respectability.

"Go and make him lie down and be sure and keep his head lower than his
feet," said Rankin's mother.

"I shouldn't be surprised if Ricky's head were considerably lower than
his feet already," said Rankin. And when he said it the bosses of his
face grew genial again as the old coarse junior journalistic humour
possessed itself of the situation. And he went out sniggering and
cursing by turns under his moustache.

Rankin's mother was right. Rickman was feeling very ill indeed.
Without knowing how he got there he found himself lying on a bed in
Rankin's dressing-room. Maddox and Rankin were with him. Maddox had
taken off his boots and loosened his collar for him, and was now
standing over him contemplating the effect.

"That's all very well," said Maddox, "but how the dickens am I to get
him home? Especially as we don't know his address."

"Ask him."

"I'm afraid our Ricky-ticky's hardly in a state to give very reliable
information."

"Sixty-five Howland Street," said Rickman faintly, and the two smiled.

"It was Torrington Square, but I forget the number."

"Sixty-five Howland Street," repeated Rickman with an effort to be
distinct.

Maddox shook his head. Rickman had sunk low enough, but it was
incredible to them that he should have sunk as low as Howland Street.
His insistence on that address they regarded as a pleasantry peculiar
to his state. "It's perfectly hopeless," said Maddox. "I don't see
anything for it, Rankin, but to let him stay where he is."

At that Rickman roused himself from his stupor. "If you'd only stop
jawing and give me some brandy, I could go."

"Oh my Aunt!" said Rankin, dallying with his despair.

"It isn't half a bad idea. Try it."

They tried it. Maddox raised the poet's head and Rankin poured the
brandy into him. Rankin's hand was gentle, but there was a sternness
about Maddox and his ministrations. And as the brandy brought the
blood back to his brain, Rickman sat up on Rankin's bed, murmuring
apologies that would have drawn pity from the nether mill-stone. But
there was no sign of the tenderness that had warmed him when he came.
He could see that they were anxious to get him out of the house. Since
they had been so keen on reconciliation whence this change to
hostility and disapproval? Oh, of course, he remembered; he had been
ill (outrageously ill) in Rankin's dressing-room. Perhaps it wasn't
very nice of him; still he didn't do it for his own amusement, an