The huge, burly, pea-jacketed medical student—for such I saw at once he was—laid hold of me on the right tenderly enough, and walked me off between him and the policeman.
I fell again into a faintness, from which I was awakened by being shoved through the folding-doors of a gin-shop, into a glare of light and hubbub of blackguardism, and placed on a settle, while my conductor called out—
"Pots round, Mary, and a go of brandy hot with, for the patient. Here, young'un, toss it off, it'll make your hair grow."
I feebly answered that I never had drunk anything stronger than water.
"High time to begin, then; no wonder you're so ill. Well, if you won't,
I'll make you—"
And taking my head under his arm, he seized me by the nose, while another poured the liquor down my throat—and certainly it revived me at once.
A drunken drab pulled another drunken, drab off the settle to make room for the "poor young man"; and I sat there with a confused notion that something strange and dreadful had happened to me, while the party drained their respective quarts of porter, and talked over the last boat-race with the Leander.
"Now then, gen'l'men," said the policeman, 'if you think he's recovered, we'll take him home to his mother; she ought for to take him in, surely."
"Yes, if she has as much heart in her as a dried walnut."
But I resisted stoutly; though I longed to vindicate my mother's affection, yet I could not face her. I entreated to be taken to the station-house; threatened, in my desperation, to break the bar glasses, which, like Doll Tearsheet's abuse, only elicited from the policeman a solemn "Very well"; and under the unwonted excitement of the brandy, struggled so fiercely, and talked so incoherently, that the medical students interfered.