I was so successful that I thought it safe
to toast my success. We were in a south-country town--Sussex, you
know--and I began by hanging about the hotel in the market-place. Then I
played cards at night with some of the fast hands, and was useless and
shaky in the mornings. Then I began to have periodical fits of
drunkenness; then I became quite untrustworthy, and last of all I robbed
my father during a bad fit, and we parted."
"And then?"
"I picked up odd jobs for newspapers, or sponged on my brother. At last
I was sent to the House as reporter, and did very well until one night
when Palmerston was expected to make an important speech. My turn came,
and I was blind and helpless. Since then I have been in place after
place, but the end was always the same, and I have learned that I am a
hopeless, worthless wretch."
"But couldn't your brother, for his own credit's sake, keep you in his
house and put you under treatment?"
"My good friend, I should die under it. I revel in degradation.
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