THIRTEENTH CHAPTER
"NO MAN CAN ENTER INTO A STRONG MAN'S HOUSE, AND SPOIL, HIS GOODS,EXCEPT HE WILL FIRST BIND THE STRONG MAN"
Charter had always been able to stop drinking when thoroughly disgustedwith its effects, but his final abandonment, three years before theSkylark letters, had lasted long--up the Yangtse to the Gorges, back toShanghai, and around the Straits and Mediterranean to New York, where hehad met Selma Cross; indeed, for many weeks after he had reached his owncity in the Mid-West. He had now fallen into the condition in which workwas practically impossible. In the early stages, he had known brief butlightning passages of expression, when his hands moved with magicalspeed upon his machine, and his thoughts even faster, breaking in uponachievement three or four times in a half-hour to snatch his stimulant.Always in the midst of this sort of activity, he felt that his work wasof the highest character. The swift running of his brain under the whipappeared record-breaking to the low vanity of a sot. It was with shamethat he regarded his posted time-card, after such a race. Yet he hadthis to say of the whole work-drink matter: When at his brief best understimulus, a condition of mind precarious to reach and never to becounted upon, the product balanced well with the ordinary output, thestuff that came in quantities from honest, healthy faculties. In a word,an occasional flashy peak standing forth from a streaky, rime-washedpile reckoned well with the easy levels of highway routine.
During his first days at home he would occupy entire forenoons in theendeavor to rouse himself to a pitch of work. Not infrequently uponawakening, he swallowed a pint of whiskey in order to retain four orfive ounces. Toward mid-afternoon, still without having eaten, he woulddraw up his chair before the type-mill to wait, and only a finishedcurse would evolve from the burned and stricken surfaces of his brain.If, indeed, passable copy did come at last, Charter invariably banishedrestraint, drinking as frequently as the impulse came. Clumsiness of thefingers therefore frequently intervened just as his sluggish mindunfolded; and in the interval of calling his stenographer out of theregular hours, the poor brain babes, still-born, were fit only forburial.
Often, again (for he could not live decently with himself withoutworking), he would spend the day in fussy preparation for a long,productive evening. The room was at a proper temperature; the buffetadmirably stocked; pipes, cigars, and cigarettes at hand; hisstenographer in her usual mood of delightful negation--when anirresistible impulse would seize his mind with the necessity ofwitnessing a certain drama, absolutely essential to inspiration. Again,with real work actually begun, his mind would bolt into the domains ofcorrespondence, or some little lyric started a distracting hum far backin his mind. The neglected thing of importance would be lifted from themachine, and the letters or the verses put under weigh. In the case ofthe latter, he would often start brilliantly with a true subconsciousebullition--and cast the thing aside, never to be finished, at the firsthitch in the rhyme or obscurity in thought. Then he would find himselfapologizing slavishly for Asiatic fever to the woman who helpedhim--whose unspoken pity he sensed, as hardened arteries feel the comingstorm. Alone, he would give way to furious hatred for himself and hisdegradation, and by the startling perversity of the drunken, hurry intoa stupor to stifle remorse. Prospecting thus in the abysses, Charterdiscovered the outcroppings of dastardly little vanities and kindrednastiness which normally he could not have believed to exist in hiscomposite or in the least worthy of his friends. A third trick drinkplayed upon him when he was nicely prepared for a night of work. Thesummons which he dared not disregard since it came now soirregularly--to dine--would sound imperiously in the midst of the firsttorture-wrung page, probably for the first time since the night before.In the actual illness, which followed partaking of the most delicatefood, work was, of course, out of the question.
Finally, the horrors closed in upon his nights. The wreck that could notsleep was obsessed with passions, even perversions--how curiously untoldare these abominations--until a place where the wreck lay seemedpermeated with the foulest conceptions of the dark. What pirates boardthe unhelmed mind of the drunken to writhe and lust and despoil thealien decks--wingless, crawling abdomens, which, even in the shades, arebut the ganglia of appetite!... A brand of realism, this, whose onlyexcuse is that it carries the red lamps of peril.
