Be brave! A fine thing to say. It was easy for the doctor to make speeches, but he, Jimmy Comstock 101, was the one who was going to have to enter the foul place!
And then, despite the slowness of his steps, they were finally there. He realized, looking at the saloon, that he had never really looked at one of these dens of iniquity before. He had always, in the past, gone by them with averted eyes.
He reeled, and the lovely nurse, her exquisitely wrinkled face showing her concern, grabbed at him just in time to prevent him from falling to his face.
"There, there, Jimmy boy," her cracked voice was so ... soothing and at the same time so exciting ... he found himself beginning to fantasy about her again, and it was only this that gave him the bravado necessary to step through the swinging door.
A gust of beery air hit him in the voice. His throat closed up in revulsion at the disgusting odor. Behind him he could hear the nurse say, "Grandfather be with you now!"
And then she and the doctor were gone, and he was alone. Alone in the moiling turmoil, the frightful, frightening atmosphere of that which he must become. To the right, the left, everywhere he looked there were fellow heart disease patients. All of them were treating their disease. Some seriously, some seeming even to enjoy it, which Jimmy found impossible of comprehension. One of the ones who seemed to be enjoying the treatment of his disease staggered up to him with a fog of alcohol preceding him.
"Hi chum!" The drunk was small and young and seemingly very happy.
Jimmy gulped. "Hello, there, how are you? I'm James Comstock 101. Who are you?"
"Danny Grundy 112. C'mon kiddo, wancha to meet an old buddy of mine."
The drunk had him by the arm and there was no escape. Grundy pulled him through the welter of men and women who lined the bar and gulped or sipped their poisonous yet beneficial potions.