sh between fatigue and drunkenness, and he
came at once to my assistance. I heard him speak to me, but I was
totally unable to respond. For a while indeed I must have verged upon
unconsciousness, for the next thing of which I became aware was of a
glass at my lips containing something sweet and strong.

I sipped. Then I drank. My consciousness returned. In a couple of
minutes I could sit upright. The landlord was beaming at me with
benevolent interest.

"Take another sup, sir," he said. "There's nothing like maraschino and
gin when one is a bit overwrought. I've known many a gentleman in my
part of the country who would take nothing else, after a hard day to
hounds, to brace him up for those long ten miles home."

I took another sup, and a good one. Then my powers of speech returning,
I asked where I was. I found I had not wandered nearly so far as I
expected. I was barely six miles from my home--at King's Langley; but
this fact was no criterion of the distance I must have traversed in my
mad frenzy, for I saw by the clock that the hour was ten. It was about
five when I left Colonel Maitland's house, so that I had been pressing
onward for five hours in as wild a night as any on which I have ever
been abroad.

I leaned back in my chair with the object of resting a few minutes
before starting homewards. But, whether owing to the spirit I had
swallowed, or to the heavy exertion I had undergone, or merely because
of my intense mental fatigue, I felt drowsiness overcoming me so rapidly
that I perceived it would never do for me to give way to it. Pulling
myself together I rose to my feet, at the same time thrusting my hand
into my pocket for the money to pay for my drink. The mere act of
rising, however, was almost too much for me. My body felt as stiff as if
I had been beaten all over. Only to move was absolute physical pain. I
looked at the landlord.

"I'm afraid I am more knocked up than I thought. Can you manage a hot
bath and a bed for me to-night?" I asked.

He glanced at me curiously, and, after a moment's consideration, he
replied--

"I'll see what the missus'll say."

Luckily "the missus" said "Yes," so ten minutes later I was sluicing hot
water over my aching limbs with a stable sponge in the bath which, I
suspect, did duty on ordinary occasions for the family washing. Whatever
it was, it did excellently well for my purpose. Gradually a delicious
feeling of relaxation stole over me. I tumbled between the s