“I tell you,” said Bidwell, at the end of the fourth day, when he had celebrated his release from purgatory, “it pays, Ruggles.”
“What pays?”
“The reward you git for all this. At the end of a week you’ll have a thirst that you wouldn’t take a thousand dollars fur.”
“But the week isn’t much more’n half gone and I’d sell my thirst mighty cheap now.”
“Don’t you do it! Hold fast to it.”
“That’s what I’m doing, ’cause I can’t help myself. Howsumever it’s the thirst that’s holding fast to me.”
“That’s the beauty of it; it’ll git stronger and stronger, and then it’s so big that you can’t well handle it. It seems to me that ten minutes after I’ve had a drink, I’m thirsty agin, which reminds me; I’d like to invite you, Wade.”
“Invite all you want to, ’cause it won’t do any more hurt than good; don’t let me keep you,” added Ruggles, observing the longing eyes his friend cast in the direction of the Heavenly Bower. Bidwell moved off with pretended reluctance, out of consideration for the feelings of his friend, but once inside, he gave another demonstration of the truth of his remarks concerning thirst.
As for Ruggles, only he who has been similarly placed can appreciate his trial. No man is so deserving of sympathy as he who is making a resolute effort to conquer the debasing appetite that has brought him to the gutter.