"Oh, of course you don't know."
"I do not."
"Do you mean to tell me that you weren't out with Mr. Brent last night before he came home?"
"I assuredly was not with him after the first quarter of an hour."
"Well, it's hard to believe that he got that way by himself."
"That way! Why, he left me at the door of Meyer's beer-garden to talk to a temperance crank who he thought was a character."
"Well, no temperance character sent him rushing and stumbling in here as he did last night. 'Character,' indeed! It was at the bottom of a pail of beer or something worse."
"Oh, I don't think he was 'loaded.' He's an author, and I guess his eye got to rolling in a fine frenzy, and he had to hurry home to keep it from rolling out of his head into the street."
"Mr. Perkins, this is no subject for fun. I have seen what I have seen, and it was a most disgraceful spectacle. I take your word for it that you were not with Mr. Brent, but you need not try to go further and defend him."