At the end of months of swift and dreadful dissipation, Charterdetermined abruptly to stop his self-poisoning on the morning of hisThirtieth birthday. Coming to this decision within a week before thedate, so confident was he of strength, that instead of making the endeasy by graduating the doses in the intervening days, he dropped thebars of conduct altogether, and was put to bed unconscious late in theafternoon of the last. He awoke in the night, and slowly out of physicalagony and mental horror came the realization that the hour offighting-it-out-alone was upon him. He shuddered and tried to sleep,cursed himself for losing consciousness so early in the day withouthaving prepared his mind for the ordeal. Suddenly he leaped out of bed,turned on the lights, and found his watch. With a cry of joy, hediscovered that it was seven minutes before twelve. In the next sevenminutes, he prepared himself largely from a quart bottle, and lay downagain as the midnight-bells relayed over the city. Ordinarily, sleepwould have come to him after such an application in the midst of thenight, but the thought assumed dimensions that the bells _had_ struck.He thought of his nights on the big, yellow river in China, and of thenearer nights in New York. There was a vague haunt about the latter--asof something neglected. He thought of the clean boy he had been, and ofthe scarred mental cripple he must be from now on.... In all itscircling, his mind invariably paused at one station--the diminishedquart bottle on the buffet. He arose at last, hot with irritation,poured the remaining liquor into the washbasin, and turned on the waterto cleanse even the odor away. For a moment he felt easier, as if theMan stirred within him. Here he laughed at himself low andmockingly--for the Man was the whiskey he had drunk in the seven minutesbefore twelve.
Now the thought evolved to hasten the work of systemic cleansing, begunwith denial. At the same time, he planned that this would occupy hismind until daylight. He prepared a hot tub, drinking hot water at thesame time--glass after glass until he was as sensitive within as only afresh-washed sore can be. Internally, the difference between hot andcold water is just the difference between pouring the same upon a greasyplate. The charred flaccid passages in due time were flushed free fromits sustaining alcohol; and every exterior pore cratered with hot waterand livened to the quick with a rough towel. Long before he hadfinished, the trembling was upon him, and he sweated with fear beforethe reaction that he had so ruthlessly challenged in washing the spiritfrom his veins.
Charter rubbed the steam from the bath-room window, shaded his eyes, andlooked for the daylight which was not there. Stars still shone clear inthe unwhitened distances. Why was he so eager for the dawn? It was thedrunkard in him--always frightened and restless, even in sleep, _whilebuffets are closed_. This is so, even though a filled flask cools thefingers that grope under the pillow.... Any man who has ever walked thestreets during the two great cycles of time between three and five inthe morning, waiting for certain sinister doors to open, does not ceaseto shiver at the memory even in his finer years. It is not thediscordant tyranny of nerves, nor the need of the body, pitiful andactual though it is, wherein the terror lies,--but living, walking withthe consciousness that the devil is in power; that you are the debauchedinstrument of his lust, putting away the sweet fragrant dawn for a placeof cuspidors, dormant flies, sticky woods, where bleared, saturatedmesses of human flesh sneak in, even as you, to lick their love andtheir life.... That you have waited for this moment for hours--oh,God!--while the fair new day comes winging over mountains and lakes,bringing, cleansed from inter-stellar spaces, the purity of lilies, newmysteries of love, the ruddy light of roses and heroic hopes for cleanmen--that you should hide from this adoring light in a dim place ofbrutes, a place covered with the psychic stains of lust; that you shouldrun from clean gutters to drink this hell-seepage.
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He asked himself why he thirsted for light. If every door on his floorwere a saloon, he would not have entered the nearest. And yet a summerdawn was due. Hours must have passed since midnight. He glanced into themedicine-case before turning off the lights in the bath-room. Alcoholwas the base in many of the bottles; this thought incited fever in hisbrain.... He could hardly stand. A well-man would have been weakened bythe processes of cleansing he had endured. The blackness, pressingagainst the outer window, became the form of his great trouble. "I wishthe day would come," he said aloud. His voice frightened him. It waslike a whimper from an insane ward. He hastened to escape from theplace, now hateful.
The chill of the hall, as he emerged, struck into his flesh, a polarblast. Like an animal he scurried to the bed and crawled under cover,shaking convulsively. His watch ticked upon the bed-post. Presently hewas burning--as if hot cloths were quickly being renewed upon his flesh.Yet instantaneously upon lifting the cover, the chill would seize himagain. Finally he squirmed his head about until he could see his watch.Two-fifteen, it said. Manifestly, this was a lie. He had not wound thething the night before, though its ticking filled the room. He recalledthat when he was drinking, frequently he wound his watch a dozen times aday, or quite as frequently forgot it entirely. At all events, it waslying now. Thoughts of the whiskey he had poured out, of the drugs inthe medicine-case, controlled. He needed a drink, and nothing butalcohol would do. This is the terrible thing. Without endangering one'sheart, it is impossible to take enough morphine to deaden a whiskeyreaction. A little only horrifies one's dreams. There is no bromide. Hecried out for the poison he had washed away from his veins. This wouldhave been a crutch for hours. In the normal course of bodily waste, hewould not have been brought to this state of need in twenty-four hours.He felt the rapping of old familiar devils against his brain. He neededa drink.
