n for the event--is it?"

"What?--this?" said Jack, holding up the empty tumbler, with a gloomy
glance toward me; "oh, its nothing. I've been drenching myself with
brandy this last week. It's the only thing I can do. The worst of it
is, it don't have much effect now. I have to drink too much of it
before I can bring myself into a proper state of calm."

"Calm!" said I, "calm! I tell you what it is, old chap, you'll find
it'll be any thing but calm. You'll have delirium tremens before the
week's out, at this rate."

"Delirium tremens?" said Jack, with a faint, cynical laugh. "No go, my
boy--too late. Not time now. If it had only come yesterday, I might
have had a reprieve. But it didn't come. And so I have only a
tremendous headache. I've less than an hour, and can't get it up in
that time. Let me have my swing, old man. I'd do as much for you."

And, saying this, he drank off a half tumbler more.

"There," said he, going back to the sofa. "That's better. I feel more
able to go through with it. It takes a good lot now, though, to get a
fellow's courage up."

After this, Jack again relapsed into silence, which I ventured to
interrupt with a few questions as to the nature of the coming ceremony.
Jack's answers were short, reluctant, and dragged from him piecemeal.
It was a thing which he had to face in a very short time, and any other
subject was preferable as a theme for conversation.

"Will there be much of a crowd?"

"Oh, no."

"You didn't invite any."

"Me? invite any? Good Lord! I should think not!"

"Perhaps she has?"

"Oh, no; she said she wouldn't."

"Well, I dare say the town, by this time, has got wind of it, and the
church'll be full."

"No, I think not," said Jack, with a sigh.

"Oh, I don't know; it's not a common affair."

"Well, she told me she had kept it a secret--and you and Louie are the
only ones I've told it to--so, unless you have told about it, no one
knows."

"I haven't told a soul."

"Then I don't see how anybody can know, unless old Fletcher has
proclaimed it."

"Not he; he wouldn't take the trouble."

"I don't care," said Jack, morosely, "how many are there, or how few.
Crowd or no crowd, it makes small difference to me, by Jove!"

"Look here, old fellow," said I, suddenly, after some further
conversation, "if you're going, you'd better start. It's a quarter to
twelve now."

Jack gave a groan and rose from his sofa. He went into his
dressing-room and soon returned,