CHAPTER II. THE PRODIGAL’S RETURN.
When Zack reached Baregrove Square, it was four in the morning. The neighboring church clock struck the hour as he approached his own door.
Immediately after parting with Mat, malicious Fate so ordained it that he passed one of those late—or, to speak more correctly, early—public-houses, which are open to customers during the “small hours” of the morning. He was parched with thirst; and the hiccuping fit which had seized him in the company of his new friend had not yet subsided. “Suppose I try what a drop of brandy will do for me,” thought Zack, stopping at the fatal entrance of the public-house.
He went in easily enough—but he came out with no little difficulty. However, he had achieved his purpose of curing the hiccups. The remedy employed acted, to be sure, on his legs as well as his stomach—but that was a trifling physiological eccentricity quite unworthy of notice.
He was far too exclusively occupied in chuckling over the remembrance of the agreeably riotous train of circumstances which had brought his new acquaintance and himself together, to take any notice of his own personal condition, or to observe that his course over the pavement was of a somewhat sinuous nature, as he walked home. It was only when he pulled the door-key out of his pocket, and tried to put it into the keyhole, that his attention was fairly directed to himself; and then he discovered that his hands were helpless, and that he was also by no means rigidly steady on his legs.
There are some men whose minds get drunk, and some men whose bodies get drunk, under the influence of intoxicating liquor. Zack belonged to the second class. He was perfectly capable of understanding what was said to him, and of knowing what he said himself, long after his utterance had grown thick, and his gait had become uncertain. He was now quite conscious that his visit to the public-house had by no means tended to sober him; and quite awake to the importance of noiselessly stealing up to bed—but he was, at the same time, totally unable to put the key into the door at the first attempt, or to look comfortably for the key-hole, without previously leaning against the area railings at his side.
“Steady,” muttered Zack, “I’m done for if I make any noise.” Here he felt for the keyhole, and guided the key elaborately, with his left hand, into its proper place. He next opened the door, so quietly that he was astonished at himself—entered the passage with marvelous stealthiness—then closed the door again, and cried “Hush!” when he found that he had let the lock go a little too noisily.
He listened before he attempted to light his candle. The air of the house felt strangely close and hot, after the air out of doors. The dark stillness above and around him was instinct with an awful and virtuous repose; and was deepened ominously by the solemn tick-tick of the kitchen clock—never audible from the passage in the day time: terribly and incomprehensibly distinct at this moment.
“I won’t bolt the door,” he whispered to himself, “till I have struck a—” Here the unreliability of brandy as a curative agent in cases of fermentation in the stomach, was palpably demonstrated by a sudden return of the hiccuping fit. “Hush!” cried Zack for the second time; terrified at the violence and suddenness of the relapse, and clapping his hand to his mouth when it was too late.