spend money on it. I can't help myself.
But I give all but my drink-money to them. Sir, I am content to meet
the scoffs of respectability; I think only of my children in my sober
moments. On the racecourse I'm a gambler, I'm a blackleg (if you believe
all you hear); but when the horses are passing the post and all the
people are mad, I am quite quiet. I pray sir, to win; but I only pray
because my children's faces are before me. Yes, sir, take away the drink
and give me a chance of honest work and I might nearly be a good man."

The fellow's face grew almost youthful as he spouted, and I thought,
"That little girl upstairs is very young. Her father is not an old man
after all." Old he looks--battered, scared, frail; but he has a young
heart. What a compound! The more I meditate, the more I am convinced
that we shall have to invent a new morality. The standards whereby we
judge men are far too rigid. Who shall say that Devine is bad? He is a
victim to the disease of alcoholism, and his disease brings with it fits
of selfishness. But there is another Devine--the real man--who is
neither diseased nor selfish; and both are labelled as disreputable.
When next I see poor Billy on the floor after his yelling fit I shall
think of him in a friendly way. More than ever I am convinced by his
fate that all the high-flying legislation, all the preaching of
morality, all pulpit abstractions count for nothing. The best men must
try by strenuous individual exertions to combat the subtle curse which
has converted the good, generous Billy Devine into a mean debauche. I am
out of it. I smoke with Billy, I clink glasses with Billy, I laugh at
Billy's declamations, and I am often muddled when I leave Billy in the
morning. He illustrates sordidly a chapter of England's history. I wish
he didn't.

THE ROBBERY.

I was robbed last night, and it served me right for being a fool. A
seedy, down-looking man hangs about The Chequers all day, and he never
does any work except stick up the pins in the skittle alley. He has a
sly, secret look, and I fancy he is one of the stupid class of
criminals. We often talk together, but there is not much to be got out
of him; he usually keeps his eye on someone else's pewter, and he is
catholic in his taste for drinks. Of late he has been accompanied by
three other persons--a stout, slatternly woman, whom he named as his
wife; a rather pretty, snub-nosed girl, who dresses in tawdry prints;
and a red-fa