loss which always appears about the time when the one
pleasurable moment of drunkenness has come. There is but one pleasant
moment in a drinking bout, and men make themselves stupid by trying to
make that fleeting moment permanent. Bob cried, "Come on, sonny. Oh!
what would I give for your thirst! Mine's gone! I'm three parts copped
already. Come on. Soda, is it?"

Then, with the usual crass idiocy of our tribe, we proceeded to swallow
oblivion by the tumbler until the afternoon was nearly gone. I felt damp
and cold and sticky, so I said I should scull home and change my
clothes. Then Darbishire yelled with spluttering cordiality, "Home! Not
if I know it! My togs just fit you. Go and have a bath, and we'll shove
you in the next room to mine. I'm on the rampage, and Joe Coney's coming
to-night. You've got nothing to do. Have it out with us. Blow me! we'll
have a week--we'll have a fortnight--we'll have a month."

I wish I had never taken part in that rampage.

Towards eight o'clock we both felt the false craving for food which is
produced by alcohol, and we clamoured for dinner. Dinner under such
circumstances produces a delusive feeling of sobriety, and men think
that they have killed the alcohol; but the stuff is still there, and
every molecule of it is ready, as it were, to explode and fly through
the blood when a fresh draught is added. At eleven o'clock we were at
cards with Mr. Coney. At one we went out to admire the moon, and though
one of us saw two moons, he felt a dull pain at the heart as he
remembered days long ago, when the pale splendour brought gladness. When
we had solemnly decided that it was a fine night, we went back to our
reeking room again, and pursued our conversation on the principle that
each man should select his own subject and try to howl down the other
two. This exercise soon palled on us, and one by one we sank to sleep.
The clear light was pouring in when I woke, but the very sight of the
straight beams made me doleful. When a man is in training, that gush of
brightness makes him joyous; but a night with the fiend poisons the
light, the air, the soul. Bob lay on the floor under the full glare of
the window. What a fine fellow he was! His chest bulged strongly under
his fleecy sweater; his neck was round and muscular, and every limb of
him seemed compact and hard. His curls were all dishevelled, and his
face was miserably puffy, but he had not had time to become bloated. No
wonder that gir