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Well, I had a house. When one is asked into other houses, he
naturally asks others into his house. Behold the rising standard
of living. Having been given drink in other houses, I could
expect nothing else of myself than to give drink in my own house.
So I laid in a supply of beer and whisky and table claret. Never
since that has my house not been well supplied.
And still, through all this period, I did not care in the
slightest for John Barleycorn. I drank when others drank, and
with them, as a social act. And I had so little choice in the
matter that I drank whatever they drank. If they elected whisky,
then whisky it was for me. If they drank root beer or
sarsaparilla, I drank root beer or sarsaparilla with them. And
when there were no friends in the house, why, I didn’t drink
anything. Whisky decanters were always in the room where I wrote,
and for months and years I never knew what it was, when by myself,
to take a drink.
When out at dinner I noticed the kindly, genial glow of the
preliminary cocktail. It seemed a very fitting and gracious
thing. Yet so little did I stand in need of it, with my own high
intensity and vitality, that I never thought it worth while to
have a cocktail before my own meal when I ate alone.
On the other hand, I well remember a very brilliant man, somewhat
older than I, who occasionally visited me. He liked whisky, and I
recall sitting whole afternoons in my den, drinking steadily with
him, drink for drink, until he was mildly lighted up and I was
slightly aware that I had drunk some whisky. Now why did I do
this? I don’t know, save that the old schooling held, the training
of the old days and nights glass in hand with men, the drinking
ways of drink and drinkers.
Besides, I no longer feared John Barleycorn. Mine was that most
dangerous stage when a man believes himself John Barleycorn’s
master. I had proved it to my satisfaction in the long years of
work and study. I could drink when I wanted, refrain when I
wanted, drink without getting drunk, and to cap everything I was
thoroughly conscious that I had no liking for the stuff. During
this period I drank precisely for the same reason I had drunk with
Scotty and the harpooner and with the oyster pirates–because it
was an act that men performed with whom I wanted to behave as a
man. These brilliant ones, these adventurers of the mind, drank.
Very well. There was no reason I should not drink with them–I
who knew so confidently that I had nothing to fear from John
Barleycorn.
And the foregoing was my attitude of mind for years. Occasionally
I got well jingled, but such occasions were rare. It interfered
with my work, and I permitted nothing to interfere with my work.
I remember, when spending several months in the East End of
London, during which time I wrote a book and adventured much
amongst the worst of the slum classes, that I got drunk several
times and was mightily wroth with myself because it interfered
with my writing. Yet these very times were because I was out on
the adventure-path where John Barleycorn is always to be found.
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Then, too, with the certitude of long training and unholy
intimacy, there were occasions when I engaged in drinking bouts
with men. Of course, this was on the adventure-path in various
parts of the world, and it was a matter of pride. It is a queer
man-pride that leads one to drink with men in order to show as
strong a head as they. But this queer man-pride is no theory. It
is a fact.
For instance, a wild band of young revolutionists invited me as
the guest of honour to a beer bust. It is the only technical beer
bust I ever attended. I did not know the true inwardness of the
affair when I accepted. I imagined that the talk would be wild
and high, that some of them might drink more than they ought, and
that I would drink discreetly. But it seemed these beer busts
were a diversion of these high-spirited young fellows whereby they
whiled away the tedium of existence by making fools of their
betters. As I learned afterward, they had got their previous
guest of honour, a brilliant young radical, unskilled in drinking,
quite pipped.
When I found myself with them, and the situation dawned on me, up
rose my queer man-pride. I’d show them, the young rascals. I’d
show them who was husky and chesty, who had the vitality and the
constitution, the stomach and the head, who could make most of a
swine of himself and show it least. These unlicked cubs who
thought they could out-drink ME!
You see, it was an endurance test, and no man likes to give
another best. Faugh! it was steam beer. I had learned more
expensive brews. Not for years had I drunk steam beer; but when I
had, I had drunk with men, and I guessed I could show these
youngsters some ability in beer-guzzling. And the drinking began,
and I had to drink with the best of them. Some of them might lag,
but the guest of honour was not permitted to lag.
And all my austere nights of midnight oil, all the books I had
read, all the wisdom I had gathered, went glimmering before the
ape and tiger in me that crawled up from the abysm of my heredity,
atavistic, competitive and brutal, lustful with strength and
desire to outswine the swine.
And when the session broke up I was still on my feet, and I
walked, erect, unswaying–which was more than can be said of some
of my hosts. I recall one of them in indignant tears on the
street corner, weeping as he pointed out my sober condition.
Little he dreamed the iron clutch, born of old training, with
which I held to my consciousness in my swimming brain, kept
control of my muscles and my qualms, kept my voice unbroken and
easy and my thoughts consecutive and logical. Yes, and mixed up
with it all I was privily a-grin. They hadn’t made a fool of me
in that drinking bout. And I was proud of myself for the
achievement. Darn it, I am still proud, so strangely is man
compounded.
But I didn’t write my thousand words next morning. I was sick,
poisoned. It was a day of wretchedness. In the afternoon I had
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to give a public speech. I gave it, and I am confident it was as
bad as I felt. Some of my hosts were there in the front rows to
mark any signs on me of the night before. I don’t know what signs
they marked, but I marked signs on them and took consolation in
the knowledge that they were just as sick as I.
Never again, I swore. And I have never been inveigled into
another beer bust. For that matter, that was my last drinking
bout of any sort. Oh, I have drunk ever since, but with more
wisdom, more discretion, and never in a competitive spirit. It is
thus that the seasoned drinker grows seasoned.
To show that at this period in my life drinking was wholly a
matter of companionship, I remember crossing the Atlantic in the
old Teutonic. It chanced, at the start, that I chummed with an
English cable operator and a younger member of a Spanish shipping
firm. Now the only thing they drank was “horse’s neck”–a long,
soft, cool drink with an apple peel or an orange peel floating in
it. And for that whole voyage I drank horse’s, necks with my two
companions. On the other hand, had they drunk whisky, I should
have drunk whisky with them. From this it must not be concluded
that I was merely weak. I didn’t care. I had no morality in the
matter. I was strong with youth, and unafraid, and alcohol was an
utterly negligible question so far as I was concerned.
CHAPTER XXVIII
Not yet was I ready to tuck my arm in John Barleycorn’s. The
older I got, the greater my success, the more money I earned, the
wider was the command of the world that became mine and the more
prominently did John Barleycorn bulk in my life. And still I
maintained no more than a nodding acquaintance with him. I drank
for the sake of sociability, and when alone I did not drink.
Sometimes I got jingled, but I considered such jingles the mild
price I paid for sociability.
To show how unripe I was for John Barleycorn, when, at this time,
I descended into my slough of despond, I never dreamed of turning
to John Barleycorn for a helping hand. I had life troubles and