That afternoon, however, he was nervous and restless. The Nurse was troubled. He avoided the subject that had so obsessed him the day before, was absent and irritable, could not eat, and sat in his chair by the window, nervously clasping and unclasping his hands.
The Nurse was puzzled, but the Staff Doctor, making rounds that day, enlightened her.
"He has pulled through—God and you alone know how," he said. "But as soon as he begins to get his strength he's going to yell for liquor again. When a man has been soaking up alcohol for years—— Drat this hospital cooking anyhow! Have you got any essence of pepsin?"
The Nurse brought the pepsin and a medicine glass and the Staff Doctor swallowed and grimaced.
"You were saying," said the Nurse timidly—for, the stress being over, he was Staff again and she was a Junior and not even entitled to a Senior's privileges, such as returning occasional badinage.
"Every atom of him is going to crave it. He's wanting it now. He has been used to it for years." The Nurse was white to the lips, but steady. "He is not to have it?"
"Not a drop while he is here. When he gets out it is his own affair again, but while he's here—by-the-way, you'll have to watch the orderly. He'll bribe him."
"I don't think so, doctor. He is a gentleman."
"Pooh! Of course he is. I dare say he's a gentleman when he's drunk too; but he's a drinker—a habitual drinker."
The Nurse went back into the room and found Billy Grant sitting in a chair, with the book he had been reading on the floor and his face buried in his hands.