Without replying the lawyer went back to the
bar, at which he had just been drinking. Calling for brandy, he
poured a tumbler nearly half full, and after adding a little water
gave it to Ridley, who drank the whole of it before withdrawing the
glass from his lips.
"It was very kind of you," said the wretched man as he began to feel
along his shaking nerves the stimulating power of the draught he had
taken. "I was in a desperate bad way."
"And you are not out of that way yet," replied the other. "Why don't
you stop this thing while a shadow of hope remains?"
"It's easy enough to say stop"--Ridley spoke in a tone of
fretfulness--"and of about as much use as to cry 'Stop!' to a man
falling down a precipice or sweeping over a cataract. I can't stop."
His old friend gazed at him pityingly, then, shrugging his
shoulders, he bade him good-morning. From the bar Ridley drifted to
the reading-room, where he made a feint of looking over the
newspapers. What cared he for news? All his interest in the world
had become narrowed down to the ways and means of getting daily
enough liquor to stupefy his senses and deaden his nerves. He only
wanted to rest now, and let the glass of brandy he had taken do its
work on his exhausted system. It was not long before he was asleep.
How long he remained in this state he did not know. A waiter, rudely
shaking him, brought him back to life's dreary consciousness again
and an order to leave the reading room sent him out upon the street
to go he knew not whither.
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