st stage, George. You'll be clean, plumb batty
inside o' six months."

The dog got up, after two unsuccessful attempts.

Never did I see such a strange sight in any animal. He put out one paw
and staggered to the right. He put out another and staggered to the
left. All the time, his eyes were half closed. He was quite
insensible of our presence, for he was as drunk as any waterfront
loafer. Staggering, stumbling and balancing, he made his way back to
his place beside the stove, where, in a moment more, he was in a deep
sleep and snoring,--as a Westerner would put it,--to beat the cars.

Meaghan noticed my interest in the phenomenon.

"That's nothin'," he volunteered. "Mike has his drink with me every
night, for the sake o' company. Why not? He doesn't see any fun in
lookin' at the stars and watching the tide come up o' nights. Worst
is, he can't stand up to liquor. It kind o' gets his goat; yet he's
been tipplin' for three years now."

Jake finished off his cup of whisky.

"Good Heavens, man!" I exclaimed in disgust and dismay, "don't you know
you will kill yourself drinking that stuff in that way?"

"Guess nit," he growled, but quite good-naturedly. "I ain't started.
I've been drinkin' more'n that every night for ten years and I ain't
dead yet,--not by a damn sight. No! nor I ain't never been drunk,
neither."

He took up the other cupful of whisky as he spoke and slowly drained it
off before my eyes. He laid the empty cup on the table with a grunt of
satisfaction, pulling at his long moustaches in lazy pleasure.

"That's my nightcap, George. Better'n seein' stars, too."

I could see his end.

"I'd much rather see stars than snakes," I remarked. But Jake merely
laughed it off.

I rose in a kind of cold perspiration. To me, this was
horrible;--drinking for no apparent reason.

He came with me to the door. His voice was as steady as could be; so
were his legs. The effects of the liquor he had consumed did not show
on him except maybe for a bloodshot appearance in the whites of his
baby-blue eyes.

I was worried. I had known such another as Jake in the little village
of Brammerton; and I knew what the inevitable end had been and what
Jake's would be also.

"Don't be sore at me, George," he pleaded. "It's the only friend I got
now."

"It is not any friend of yours, Jake."

"Well,--maybe it ain't, but I think it is and that's about the only way
we can reckon our friends.

"When y