The lights were turned on full in his room. The watch hanging above hishead ticked incessant lies regarding the energy of passing time. Hecould lose himself in black gorges of agony, grope his way back to findthat the minute hand had scarcely stirred.... He lay perfectly rigiduntil a wave, half of drowsiness, half of weakness, slowed-down thevibrations of his mind.... Somewhere in the underworld, he found aconsciousness--a dank smell, the dimness of a cave; the wash of finsgliding in lazy curves across the black, sluggish water; an _eye_,green, steadfast, ashine like phosphor which is concentrated decay,--theeye of rapacity gorged. His nostrils filled with the foreign odor ofmenageries and aquariums. A brief hiatus now, in which objects altered.A great weight pressed against his chest, not to hurt, but to fill hisconsciousness with the thought of its cold crushing strength; the weightof a tree-trunk, the chill of stone, the soft texture of slimy flesh....Full against him upon the rock, in his half-submerged cavern, lay theterror of all his obsessions--the crocodile. Savage incarnations wereshaken out of his soul as he regarded this beast, a terror so great thathis throat shut, his spine stiffened. Still as a dead tree, the creaturepressed against him, bulging stomach, the narrow, yellow-brown head,moveless, raised from the rock. This was the armed abdomen he fearedmost--cruelty, patience, repletion--and the dirty-white of netherparts!... He heard the scream within him--before it broke from histhroat.
Out of one of these, Charter emerged with a cry, wet with sweat as thecavern-floor from which he came--to find that the minute-hand of hiswatch had not traversed the distance between two Roman numerals. Heseized the time-piece and flung it across the room, lived an age ofregret before it struck the walnut edge of his dresser and crashed tothe floor.... The sounds of running-down fitted to words in his brain.
"_Tick--tick!... tick-tick-tick._" A spring rattled a disordered plaint;then after a silence: "I served you--did my work well--very well--verywell!..." Charter writhed, wordlessly imploring it to be still. It wasnot the value, but the sentient complaining of a thing abused. Faithful,and he had crushed it. He felt at last in the silence that his heartwould stop if it ticked again; and as he waited, staring at it, his mindrushed off to a morning of boyhood and terrible cruelty.... He had beenhunting at the edge of a half-cleared bit of timber. A fat gray squirrelraced across the dead leaves, fully sixty yards away--its mate followingblithely. The leader gained the home-tree as Charter shot, crippling thesecond--the male. It was a long shot and a very good one, but the boyforgot that. The squirrel tried to climb the tree, but could not. Itcrawled about, uncoupled, among the roots, and answered the muffledchattering from the hole above--this, as the boy came up, his breastfilling with the deadliest shame he had ever known. The squirrel toldhim all, and answered his mate besides. It was not a chatter for mercy.The little male was cross about it--bewildered, too, for itslife-business was so important. The tortured boy dropped the butt of hisgun upon the creature's head.... Now the tone changed--the flattenedhead would not die.... He had fled crying from the thing, which hauntedhim almost to madness. He _begged_ now, as the old thoughts of that hourbegan to run about in the deep-worn groove of his mind....
Andas he had treated the squirrel, the watch--so he was treating his ownlife....
Again he was called to consciousness by some one uttering his name. Heanswered. The apartment echoed with the flat, unnatural cry of hisvoice; silence mocking him.... Then, in delusion, he would find himselfhurrying across the yard, attracted by some psychic terror of warning.Finally, as he opened the stable-door, sounds of a panting strugglereached him from the box-stall where he kept his loved saddle-mare.Light showed him that she had broken through the flooring, and,frenziedly struggling to get her legs clear from the wreck, had torn theskin and flesh behind, from hoof to hock. He saw the yellow tendons andthe gleaming white bone. She was half-up, half-down, the smoky look oftorture and accusation in her brown eyes....
