It became unbearable. He fled into a public-house in Cheapside and ordered a glass of whisky. The spirit ran through his veins comfortingly. He drank another, and went out into the street. Soon the spirit, acting on an empty stomach, dulled his senses and provoked a vague suggestion of debauch as the only consoler. In the days of his vanity Joyce had known the flush of wine on joyous nights, but drunkenness had always been hateful to him. Yet now, in his morbid state, the temptation was irresistible. He went from tavern to tavern with dull, stupid recklessness, cognisant only of the motive to drink and of his own mechanical personality. At last, staggering out of a public-house in Fleet Street, he tripped at the threshold and fell insensible on the pavement. When he recovered consciousness it was quite dark. For a few moments he did not seek to discover where he was. But a chance movement caused him nearly to fall from where he lay, and he started to a sitting posture. His feet touched the ground sooner than he expected; the slight shock completed his awakening. Where was he? He stretched out his hand and felt the wall. It was stone. Stone, too, was the floor, as he found by stamping his foot. Then the truth burst upon him with indescribable terror. It was the cell of a police station. Although his head swam and his eyeballs ached, the flight of the discovery had thoroughly sobered him. It was the final calamity and degradation of the day. He was in prison again. He would again have to put on the hateful clothes and cower beneath the warder’s glance. Once more he would have to go through that dreadful ignominy. Exaggerating the consequences of his misdemeanour, he conjured up all the horrors of his previous term. A sense of utter self-loathing swelled within him like a nausea. He crouched on the narrow bench, holding his hair in a feverish grasp. The gaol had got him, body and soul. It was all that he was fit for. An hour passed. Then the door opened and a policeman appeared in the light of the passage. Joyce looked up at him haggardly. “Oh, you’re all right now, are you? Better come up and see the Inspector.” Joyce staggered to his feet and clutched the policeman’s supporting arm. “I was in great trouble,” he said hoarsely. “And then the heat--an empty stomach--a few glasses knocked me over.” “Explain that upstairs,” replied the other. “Bless you, it ’ll be all square.” Brought before the Inspector, he pulled himself together and pleaded his cause with an intensity that amused the officials. They could see nothing tragic in a “drunk and incapable.” “Very well,” said the Inspector at last. “I see it was an accident. Call it heat-apoplexy. I sha’n’t charge you. You had better get home to bed.”