“But what I want to tell you is this: That when I begun to come to again, as you might say, the first thing I wondered about was the wife and the kids. I couldn’t get ’em out of my mind, nohow. What did I ever have ’em for? I asked myself. Why in hell did I ever get married? Nobody never druv me into it. I did it of my own accord. I went hangin’ after the girl, who had a good place in the kitchen department of a big store, and I never let her have no peace till she said she’d marry me, and did it. Why had I been such a crazy fool? There was days and days, sittin’ right in there in that back room, when I asked myself that; and at last I got the answer. I’m goin’ to tell it to you now, because there’s a lot of you shysters that’s only been a few weeks in the club that’s askin’ yourselves that very same thing. You’ve got wives and kids, the Lord knows where—scattered to the four winds of heaven, for anything you know—and you wish you hadn’t. But, say, don’t you go on wishin’ no such thing; for I’m goin’ to tell you what God A’mighty said to me right there in that back settin’-room.” He squared himself now, planting his Egyptian monoliths with a force which in itself was a kind of eloquence. His hands were thrust deep into his trousers pockets and his big chest expanded. “‘Beady,’ God A’mighty says to me, and it was just as if I’d heard His voice, ‘if a man don’t have no one to think about but hisself he becomes the selfishest of all things under the sun. I’m God,’ says He, ‘with nothin’ to do but enj’y myself; and yet if I didn’t have you and the other things I make to care for and think about I wouldn’t have nothin’. I’ve just got to have ’em, for if I didn’t I’d go crazy. So I make beautiful worlds, and grand men, and noble women, and pretty kids, and strong animals, and sweet birds to sing, and nice flowers to bloom, and everything like that. I don’t make nothin’ ugly nor nothin’ bad, nor no sickness nor sufferin’ nor poverty. You guys does all that for yourselves, and I don’t take no rest day nor night tryin’ to show you how not to. Listen to me, Beady,’ says He. ‘Stop thinkin’ about yourself and that awful hulk of a body, and what it wants to eat and especially to drink. Don’t pay no more attention to it than you can help. Say, you’re my son, and you’re just like me. What you want is not the booze; it’s somethin’ outside yourself to think about. I’ve given you a wife and three fine youngsters. Now get out and get after them. Cut out livin’ for yourself and live for them. You must lose your life to find it; and the quickest way to lose your life is not to think about your beastly cravings at all.’