‘Oh, has she? Let her bolt. She’s no wife of mine. There are others as good as she.’
‘You don’t seem much affected by the loss,’ replied the Oxonian. ‘You’re quite a philosopher. You seem perfectly aware how femina mutabile est.’
‘Now, don’t come that nonsense with me,’ said the man angrily. ‘When I drinks, I drinks; and I don’t bother my head about anything else. Why should I? As to women, they’re like all the rest of us—here to-day, gone to-morrow.’
‘Ah, I see you’re a man of the world.’
‘I believe yer, my boy,’ said the tramp, who felt flattered at the intended compliment.
‘You don’t think she’s gone to split,’ whispered one of the party in the tramp’s ear.
‘No, I should think not. Let me catch her at it!’
‘Or me,’ added his chum. ‘We’ll be sure to mark her, and serve her d--- well!’
The sentiment being favourably received, more exhilarating liquor was circulated. That which cheers and inebriates at the same time by many is much preferred to that which cheers alone. In that long room and low company it was intoxicating liquor that had done the mischief. Without character, without clothes, without food, without money, filthy and fallen, these poor wretches had given up all for drink. For that the mother was ready to sell her child, or the husband his wife. For that the criminal was ready to give up an accomplice, and to turn King’s evidence, or to commit any deed of shame. In time the drink supply was stopped, and the drinkers staggered upstairs to the crowded bedrooms, redolent of filth and blasphemy.
‘I say,’ said the tramp’s friend, ‘where do you think that woman’s gone?’