My cousin stared at me.
"I shouldn't take the responsibility myself, but I daresay if I were lunatic enough to back him up, the powers that be might agree."
"Jack!" I exclaimed, "I'll be the alcoholic patient!"
For a moment I thought my cousin's eyes were going to start out of his head. Then they subsided and a grin began to steal over his face instead.
"By Gad!" he murmured.
"I'm the very man for the job! I've actually spoken to at least one of the gang in that island, apart from the old chap with spectacles. I know the ropes, so far as they are knowable. In fact I've a kind of prescriptive right to the job."
He nodded.
"I quite admit that you have; also that I'd sooner have you there than anyone else. Looking back, I think you had a most sporting try last time, and I must say it seems to me that only some devilish bit of bad luck prevented you from bringing it off. Though what actually the bit of bad luck was has often puzzled me. But then," he added, "you aren't the fellow he wants."
"One drunk is as good as another so long as he pays the fee."
"But supposing, for the sake of argument, he had some reason for wanting this other man. Would he take you in that case?"