Finally came back his inexorable memories--one after another, his nightsof degraded passion; the memory of brothels, where drunkenness hadcarried him; songs, words, laughter he had heard; pictures on the walls;combs, cards, cigarettes of the dressing-tables, low ceilings andnoisome lamps; that individual something about each woman, and herespecial perversion; peregrinations among the lusts of half the world'sports, where a man never gets so low that he cannot fall into a woman'sarms. How they had clung to him and begged him to come back! Hisnostrils filled again with sickening perfumes that never could overpowerthe burnt odor of harlot's hair. Down upon him these horrors poured,until he was driven to the floor from the very foulness of the placewherein he lay, but a chill struck his heart and forced him back intothe nest of sensual dreams....
Constantly he felt that dry direct need for cigarette inhalation--thatnervous craving which makes a man curse viciously at the break of amatch or its missing fire--but his heart responded instantly to the mildpoisoning, a direct and awful pounding like the effect of cocaine uponthe strong, and his sickness was intensified. So he would put thecigarette down, lest the aorta burst within him--only to light the pestagain a moment later.
He could feel his liver, a hot turgid weight; even, mark its hugeboundary upon the surface of his body. Back of his teeth, began theburning insatiable passage, collapsing for alcohol in every inch of itscoiled length; its tissues forming an articulate appeal in his brain:"You have filled us with burning for weeks and months, until we havecome to rely upon the false fire. Take this away suddenly now and wemust die. We cannot keep you warm, even alive, without more of the fuelwhich destroyed us. We do not want much--just enough to help us until werebuild our own energy." And his brain reiterated a warning of its own."I, too, am charred and helpless. The devils run in and out and over. Ihave no resistance. I shall open entirely to them--unless you strengthenme with fire. You are doing a very wicked and dangerous thing instopping short like this. Deserted of me, you are destitute, indeed."
Charter felt his unshaven mouth. It was soft and fallen like animbecile's. A man in hell does not curse himself. He saw himself giving.He felt that he was giving up life and its every hope, but the fear ofmadness, or driveling idiocy, was worse than this. He would drink fornerve
to kill himself decently. The abject powerlessness of his will wasthe startling revelation. He had played with his will many times, usedit to drink when its automatic action was to refrain. Always he had feltit to be unbreakable, until now. He was a yellow, cowering elemental,more hideous and pitiable than prohibition-orator ever depicted in hismost dreadful scare-climax. There is no will when Nature turns loose herdogs of fear upon a sick and shattered spirit--no more will than in thecrisis of pneumonia or typhoid.
He wrapped the bed-clothes about him and staggered to the medicine-case.There was no pure alcohol; no wood-alcohol luckily. However, a quartbottle of liver-tonic--turkey rhubarb, gum guaiac, and aloes, steeped inHolland gin. A teaspoonful before meals is the dose--for the spring ofthe year. An old family remedy, this,--one of the bitterest and mostpotent concoctions ever shaken in a bottle, a gold-brown devil thatgagged full-length. The inconceivable organic need for alcohol workedstrangely, since Charter's stomach retained a half-tumbler of thishorrible dosage. Possibly, it could not have held straight whiskey atonce. Internally cleansed, he, of course, responded immediately to thewarmth. Plans for whiskey instantly awoke in his brain. He touched thebutton which connected with his man in the stable; then waited by a rearwindow until the other appeared.
"Bob," he called down shakily, "have you got any whiskey?"
"The half of a half-pint, sir."
"Bring it up quickly. Here--watch close--I'm tossing down my latch-key."
The key left his hand badly. He could have embraced Bob for finding itin the dark as he did. Charter then sat down--still with the bed-clotheswrapped about him--to wait for the other's step. He felt close to deathin the silence.... Bob poured and held the single drink to his lips.Charter sat still, swallowing for a moment. Part remained within him.
"Now, Bob," he said, "run across the street to Dr. Whipple, and tellhim I need some whiskey. Tell him he needn't come over--unless he wantsto. I'm ill, and I've got to get out of here. Hurry back."
