Daylight was dazed.
It had been no trick.
The skill was equal, or, if anything, the superior skill had been his.
Strength, sheer strength, had done it.
He called for the drinks, and, still dazed and pondering, held up his own arm, and looked at it as at some new strange thing.
He did not know this arm.
It certainly was not the arm he had carried around with him all the years.
The old arm?
Why, it would have been play to turn down that young husky's.
But this arm—he continued to look at it with such dubious perplexity as to bring a roar of laughter from the young men.
This laughter aroused him.
He joined in it at first, and then his face slowly grew grave.
He leaned toward the hammer-thrower.
"Son," he said, "let me whisper a secret. Get out of here and quit drinking before you begin."
The young fellow flushed angrily, but Daylight held steadily on.
"You listen to your dad, and let him say a few.
I'm a young man myself, only I ain't.
Let me tell you, several years ago for me to turn your hand down would have been like committing assault and battery on a kindergarten."
Slosson looked his incredulity, while the others grinned and clustered around Daylight encouragingly.
"Son, I ain't given to preaching.
This is the first time I ever come to the penitent form, and you put me there yourself—hard.
I've seen a few in my time, and I ain't fastidious so as you can notice it.
But let me tell you right not that I'm worth the devil alone knows how many millions, and that I'd sure give it all, right here on the bar, to turn down your hand.
Which means I'd give the whole shooting match just to be back where I was before I quit sleeping under the stars and come into the hen-coops of cities to drink cocktails and lift up my feet and ride.
Son, that's that's the matter with me, and that's the way I feel about it. The game ain't worth the candle.
You just take care of yourself, and roll my advice over once in a while.
Good night."
He turned and lurched out of the place, the moral effect of his utterance largely spoiled by the fact that he was so patently full while he uttered it.
Still in a daze, Daylight made to his hotel, accomplished his dinner, and prepared for bed.
"The damned young whippersnapper!" he muttered.
"Put my hand down easy as you please.
My hand!"
He held up the offending member and regarded it with stupid wonder.
The hand that had never been beaten!
The hand that had made the Circle City giants wince!
And a kid from college, with a laugh on his face, had put it down—twice!
Dede was right.
He was not the same man.
The situation would bear more serious looking into than he had ever given it.
But this was not the time.
In the morning, after a good sleep, he would give it consideration.
CHAPTER XXII
Daylight awoke with the familiar parched mouth and lips and throat, took a long drink of water from the pitcher beside his bed, and gathered up the train of thought where he had left it the night before.
He reviewed the easement of the financial strain.
Things were mending at last.
While the going was still rough, the greatest dangers were already past.
As he had told Hegan, a tight rein and careful playing were all that was needed now.
Flurries and dangers were bound to come, but not so grave as the ones they had already weathered.
He had been hit hard, but he was coming through without broken bones, which was more than Simon Dolliver and many another could say.
And not one of his business friends had been ruined.