"I don't care a straw for your misery."
"What!"
"Not for your picture of your misery. I do not doubt but that when you have been there for a month you will be drunk as often as ever, and just as free with your fists when a woman comes in your way."
"Never!"
"And I do not see that I am at all bound to provide for you and for your wife and children. You have seen many ups and downs, and will be doomed to see many more, as long as you can get hold of a bottle of wine."
"I mean to take the pledge,—I do indeed. I must do it gradually, because of my constitution,—but I shall do it."
"I don't in the least believe in it;—nor do I believe in any man who thinks to redeem himself after such a fashion. It may still be possible that I shall not go back."
"Thank God!"
"I may kill beasts in Buenos Ayres, or take a tea-farm in Thibet, or join the colonists in Tennessee. In that case I will let you know what arrangement I may propose to make about the Kimberley claim. At any rate, I may say this,—I shall not go back in the same vessel with you."
"I thought it would have been so comfortable."