He dared not return to bed now--fear of dreams. To draw on parts of hisclothing was an heroic achievement, but he could not bend forward to puton stockings or shoes without overturning his stomach, the lining ofwhich was sore as a festering wound. His nostrils, with their continualsuggestions, now tortured him with a certain half-cooked odor of his owninner tissues. The consciousness of having lost his will--that he wasthirty years old, and shortly to be drunk again--became the nucleus forevery flying storm-cloud in his brain. He knew what it would be now. Hewould drink regularly, fatten, redden, and betray every remnant of goodleft within him--more and more distended and brutalized--until his heartstopped or his liver hardened. And the great work? He tried to smile atthis. Those who had looked for big things from his maturity had chosen amusty vessel. He would write of the loves of the flesh, and of physicalinstincts--one of the common--with a spark of the old genius now andthen to light up the havoc--that he might writhe! Yes, he would neverget past that--the instantaneous flash of his real self to lift himwhere he belonged--so he would not forget to suffer--_when he fellback_.... "I'll break that little system," he muttered angrily, as to anenemy in the room, "I'll drink my nerve back and shoot my head off...."But bigger, infinitely more important, than any of these thoughts, wasthe straining of every sense for Bob's step in the hall--Bob with thewhiskey from his never-failing friend, Dr. Whipple.... Yes, he hadchosen whiskey to drive out the God-stuff from his soul. What a dull,cheap beast he was!
The day was breaking--a sweet summer morning. He wrapped the bed-clothescloser about him, and lifted the window higher. The nostrils that hadbrought him so much of squalor and horror now expanded to the new lifeof the day--vitality that stirred flowers and foliage, grasses and skiesto beauty; the blessed morning winds, lit with faint glory. The East wasa great, gray butterfly's wing, shot with quivering lines of mauve andgold. It shamed the hulk huddled at the window. Bob's foot on the stairswas the price of his brutality.
"Great mornin' for a ride. Beth is fit as a circus. I'd better get herready, hadn't I, sir?"
"God, no!" Charter mumbled. "Help me on with my boots, and pour out adrink. Bring fresh water.... Did Doctor----"
"Didn't question me, sir. Brought what you wanted, and said he'd dropover to see you to-day."
Charter held his mouth for the proffered stimulant, and beckoned theother back.
"Let me sit still for a minute or two. Don't joggle about the room,Bob."
Revulsion quieted, the nausea passed. Bob finished dressing him, andCharter moved abroad. He took the flask with him, lest it be someforgotten holiday and the bars closed. A man who has had such a night ashis is slavish for days before the fear of being _without_. He waspitifully weak, but the stimulus had lifted his mind out of the hells ofobsession.
The morning wind had sweetened the streets. Lawns, hedges, vines, andall the greens seemed washed and preened to meet the sun. To one who hashived with demons, there is something so simple and sanative about therestoring night--the rest of healing and health. He could have wept atthe virtue of simple goodness--so easy, so vainly sought amid thecomplications of vanity and desire. Well and clearly he saw now thatmild good, undemonstrative, unaggressive good--seventy years of bovineplodding, sunning, grazing, drowsing--is a step toward the Top. What atravesty is genius when it is arraigned by an august morning; men whosummon gods to their thinking, yet fail in the simple lessons that dogsand horses and cats have grasped! All the more foul and bestial arethose whom gods have touched within; charged with treason of manhood byevery good and perfect thing, when they cannot rise and meet the daywith clean hearts. Charter would have given all his evolution for thesimple decency of his man, Bob, or his mare, Beth.
The crowd of thoughts incensed him, so he hurried.... Dengler wassweeping out his bar. Screen-doors slammed open, and a volume of dustmet the early caller as he was about to enter. Dengler didn't drink, andhe was properly pleased with the morning. Lafe Schiel, who was scrubbingcuspidors for Dengler, drank. That's why he cleaned cuspidors. Denglergreeted his honored patron effusively.
"Suppose you've been working all night, Mr. Charter. You look a littleroughed and tired. You work while we sleep--eh? That's the way with youwriter-fellows. I've got a niece that writes. I told you about her.She's ruined her eyes. She says she can get her best thoughts at night.You're all alike."
"Have a little touch, Lafe?" Charter asked, turning to the porter, whowiped his hands on his trousers and stepped forward gratefully.
Bottles were piled on the bar, still beer-stained from the night before.Dengler put forward clean, dripping glasses from below, and stroked thebottle with his palm, giving Lafe water, and inquiring of Charter whathe would have "for a wash...." Dengler, so big-necked, healthy, andbusy, talking about his breakfast and not corrupting his body with thestuff others paid for; Lafe Schiel in his last years--nothing butwhiskey left--no thought, no compunction, no man, no soul, just agalvanic desire--these three in a tawdry little up-town bar at five inthe morning--and he, Quentin Charter, with a splendid mare to ride, amother to breakfast with, a world's work to do; he, Quentin Charter, inthis diseased growth upon the world's gutter, in this accumulation ofcells which taints all society.
