“A false feeling, sir. Tests and investigations have shown that a man can lift greater weights and perform severer feats of strength when he has not taken a single drop of liquor than he can when he has taken a moderate amount to stimulate him. The liquor makes him believe himself stronger and makes him want to display his power, but every swallow robs him of vital energy. Now, in your case, your face plainly shows that you are swiftly becoming an habitual drinker. You must stop it soon, or you will go straight to the devil, sir.”
Packard had been standing with the glass of whisky in his hand. As the man talked, Roland observed his hand beginning to shake.
“Well,” he said, “at least it is good to steady the nerves.” And he dashed off the fiery stuff at one great swallow.
“That’s another mistaken belief,” declared Hawkins quietly. “See! are your nerves any steadier than mine? You drink; I do not. Are your nerves steadier to-day than they were before you began to drink? Can you not remember the time when your hand never trembled?”
“Yes, but——”
“But now your nerves shake at times, and you drink whisky to steady them. The whisky has weakened them already by putting a strain upon them, and that is why they shake. When you drink more whisky you steady them with a renewed strain; but that strain simply results eventually in making them still weaker. Being a student of medicine, you ought to know that.”
Packard did know it, but it seemed that he had never thought of it seriously before. He knew plenty of medical students who were steady drinkers, and they seemed careless of the final result. They were a jovial set of fellows now; but Packard suddenly realized that the future must hold disappointment and failure for many of them.
For one single instant a grisly phantom of future ruin rose before Packard himself, but he quickly brushed it aside, forcing a laugh.
“I believe in living while we live,” he declared. “What’s the use of denying ourselves every good thing of life in order to live a year or two longer?”
“Every good thing of life! My dear Mr. Packard, you are making one of the greatest errors a man can make. Look at me. I deny myself no good thing of life. Whisky is not good. Alcohol is not good in any form. It is only the boy with the inherited taste for it that ever relishes his first drink. To a perfectly healthy fellow that first drink is repulsive. You know it, Mr. Packard. You say you believe in living and enjoying life. Man, you do not know what it is to enjoy life! You cannot know what it is as long as you do not feel perfect health pulsing all through your body. No drinker ever feels like that. Under the influence of the stuff he takes into his stomach, he may feel good for a short time, but the reaction always follows, and he suffers for his short enjoyment. It is not a case of shortening life a year or two, but most drinkers shorten it from ten to thirty years. And they die wretched wrecks. What’s the use to talk about it?”