But as for me, gentlemen, I would rather hear the barkin' of a gatlin' gun than to hear the watch dog's honest bark this minute. I would rather look into the mouth of a cannon than to look into the eyes that are now waitin' to mark my comin' at this delightful hour of three o'clock in the morning."
Then he launched out on the ocean of thought like a magnificent ship going to sea. And when the night was far spent, and the orgies were over, and the lights were blown out at the club, I saw him enter his own sweet home in his glory—entered it, like a thief, with his boots in his hands,—entered it singing softly to himself:
"I'm called little gutter pup, sweet little gutter pup,
Though I could never tell why—(hic),
Yet still I'm called gutter pup, sweet little gutter pup,
Poor little gutter pup—I—(hic)."
He was unconscious of the presence of the white figure that stood at the head of the stairs holding up a lamp, like liberty enlightening the world, and as a tremulous voice called him to the judgment bar, the door closed behind him on the paradise of a fool, and he sneaked up the steps, muttering to himself, "What shadows we are—(hic)—what shadows we pursue." Then I saw him again in the morning, reaping temptation's bitter reward in the agonies of his drunk-sick; and like Mark Twain's boat in a storm,
"He heaved and sot, and sot and heaved,
And high his rudder flung,
And every time he heaved and sot,