“I'm going home to get them to shut me up somewhere,” answered Hicks. “But I doubt if anything can be done. I've studied the thing; I am a doctor,--or I would be if I were not a drunkard,--and I've diagnosed the case pretty thoroughly. For three months or four months, now, I shall be all right. After that I shall go to the bad for a few weeks; and I'll have to scramble back the best way I can. Nobody can help me. That was the mistake this last time. I shouldn't have wanted anything at Gibraltar if I could have had my spree out at Boston. But I let them take me before it was over, and ship me off. I thought I'd try it. Well, it was like a burning fire every minute, all the way. I thought I should die. I tried to get something from the sailors; I tried to steal Gabriel's cooking-wine. When I got that brandy in Gibraltar I was wild. Talk about heroism! I tell you it was superhuman, keeping that canteen corked till night! I was in hopes I could get through it,--sleep it off,--and nobody be any the wiser. But it wouldn't work. O Lord, Lord, Lord!” Hicks was as common a soul as could well be. His conception of life was vulgar, and his experience of it was probably vulgar. He had a good mind enough, with abundance of that humorous brightness which may hereafter be found the most national quality of the Americans; but his ideals were pitiful, and the language of his heart was a drolling slang. Yet his doom lifted him above his low conditions, and made him tragic; his despair gave him the dignity of a mysterious expiation, and set him apart with all those who suffer beyond human help. Without deceiving himself as to the quality of the man, Staniford felt awed by the darkness of his fate. “Can't you try somehow to stand up against it, and fight it off? You're so young yet, it can't--” The wretched creature burst into tears. “Oh, try,--try! You don't know what you're talking about. Don't you suppose I've had reasons for trying? If you could see how my mother looks when I come out of one of my drunks,--and my father, poor old man! It's no use; I tell you it's no use. I shall go just so long, and then I shall want it, and _will_ have it, unless they shut me up for life. My God, I wish I was dead! Well!” He rose from the place where they had been sitting together, and held out his hand to Staniford. “I'm going to be off in the morning before you're out, and I'll say good-by now. I want you to keep this chair, and give it to Miss Blood, for me, when you get to Trieste.” “I will, Hicks,” said Staniford, gently. “I want her to know that I was ashamed of myself. I think she'll like to know it.” “I will say anything to her that you wish,” replied Staniford. “There's nothing else. If ever you see a man with my complaint fall overboard again, think twice before you jump after him.” He wrung Staniford's hand, and went below, leaving him with a dull remorse that he should ever have hated Hicks, and that he could not quite like him even now.