Charter drank and glanced at the morning paper. The sheet still dampfrom the press reminded him of the night's toil in the office down-town(a veritable strife of work, while he had grovelled)--copy-makers,copy-readers, compositors, form-makers, and pressmen--he knew many ofthem--all fine fellows, decently resting now, deservedly resting. Andthe healthy little boys, cutting their sleep short, to deliver from doorto door, even to Dengler's, this worthy product for the helpful dollar!Ah, God, the world was so sweet and pure in its worthier activities! Godonly asked that--not genius, just slow-leisured decency would pass witha blessing. God had eternity to build men, and genius which looked outupon a morning like this, from a warm tube of disease, was concentratedwaste! Charter cleared his throat. Thoughts were pressing down upon himtoo swiftly again. He ordered another drink, and Dengler winkedprotestingly as he
turned to call Lafe Schiel. The look said, "Don't buyhim another, or I won't get my cuspidors cleaned."
So Charter felt that he was out of range and alignment everywhere, andthe drink betrayed him, as it always does when in power. Not even inLafe Scheil was the devil surer of his power this day. The whiskey didnot brighten, but stimulated thought-terrors upon the subject of his ownshattering.... Dengler found him interesting--this man so strangelyhonored by others; by certain others honored above politicians. Hewondered now why the other so recklessly plied the whip.... The changethat came was inevitable.
"There now, old fellow," Dengler remonstrated familiarly, "I don't liketo turn you down, but you can't--honest, you can't--stand much more."
This was at seven-thirty. Charter straightened up, laughed, and startedto say, "This is the first----"
But he reflected that once before this same thing had happenedsomewhere: he had been deemed too drunk to drink--somewhere before....He wabbled in the memory, and mumbled something wide to the point ofwhat he had meant to say, and jerked out.... That buttoning of his coatabout his throat (on a brilliant summer morning); that walking outswiftly with set jaw and unseeing eyes, was but one of many landmarks toDengler--landmarks on the down-grade. He had seen them all in his twentyyears; seen the whole neighborhood change; seen clean boys redden,fatten, and thrive for a time; watched the abyss widen between youngmarried pairs, his own liquors running in the bottom; seen men leavetheir best with him and take home their beast.... Dengler, yes, had seenmany things worth telling and remembering. They all owed him at thelast.... In some ways, this man, Charter, was different. He tried toremember who it was who first brought Charter in, and who that party ofswell chaps were who, finding Charter there one day, had made a sort ofhero out of him and tarried for hours.... The beer-man, in his leatherapron, entered to spoil this musing. He put up the old square-facebottle, and served for a "chaser" a tall shell of beer.... Even beer-mencould not last. Dengler had seen many who for a year or two "chased" ginwith beer at every call. There was Schultz, a year ago about this time.He'd been driving a wagon for a couple of years. Schultz had made toomany stops before he reached Dengler's that day. A full half-barrel hadcrushed him to the pavement just outside the door.
"Put two halves in the basement, and leave me a dozen cases of pints,"Dengler ordered.
* * * * *
Charter was met at the door by his mother. She had expected to find himsuffering from nerves, but clean. He had always kept his word, and shehad waited for this day. She did not need to look at him twice, but puton her bonnet and left the house. She returned within an hour with threeof Charter's men friends. Bob, whom she had left to take care of herson, reported that he had a terrible time. Charter, unable to find hissix-shooter, had overturned the house and talked of conspiracy androbbery. He had fallen asleep within the last few minutes. Strange thatthe mother had thought to hide the six-shooter....
The men lifted him to a closed carriage. Charter was driven to asanatorium. One of the friends undertook to stay with him for a day ortwo. Charter did not rightly realize where he was until evening. Heappeared to take the news very quietly. Whiskey was allowed him when itwas needed. Other patients in various states of convalescence offeredassistance in many ways. That night, when the friend finally fell asleepin the chair at the bedside, Charter arose softly, went into a hall,_where a light was burning_, and plunged down into the dark--twenty-twobrass-covered steps. His head broke the panel of the front door at thefoot. His idea was the same which had made him hunt for his six-shooterthe morning before. Besides the door, he broke his nose, his arm, andcovered himself with bruises, but fell short, years yet unnumbered, fromhis intent. Under the care of experts after that, he was watchedconstantly, and given stimulus at gradually lengthening intervals--untilhe refused it himself on the seventh day. Three weeks later, still, heleft the place, a man again, with one hundred and twenty needlepunctures in the flesh of his unbroken arm.