d upon his knee.

"But don't, Egyptian, don't! Don't have aught to do with me. I'm only a
drunken swine. I kept sober four years, as she knows--as the Angel down
yonder in the Red Mansion knows; but the day you came, going out to meet
you, I got drunk--blind drunk. I had only been pretending all the time.
I was being coaxed along--made believe I was a real man, I suppose.
But I wasn't. I was a pillar of sand. When pressure came I just broke
down--broke down, Egyptian. Don't be surprised if you hear me grunt.
It's my natural speech. I'm a hog, a drink-swilling hog. I wasn't decent
enough to stay sober till you had said 'Good day,' and 'How goes it,
Soolsby?' I tried it on; it was no good. I began to live like a man, but
I've slipped back into the ditch. You didn't know that, did you?"

David let him have his say, and then in a low voice said: "Yes, I
knew thee had been drinking, Soolsby." He started. "She told you--Kate
Heaver--"

"She did not tell me. I came and found you here with her. You were
asleep."

"A drunken sweep!" He spat upon the ground in disgust at himself.

"I ought never have comeback here," he added. "It was no place for me.
But it drew me. I didn't belong; but it drew me."

"Thee belongs to Hamley. Thee is an honour to Hamley, Soolsby."

Soolsby's eyes widened; the blurred look of rage and self-reproach in
them began to fade away.

"Thee has made a fight, Soolsby, to conquer a thing that has had thee by
the throat. There's no fighting like it. It means a watching every hour,
every minute--thee can never take the eye off it. Some days it's easy,
some days it's hard, but it's never so easy that you can say, 'There is
no need to watch.' In sleep it whispers and wakes you; in the morning,
when there are no shadows, it casts a shadow on the path. It comes
between you and your work; you see it looking out of the eyes of a
friend. And one day, when you think it has been conquered, that you have
worn it down into oblivion and the dust, and you close your eyes and
say, 'I am master,' up it springs with fury from nowhere you can see,
and catches you by the throat; and the fight begins again. But you sit
stronger, and the fight becomes shorter; and after many battles, and
you have learned never to be off guard, to know by instinct where every
ambush is, then at last the victory is yours. It is hard, it is bitter,
and sometimes it seems hardly worth the struggle. But it is--it is worth
the struggle, dear o