But the most extraordinary dipsomaniac I have had to deal with was the man whom poor Kate Henessey knocked down in the prisoners’ room for insulting me. I did not have a promising introduction to this gentleman, but as I saw much of him afterwards, we became friendly, and he asked me to call on him. One morning, on my way to the court, I called at the address he gave. ‘Not at home,’ the landlady said. I called again in the afternoon. ‘Not returned yet,’ I was told. I felt interested in the man, for I had gathered from our conversation that he was an educated man of good family, and had been well-to-do. So next morning I called again. Seeing me persistent, the landlady invited me in, and asked me my business. When I told her who I was, and what was my errand, she asked me if I had a few minutes to spare. I told her that I had. We were then in a narrow, miserable passage, and, opening a door on the left, she told me to look in. I took one step forward, and a pitiful sight met my eyes. A young man, tall, thin, and emaciated, was lying on a low pallet-bed; a clammy sweat stood on his brow, and his eyes were burning with an unnatural light. Only one look was required to tell that his sands were fast running out, and that consumption had almost done its work. I took one step forward, and said: ‘I am sorry to see you lying here like this. Can I do anything for you?’ ‘Only go away and don’t bother me,’ was his reply. I told him that I did not wish to trouble him, that I had called by his father’s request, but that I should be glad to do him any little service I could. He said that he only wanted to be let alone that he might die in peace. Seeing that he was not inclined for conversation, I withdrew, and had some talk with the landlady. She told me that the young man was the grandson of a celebrated British officer who had distinguished himself in the Peninsular War. The youth’s father was the only son of that officer, and had himself held a commission in a crack regiment. Their property was vested in trustees for the young man, the father receiving a weekly allowance and a further sum once a quarter. I was told how the father and mother, the youth and two sisters, lived in one room upstairs, and that father and mother had been away drinking for five days, and had left the boy to the care of his two sisters, one aged fifteen and the other five years. Being moved with pity for the dying youth, the landlady had given him that little room, and placed him there so that she might occasionally look to him. It was a dirty house in an awful neighbourhood. The woman herself looked coarse, and by no means tidy, but she had a kind, motherly heart, and had done her best for the lad.