VI + 

Mannie Silverhorn was one of the best ambulance-chasers in Zenith. A hundred times he had made the streetcar company pay damages to people whom they had not damaged; a hundred times he had made motorists pay for injuring people whom they had not injured. But with all his talent, Mannie had one misfortune⁠—he would get drunk. + 

Now, in general, when he was drunk Mannie was able to keep from talking about his legal cases, but this time he was drunk in the presence of Bill Kingdom, reporter for the Advocate-Times, and Mr. Kingdom was an even harder cross-examiner than Mr. Silverhorn. + 

Bill had been speaking without affection of Dr. Gantry when Mannie leered, “Say, jeeze, Bill, your Doc Gantry is going to get his! Oh, I got him where I want him! And maybe it won’t cost him some money to be so popular with the ladies!” + 

Bill looked rigorously uninterested. “Aw, what are you trying to pull, Mannie! Don’t be a fool! You haven’t got anything on Elmer, and you never will have. He’s too smart for you! You haven’t got enough brains to get that guy, Mannie!” + 

“Me? I haven’t got enough brains⁠—Say, listen!” + 

Yes, Mannie was drunk. Even so, it was only after an hour of badgering Mannie about his inferiority to Elmer in trickiness, an hour of Bill’s harsh yet dulcet flattery, an hour of Bill’s rather novel willingness to buy drinks, that an infuriated Mannie shrieked, “All right, you get a stenographer that’s a notary public and I’ll dictate it!” + 

And at two in the morning, to an irritated but alert court reporter in his shambles of a hotel room, Mannie Silverhorn dictated and signed a statement that unless the Reverend Dr. Elmer Gantry settled out of court, he would be sued (Emmanuel Silverhorn attorney) for fifty thousand dollars for having, by inexcusable intimacy with her, alienated Hettie Dowler’s affections from her husband. + 