Soon after, they "knocked him down" for a story; and, as it requires more brains to tell a story than, to sing a song, the poor butt made an ass of himself: he maundered and wandered, and stopped, and went on, and lost one thread and took up and another, and got into a perfect maze. And, while he was thus entangled, a servant came in and brought him a note, and put it in his hand. The unhappy narrator received it with a sapient nod, but was too polite or else too stupid to open it; so closed his fingers on it and wont maundering on till his story trickled into the sand of the desert, and somehow ceased; for it could not be said to end, being a thing without head or tail.
He sat down amidst derisive cheers. About five minutes afterwards, in some intermittent flash of reason, he found he had got hold of something. He opened his hand, and lo, a note! On this he chuckled unreasonably, and distributed sage, cunning, winks around, as if he by special ingenuity had caught a nightingale, or the like; then with sudden hauteur and gravity proceeded to examine his prize.
But he knew the handwriting at once, and it gave him a galvanic shock that half sobered him for the moment.
He opened the note and spelled it with great difficulty; it was beautifully written in long, clear letters; but then those letters kept dancing so.
"I much desire to speak to you before 'tis too late; but can think of no way save one; I lie in the turreted room: come under my window at nine of the clock; and prithee come sober, if you respect yourself, or
KATE."
Griffith put the note in his pocket, and tried to think. But he could not think to much purpose. Then this made him suspect he was drunk. Then he tried to be sober; but he found he could not. He sat in a sort of stupid agony, with Love and Drink battling for his brain. It was piteous to see the poor fool's struggles to regain the reason he had so madly parted with. He could not do it; and, when he found that, he took up a finger-glass and gravely poured the contents upon his head.
At this there was a burst of laughter.
This irritated Mr. Gaunt, and, with that rapid change of sentiments which marks the sober savage and, the drunken European, he offered to fight a gentleman he had been hitherto holding up to the company as his best friend. But his best friend (a very distant acquaintance) was by this time as tipsy as himself, and offered a piteous disclaimer, mingled with tears; and these maudlin drops so affected Griffith that he flung his one available arm round his best friend's head, and wept in turn; and down went both their lachrymose, empty noddles on the table. Griffith's remained there; but his best friend extricated himself, and, shaking his skull, said, dolefully, "He is very drunk." This notable discovery, coming from such a quarter, caused considerable merriment.
"Let him alone," said an old toper; and Griffith remained a good hour with his head on the table. Meantime the other gentlemen soon put it out of their power to ridicule him on the score of intoxication.
Griffith, keeping quiet, got a little better, and suddenly started up with a notion he was to go to Kate this very moment. He muttered an excuse, and staggered to a glass door that led to the lawn; he opened this door, and rushed out into the open air. He thought it would set him all right: but, instead of that, it made him so much worse that presently his legs came to a misunderstanding, and he measured his length on the ground, and could not get up again, but kept slipping down.