"Six years now. I have a moderate incompetence left; enough to be constantly drunk on."
"You find it really does deaden thought?"
"My dear sir, if it wasn't for gin I should long since have been in another hell!"
A shrill laugh floated up from the kitchen.
"I call her 'laughing water,'" said Mr. Belper.
"You are poetic."
"Yes, my father was Belper the minor poet. I am the least poetic of his works."
He leered at the fire, shaking with drink—a shameless, dirty old man. "I was a pretty fellow in my time," he said, licking the chops of remotest memory. "I had a conscience, and wrote harvest festival hymns with it."
Gobion filled his glass. "What do you do with yourself all day?"
"Drink and sleep, sleep and drink."