This is a rule; so there must be an exception to prove it.
Moriarty's case was that exception.
He was a Civil Engineer, and the Government, very kindly, put him
quite by himself in an out-district, with nobody but natives to talk
to and a great deal of work to do. He did his work well in the four
years he was utterly alone; but he picked up the vice of secret and
solitary drinking, and came up out of the wilderness more old and
worn and haggard than the dead-alive life had any right to make him.
You know the saying that a man who has been alone in the jungle for
more than a year is never quite sane all his life after. People
credited Moriarty's queerness of manner and moody ways to the
solitude, and said it showed how Government spoilt the futures of
its best men. Moriarty had built himself the plinth of a very god
reputation in the bridge-dam-girder line. But he knew, every night
of the week, that he was taking steps to undermine that reputation
with L. L. L. and "Christopher" and little nips of liqueurs, and
filth of that kind.
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