"That fellow had a good business once. Doesn't look it, does he? Jim over there used to work for him. But he couldn't let it alone."
The "it" mentioned is whiskey.
Outside in the cold that man, who couldn't let it alone, is shuffling his way against the bitter wind. And even in his poor, sodden brain reform and wisdom are striving to be heard.
His soul and body are sunk far below par. His vitality is gone, never to return.
The whiskey, with its shiver that tells of a shock to the heart, lifts him up for a second.
He has a little false strength of mind and brain and that strength is used to mumble good resolutions.
He THINKS he will stop drinking. He thinks he could easily get money backing if he gave up drinking for good. He feels and really believes that he WILL stop drinking.
Perhaps he goes home, and for the hundredth time makes a poor woman believe him, and makes her weep once more for joy, as she has wept many times from sorrow.
But the bartender KNOWS that that man's day has gone, and that Niagara River could turn back as easily as he could remount the swift stream that is sweeping him to destruction. ——
Five men come in together. Each asks of all the others: