III
There is this to be said of Jack Houston: whenever he took liquor—which was often—he took it like a man. None of the alley-door for him; through the front door, as sturdy and frank as a Crusader or not at all—that was his way. Let a faculty man be coming toward him half a block distant, there was no hesitation; not a waver. He—if such were the circumstance—would nod and pass directly beyond the double swinging screens, and not give the incident another thought. Nor were bottles ever delivered to his room in boxes marked "Candles." Indeed the outward signs were that he took pride in the bravado with which he carried on the business; for there on the boxes were the stenciled labels—plain enough to be read distinctly across the street—"Perth Whiskey." But it was not that he had a pride in what certain of his fellows were wont to call his "independence." It was simply that he drank—drank when he chose; paid for what he drank; and drank it like a man—a Southern man, honorably. The real trouble was not that he saw fit and cared to drink, or what he drank; but that he drank so much.
And he was in love now; reveling in a multitude of agreeable sensations, which, perhaps, he had not even dreamed himself destined ever to experience in such fulness. Analyzing his emotions he marveled at the condition he discovered. He set himself apart and regarded the other Jack Houston critically. He denied his heart's impeachment; the other Jack sneered and called him a fool. He laughed; the other Jack said,—or seemed to say: "Laugh away; but it's a serious business all the same." He flaunted; the other adhered to the original charge. In the end he stood before that other Jack and held out his hand, as it were, and—like a man—confessed. And it devolved upon him forthwith to celebrate the discovery of a cardiac ailment he had not experienced before as he was experiencing it now. So, with barbaric, almost beautiful, recklessness, he got drunk; thoroughly, creditably drunk.
The next morning, heavy-headed, thick-tongued, he shifted his eyes sheepishly about the room, while Crowley, from the high ground of his own invincible virtue, talked down to him roundly. He did not interrupt the steady flow of malediction in which his immaculate room-mate seemed determined to engulf him; but when the lecture was ended, he looked up, steadily, and said: "Never mind, old top, it's the last; on the square it is."
As he had a perfect right to do under the circumstances, Crowley shrugged his shoulders, and looked out the window into the green of a maple.
"All right, old top," Houston driveled on pathetically—"mebbe I've said it before; but this time I mean it—see if I don't." And he reached across the table for a bottle of bitters. He poured half a small glass with shaking hands. Over the edge of the drink he perceived the sneer on Crowley's face. He set the glass and bottle on the chiffonier carefully.
"Confound you! don't you believe me, you white-ribbon parson!" he cried.
Crowley smiled broadly.
Houston seized the glass. "There!" he exclaimed—"Now do you believe me?—Not even a bracer!" And he flung glass and liquor into the waste-paper basket.