“ ’Twas easy to find him if you knew where to go.”
“I did know, and went. He had by that time got tired of his more aristocratic friends. Respectability was too ‘slow’ for him, so I found him presiding over the ‘Philanthropic Raspers,’ at the ‘Union Jack.’ He received me with open arms, and took me, as you say, the ‘rounds.’ I can’t recall that week’s dissipation without a shudder. We rushed about from ball to tavern, from theatre to supper-room, from club to gin-palace, as if our lives depended on losing not a moment. We had not time to walk, so we galloped about in cabs. On the fourth night, when I was beginning to feel knocked up, and tired of the same songs, the same quadrilles, the bad whiskey, the suffocating tobacco smoke, and the morning’s certain and desperate penalties, I remarked to Jemmy that it was a miracle how he had managed to weather it for so many years. ‘What a hardship you would deem it,’ I added, ‘if you were obliged to go the same weary round from one year’s end to another.’ ”
“What did he say to that?” asked Philip.
“Why, I never saw him so taken aback. He looked quite fiercely at me, and replied, ‘I am obliged!’ ”
“How did he make that out?”
“Why, he had tippled and dissipated his constitution into such a state that use had become second nature. Excitement was his natural condition, and he dared not become quite sober for fear of a total collapse—or dropping down like a shot in the water.”
The midshipman had his glass in his hand, but forebore to taste it.—“Well, what then?”
“The ‘rounds’ lasted two nights longer. I was fairly beaten. Cast-iron could not have stood it. I was prostrated in bed with fever—and worse.” Ferdinand was agitated, and took a large draught of his lemonade.
“Well, well, you need not enlarge upon that,” replied Phil Phid, raising his glass towards his lips, but again thinking better of it; “I heard how bad you were from Seton, who shaved your head.”
“I had scarcely recovered when the ‘Arrow’ was ordered back, and I made a vow.”