself, and not obvious to the passer-by.

Ike Andersen's gaze might have been hard, but it was direct.

His walk was perfectly decorous and straight, his brain perfectly clear, his hand perfectly steady.

Only, somewhere deep down in his mind there burned some little, still, blue flame of devilishness, which left Ike Anderson not a human being, but a skilful, logical, and murderous animal.
"This," said Ike Anderson to himself all the time, "this is little Ike Anderson, a little boy, playing.