2
He dined in various restaurants in the loop, in the vague hope of finding some one to talk to.
One evening, as he stood in a restaurant looking about for an empty table, he heard his name called. A young man, sitting alone, was beckoning to him. It was Eddie Silver, a reporter of whom Felix had been hearing much of late.
“Come over and congratulate me,” he said, grinning, “I’ve just been fired!”
“Really? What for?” Felix asked.
“Coming down to the office crazy drunk,” said Eddie Silver proudly. “Sit down.”
Felix had heard of Eddie Silver’s epic drunkennesses. Another thing he had heard was that Eddie Silver wrote poetry.... This was not so rare a thing among Chicago reporters as Felix would have supposed. Two in every dozen young reporters, as Clive had said, were poets of a sort. But, as Clive had added, it was always of a tame and colourless sort. Eddie Silver was not tame and colourless, whatever his poetry might be. Or rather there was nothing tame about the Eddie Silver legend—though its hero had appeared to Felix, whenever they met, to be the gentlest soul alive.
Eddie Silver was having a dinner which consisted mostly of cocktails; but he showed no signs of any of the alcoholic belligerency for which he was famed; he seemed, on the contrary, likely to burst into tears at any moment. He was in a soft poetic mood. He talked about poetry. He tried to recite it. But the lines kept getting mixed up.
“Come on over my place,” he said, “we’ll read some Swinburne.”
He took Felix to a large furnished room a little to the north of the loop, and propping himself on a couch with pillows, read “Poems and Ballads” in a sonorous and unintelligible manner until midnight. He invited Felix to come back the next evening for more Swinburne, and Felix went away feeling that the legend had rather over-emphasized the belligerent side of Eddie Silver’s character.... He came the next evening, which was spent in precisely the same manner, ending with an invitation to come in tomorrow evening for still more Swinburne.
Felix wondered if Eddie Silver read Swinburne every night.
Coming the third time, he found Eddie Silver’s room occupied by half a dozen young men all more or less drunk.
“C’m’ on in!” Eddie Silver called from the couch, where he sat propped with pillows as before, with a book in one hand and a glass in the other. “On’y two bo’l’s o’ Swinburne left!”
He rose, and poured a glassful of whiskey for Felix.
Felix looked at the huge drink with an involuntary gesture of dismay.
“’S all right,” said Eddie Silver. “Nas’y stuff, I know! But you take it ’n’ you’ll feel better right away!”
Felix had never been drunk. He had never wanted to be drunk. But it occurred to him that now was the proper time to have that experience.
He looked about the room. All these half dozen people were in that state, so eloquently described by the poets, of being “perplexed no more with human and divine.”
One of them was telling an incoherent story, and two others were laughing in the wrong place and being told indignantly that that wasn’t the point at all. Another was singing to himself, and not doing it very well. Poor devil! he probably wanted to sing and nobody would let him except when he was drunk. And still another was arguing with Eddie Silver, who paid no attention to him whatever, about somebody named John. “John means well,” he explained, with the air of one who understands all and forgives all. “John just don’t know how, that’s all! But he means well.”
Felix considered. Did he really wish to join them in that state, so merely ridiculous when viewed from the outside? Yet they were doubtless happy, in some way which he, in his inexperience, knew nothing about. Well, he would try it. He would get drunk.
And he might as well do it quickly.
He drank half the glassful down, choked, and was slapped on the back. He waited.
He was surprised, and a little disappointed, to find that it had no further effect than the same gentle exhilaration he had experienced from an evening’s slow sipping of his friend Tom Alden’s Rhine wine. That was not what he wanted. That was not enough. He braced himself, and drank the rest of the glassful.
Some hours later he was awakened from a deep and peaceful sleep on the floor of the bathroom by two of his companions, and walked out of the house.... He felt refreshed by the night air, and remembered a discussion about Chicago, and of slapping somebody’s face. He did not remember being knocked down—several times, they said. By a man named Smith. He did not remember Smith.
“And every time,” they told him gleefully, “you got up and solemnly slapped his face again. You said you wouldn’t allow anybody to talk that way about Chicago.... And you kept calling him ‘McFish.’”
His companions were taking him home. He thanked them extravagantly, and tried to give them directions, but they explained that they lived in the same building he did—a fact which at the time he found very puzzling. Nevertheless they affirmed that it was so.
He got up two flights of stairs without assistance, and opened his door, but immediately became overcome with sleep, and sank on the couch. They pulled off his shoes and left him....
At seven o’clock in the morning he awoke, located himself after a momentary wonderment and shook his head. No headache! That was strange! Apparently he was not going to suffer the traditional aftermath.... He went to take a cold bath, and returning found one of his companions of the night before in the hall. “How do you feel?” He felt fine. He had some breakfast at the nearest restaurant, and went to work.