“Just the same,” Perley answered. “And go crazy from it.”
“Whereas,” Mr. Allen returned, “since liquor’s obtainable you prefer to go crazy from the imbibing of it instead of from the hanker for it. You find that more ossedalious, and nobody can blame you. But suppose alcohol had never been discovered, would you have the hanker?”
“No, because I wouldn’t have inherited it from my father. You know as well as I do, how it runs in my family.”
“So I do, Joe; so I do!” Mr. Allen sighed reminiscently. “Both your father and your Uncle Sam went that way. I remember them very well, and how they enjoyed it. That’s different from you, Joe.”
“Different!” Joe laughed bitterly. “Do you suppose I get any ‘enjoyment’ out of it? Three days I’ll drink now; then I’ll be in hell—and I’ve got to go on. I’ve got to!”
“Funny about its being hereditary,” said Lucius, musing aloud. “I expect you rather looked forward to that, Joe?”
His companion stared at him fiercely. “What do you mean by that?” he demanded.
“You always thought it was going to be hereditary, didn’t you, Joe? From almost when you were a boy?”
“Yes, I did. What of it?”
“And maybe—” Lucius suggested, with the utmost mildness—“just possibly, say about the time you began to use liquor a little at first, you decided that this hereditary thing was inevitable, and the idea made you melancholy about yourself, of course; but after all, you felt that the hereditary thing made a pretty fair excuse to yourself, didn’t you?”